Ships – Boats – boat component – or attachment – Canoe or kayak
Reexamination Certificate
2000-07-24
2002-02-05
Morano, S. Joseph (Department: 3617)
Ships
Boats, boat component, or attachment
Canoe or kayak
C114S068000, C114S069000, C114S123000, C114S360000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06343562
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to canoe and kayak safety derived from mid-point sponsons that permit greater buoyancy volume than normal sponsons, for higher stability from both a larger righting arm as well as more buoyancy force. This buoyancy force is most important when people with poor strength or fitness, sudden illness or in capsizing conditions require a sling to help them re-enter from the water. Mid-point sponsons, attached by only one point, can be pushed away from the hull upon re-entry, further immersing the sponson for greater buoyancy as well as creating a longer righting arm away from the hull side. The mid-point sponsons attach to the canoe or kayak only at the mid-point of the sponsons, to enable the sponsons to rotate around the midpoint in order to reduce drag in waves and simplify attachment and detachment to the canoe or kayak.
A particular feature is permanent or semi-permanent attachment to the hull above the waterline to eliminate drag unless inflated, in which case the inflated sponsons are forced to immerse in the water as shown in
FIG. 2
of drawings, creating a massive stability arm instantly by gas cartridge, or in two minutes using a two foot long oral inflation tube, whether inflated from the water or the cockpit. When not inflated each midpoint sponson would be neatly stowed in a small and rescue-emergency marked stowage bag or covering that would hold sponsons upward from the waterline. Such an arrangement ensures that the sponsons rest sleekly and unobtrusively along the hull side when not deployed, each protected by an emergency stowage bag or covering and the midpoint sponson attachment point to the strap, shown in
FIG. 2
as slightly below the waterline
13
, would be instead somewhat above the waterline to eliminate drag almost entirely. Likewise an attachment point directly to the hull would be above the design waterline to eliminate all drag.
2. Prior Art
Canoes and Kayaks are dangerous in capsizing conditions such as winds and waves. Winds can occur suddenly without clear warning. Canoes and kayaks cannot be paddled fast enough to escape these natural threats. Capsized kayaks and canoes are flooded and cannot be reliably rescued except by larger craft such as Coast Guard Rigid Inflatable boats, with large air-filled sponsons on a rigid hull. These are the most stable small powercraft in the world, and Coast Guards use them around the world.
Kayaks cannot be rescued reliably by Eskimo rolling because experts are left in the same capsizing conditions as before capsize, if they successfully roll up (after their bracing skills have just been inadequate to prevent capsize in the first place.) Most experts admit they do not roll with 100 per cent reliability since they normally do not practise rolls in all capsizing conditions, or they are paddling kayaks loaded differently from practice, perhaps using different paddles or suffering from seasickness or other ailments that are only a few of dozens of different circumstances that make rolls unreliable, such as capsizing conditions. Few experts are fortunate to roll repeatedly in capsizing conditions when water intrudes under sprayskirts with each roll, making kayaks increasingly less stable, and rolls less reliable. Kayak rolling is not at all possible for most of the public, let alone with any degree of reliability as required for safety. Canoe rolling is not normally possible except in specially equipped open canoes with massive internal flotation and young and fit experts highly practised in this refined technical skill. Only normal sponsons now provide reliable rescues due to normal sponsons providing high secondary stability coupled with the inevitable flooded kayak cockpit upon capsize. The weight of water is stabilized by sponsons, not sloshing transversely to destabilize kayaks and canoes, and creates ballast stability coupled with the righting arm of sponson buoyancy in capsizing conditions. Sponsoned kayaks and canoes are much more stable than before capsize. Rolling is practised by some groups with great enthusiasm and enjoyment, no matter how unreliable in capsizing conditions. There is a cult belief in the safety of rolls and ritualized practice, no matter how unreliable.
Some groups recognize that rolls need back-up safety and use a paddlefloat, while recognizing that paddlefloat rescues are less reliable than the rolls they backup. The paddlefloat rescue uses a float on the end of a paddle as a lever to assist on re-entry of kayaks. This does not stabilize the kayak upon reentry and is condemned as a “calm water rescue” by the British Canoe Union and others world wide. The one-side lever recapsizes paddlers by rising on waves or submerging and tripping the kayak in waves, and it regularly breaks the most expensive lightweight paddles when used as a lever for a load weight that paddles are not designed to carry. The kayaker is not stabilized adequately while pumping out cockpit water, a long and tiring task using a pump that requires 2 hands through an opening in the spray skirt that attempts to prevent more water from flooding in. But even small one foot waves wash over any flooded, or loaded kayak and refill it. Calm water avoids this problem. Sprayskirts are awkward and permit gradual intrusion of water in normal situations apart from emergencies. Finally the paddle must be retrieved from behind the seated paddler and the paddlefloat removed in capsizing conditions. This is a precarious procedure and usually results in recapsize since the capsized victim is less stable than before capsize when a paddle was available for bracing strokes, to stabilize the kayak.
Open canoes cannot be paddled to safety while flooded due to insufficient buoyancy and stability, although optimistic and misleading instruction states the contrary. Flooded canoes without sponsons simply roll over when re-entry attempts are made. Dozens of well documented coroner inquests into canoeing deaths confirm this reality. Expert canoeists without sponsons die of hypothermia in wilderness areas after capsize, when winds build in strength without clear warning, or river waves flood canoes. Sponsoned canoes survive descents of large rivers without capsize due to high secondary stability in rapids.
Assisted rescues for canoes and kayaks are highly circumstantial and risk the lives of would-be rescuers in emergency conditions. Some experts agree to “suicide pacts”, not attempting to rescue one-another in emergencies lest the rescuers capsize too. Loaded canoes cannot be lifted and emptied over the gunwale of a rescuing canoe in capsizing conditions, any more than many hundreds of pounds of loaded kayak can be lifted out of the water. Even unloading heavy packs from open canoes will risk the group due to exposure from lost clothes, food, tents. (Such heavy packs are usually waterproofed and will provide interior flotation if secured within, since they do float and prevent the same volume of heavier water from occupying the space and sinking the craft lower in the water. Heavy packs cannot be retrieved in capsizing conditions without capsizing open canoes and all of these futile emergency operations leave victims in the cold water too long to avoid hypothermia. They cannot work hands after only a few minutes, although it may be hours before the body core temperature is low enough to kill. Even if these operations were remotely possible, canoes and kayaks simply reflood in the same waves and wind that have not mysteriously disappeared, in reality.) Sponsoned canoes and kayaks do not depend on removal of water inside but use it as ballast stability. All kayaks and canoes must have sufficient internal flotation in the ends or they are death traps.
All of the above information has been well-documented in major canoe and kayak publications, although not in a logically consistent fashion. Authors and instructor groups contradict each others' emphases on particular safety techniques, increasing the safety risks for the public. The quick and reliable transformation of all c
Ingram Robert T.
Morano S. Joseph
Olson Lars A.
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