# Kayak nearly run over off Coolum



## Biteme (Mar 23, 2008)

Hi all, I am a boatie and found myself concerned for the safety of a Kayakker that I nearly ran over on Good Friday

I was going fishing in a 5.75 metre half cabin fishing boat and cruising at a comfortable 23 knotts about 1.5 kilometres from the beach. The time was about 4.45 am., the full moon was setting and there was not much glow from the imminent sun rise. I had a green and red navigation light lit because I was travelling at night time. I also have a search light mounted under the bow sprit and it was on and trained to the front direction so I could see any larger waves, obstacles or crab pots. SHI?......There was a person on a kayak type vessel waving his arms frantically and I was bearing directly onto them....a immediate swerve was in order and I missed the person by some 15 or so metres.

My question is why did they not have some form of tiny light to shine. Anything at all. This person was out in darkness. If I had not had the search light on I would probably have not seen them at all.

Am I wrong to be thinking he put his life at risk or is it me that was wrong in my travelling and not looking for this type vessel at night time.

Chris


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## hairymick (Oct 18, 2005)

G'day Biteme and welcome to our forum mate.

Unfortunately, like all sports, kayak fishing seems to be attracting its share of of dickheads.

We can only hope that this particular one has learnt a valuable lesson from this. (as well as perhaps, a few others)

Thank you for posting here.


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## Biteme (Mar 23, 2008)

Lazybugger, I needed to change my shorts nearly.....It was pretty close. They gave me a mouth full as I went past too

One of the members on a fishing site told me of this site and when I looked at the site and saw a safety forum with a Kayak run over story, I just had to sign up to make someone aware of what happened.

My hope is that anyone who goes out at night time on the water has a *light* form of identification. Even a led would have been seen in the conditions on Friday morning and a more cautious approach would have been make or a wider berth taken from my position.

Thankyou for taking the time to read this and may I wish you all safety on the waterways

Chris


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## Peril (Sep 5, 2005)

Thanks for posting and sharing your concern biteme. Unfortunately your government hasn't seen fit to specify any mandatory safety equipment for kayaks. Nonetheless, anyone going out in low or no light without lights is a card short of a deck


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## RedPhoenix (Jun 13, 2006)

Unfortunately, due to the change in ownership of this web site and the lack of response by the owners to my requests to remove my email address from all administrative-level notifications and functionality, I have decided to remove my posts on AKFF. Thank you for the great times, the fantastic learning experiences and the many many fish. If you are desperate for the old content of this particular post, it is available below base64 encoded and bzip2 compressed.

Red.

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## ArWeTherYet (Mar 25, 2007)

Chris its great to have someone from the boating world post this up. I have witnessed other kayakers going out before sun up or after sunset without a light and its only a mater of time before someone gets hit. Its bloody hard enough to see them in the dark sitting not far away but going at speed and trying to see something out of a perspex window is near impossible.
There aren't may rules in using a kayak in QLD, but it does say you need to carry a light at night.


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## Physhopath (Jun 21, 2007)

WOOOO that's Bad, 
Hard to believe that they gave you a skinfull as well, poor form. :twisted: 
Great that you have taken the time to join the forum to raise this issue!
Well done on the miss and also posting about it.
My old man nearly run over a canoe in Port Phillip Bay, way back in the 70's :shock: 
"Apparently " He was sitting there lighting matches, watching a 30 odd foot boat coming at him :? 
That's what my old man reckons, I'm thinking bugger the matches paddle like hell, paddle paddle.

I fished the back of the Harrington tidal lagoon on Easter w/end, looking for mummy flatchap,
had several boats doing 8-10 knots (in a 4 kn zone) give me not much space.
As i was drifting ( paddling 1 arm whilst working plastic ) I thought poor form.
I ALSO had more boats give me space than I thought i deserved, including a bloke who waited behind me , 
and I started to wind in fast to get out of the road(water) said " Mate I'll wait, nice drop off there !! 8) "

Good and Bad in life, Karma 8)


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## ArWeTherYet (Mar 25, 2007)

Peril said:


> Thanks for posting and sharing your concern biteme. Unfortunately your government hasn't seen fit to specify any mandatory safety equipment for kayaks. Nonetheless, anyone going out in low or no light without lights is a card short of a deck


Peril we have rules!!!!.....2 to be precise :roll: . You must carry a signaling devise (what ever that is :? ) between sunset and sun up and you must carry an Epirb if you go more than 2 km's off shore. The rest of the stuff is only a recommendation. As usually it will take someone being killed before there is any changes to the current QLD rules.

here is a link if your intrested http://www.msq.qld.gov.au/resources/fil ... _jun06.pdf


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## Peril (Sep 5, 2005)

I stand corrected Paul. Which shonky epirb salesman got that one through? A radio is much more useful than an epirb. We cockroaches must carry a marine radio if more than 2 nautical miles from shore. epirbs are optional


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## Dodge (Oct 12, 2005)

Chris thanks for being a concerned power boat skipper but as has been said,there are idiots in kayak ranks as well as in other forms of boating.

A worn headlamp and head nod at you would have made life easy for both you and the goose in the kayak as arms waving in half light is a bit pointless for safety.

Many years ago I was motoring at about 5kts and fully lit at night in the old confined main channel near Loders Creek GC in bream season, and about 30+ fishing boats were blocking the channel over a known gravel hole in a comp, and no torch flash from anyone and when I stopped and asked for an opening, I got a mouthful of abuse from a number of drunken anglers.

I don't often get steamed up but on this occasion got on the VHF to VKR water police, and about 10 minutes later on arrival of the police boat from Southport I had a clear channel and underway again, and some pissed hotheads were doing some explaining with DUI and boat checks for the boys in blue....the word spread and you could always get a boat through from that date on, although often a squeeze ;-)


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## Seasquirt (Jul 17, 2007)

Thank-you Chris for posting your concern and alerting us all, there are so many yaks around now that I can see this becoming more of an issue as time goes by.
As a matter of interest I was on a recreational paddle at night with a bunch of friends last year. Some of us put torch lights inside the yaks ( all plastic ) we lit up like Chinese lanterns , I was amazed how well it worked . A flashing bike light pinned to the back of my PFD just added to the whole effect. I admit this may not be so good while you are actually fishing.
Another thing I have noticed is that although we paddle in silence we still don't necessarily hear a boat coming up behind us. I always practice defensive paddling and will move to the shallows and raise my paddle if I can.
Cheers
Pam


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## rob316 (Oct 2, 2007)

From someone who fishes between mouth of brissy river to redland bay 3-5 times a week ... never , and i mean never should anyone go out in a kayak without a little mirror , little torch , white nav mooring light and a pfd if out at night ... red and green lights confuse others into thinking you are a larger moving vessal and might not give the required distance when travelling nearby....white mooring light seems to deter others from coming to close .... i don't carry flares as i think they are unnecessary in a kayak and more of a hazard .


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## AndyC (Feb 29, 2008)

Cheers to biteme for the heads up. I suspect though (and do hope) that he is preaching to the converted. The people who inhabit forums such as this are, it seems to me, the kind of folks who do think about these issues. I hope no AKFF'ers would be stupid enough to venture out in darkness without appropriate safety equipment, including proper lighting.

It is more years ago that I care to think about, that I obtained my Motor Boat Operator's Licence. Haven't operated a motor boat in years but I think I can still recall some of the rules that were in place at that time.

Any vessel either adrift or at anchor during the hours of darkness was REQUIRED to display a plain white light, visible from 360 degrees (all around) at least 3 feet (1 metre) above the deck and clearly visible from a distance of two miles. I mightnot have that precisely right. I suspect that row boats were allowed to simply carry a white light to show at the approach of another vessel. It wasn't exactly yesterday. What fascinates me is that to go out in the dark with anything less is just plain stupid! I don't care if you think it will bother the fish! There are simple ways to avoid the light falling onto the water, close to your own vessel. And yes people, a kayak is certainly a vessel.

I have read elsewhere that folks are thinking about blinking bicycle lamps and such to make themselves visible. Not only is that unnecessary, it is also unwise. A plain white light is easyto see. With most boating happening within close proximity to cities and towns, boat operators have enough trouble sorting out navigation and beacon lights from the shore lights, without us being out there amongst them, looking like so many blinking Christmas trees! At the VERY least, carry a waterproof dolphin (or similar) torch!

And finally, I just have to have something to say about our friend Kraley. Whilst he always seems to come across (to me anyhow) as someone who delights in stirring the pot, he has an uncanny knack of seeing the real nub of so many issues. And this thread is no exception.

Biteme was 'cruising at a comfortable 23 knots' in darkness, on the ocean with limited visibility? For starters, that is something like 42 KMH. At sea, there are no reflectors along the roadside, no pavements or kerbs to mark it borders. Even when night visibilty is good, in the formless void of the sea, it is still poor, for want of bearings. And if you happen to run over a floating or semi-submerged obstacle at sea, in the dark, at 43KMH, I guarantee you won't be feeling too comfortable! In short, to travel that fast under the stated conditions would be foolhardy at best. Legal or not ... and I'm not too sure about the legality. I recall when getting my car driver's licence there was a trick question that asked how fast you were allowed to drive in a built-up area. The answer wasn't 35MPH .... it was "At a speed that would enable you to avoid a collision with any other person or vehicle and not exceeding 35MPH". I can't imagine that the rules for driving at sea would be any less stringent?

I would imagine that Biteme's actions would be on a par with driving down a dark road at 42KMH just using your parking lamps! While I do commend him for bringing this matter to peoples attention, I do believe 42KMH is way too fast to drive a boat under those conditions. Noone would get any argument from me, that the yakker concerned is a fool.

Well done Kraley. Don't change, Mate!

Cheers All,

AndyC


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## tacmik (Dec 21, 2007)

besides carrying a light to shine, I also put an electric lantern inside my yak. It lights it up like a giant glow stick. Mike


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## hobie1kanobie (Apr 7, 2008)

iknew i joined this forum for a reason.

i had only just got my hobie and was as excited as about taking her upto port stephens for the holidays. took the big girl (stacer 525 bowrider) for the outside stuff and was using the hobie for lure work around the moored yachts and piers. whilst on the way back to the beach, just after dark, i reckon about 8. 830 ish summer time, i was almost run over by the local surf clubs row boat. ok so i should have known better and had some sort of light shining ( which btw i do now) but i am damn sure that these guys should have had something as well. scared the living bejesus out of me. lesson well learnt that night.....


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