More Kayak Deaths

This is turning out to be a bad summer for kayakers in Hancock County. While no doubt thousands have enjoyed safe and pleasant outings, at least three have died while out on the water.

Since the death of Eric Hogan on June 19 off Hancock Point in Frenchman Bay, two other kayakers have died during outings near Ellsworth. Steven Brooks, 43, died July 10 while kayaking between Hadley Point and Lamoine State Park, which are about a mile apart and separated by a fairly protected stretch of ocean. On Tuesday, Hong Sohn, 75, died while kayaking on Beech Hill Pond in Otis. None of the three were from Maine, though I am not sure that counts for much. There have been plenty people who grew up on ponds and the sea coast in the state who have died by drowning.

Hogan was young (28), from Webster, Mass., and athletic. But he made bad decisions about the style of boat he used, the conditions he went out in, and the clothing he wore. Paddling a sit-on-top model, which offers no cover from the chilly water, in wind gusts of 30 mph or more while wearing only shorts and a life preserver is a recipe for hypothermia. He must have realized he was being blown from shore and paddled against the wind, until the chill of being constantly splashed with water between 55 and 60 degrees sapped his strength and he slipped away.

But Hogan deserves credit for wearing a personal flotation device (PFD). Brooks and Sohn were not wearing life jackets. Brooks, from Stratham, N.H., had one with him in his kayak as he and a woman paddled separate kayaks back together from Hadley Point to Lamoine State Park on a Sunday afternoon. Brooks was in an enclosed-cockpit style of kayak but was not wearing the PFD. He overturned before his paddling companion noticed, hopped out of her kayak, and swam over to him in an unsuccessful attempt to flip his boat back over. Officials determined Hogan drowned, but Brooks may have suffered from some other medical condition that proved to be fatal.

Sohn was from Seoul, South Korea and was vacationing in Maine with his wife. He was not wearing a life preserver when his kayak overturned about 300 feet from shore of Beech Hill Pond. Sohn got out of the kayak and swam toward land, but sank about 30 feet away from solid ground. As with  Brooks' death, officials are not sure if Sohn drowned or if another medical condition killed him before he could reach shore.

All three of these deaths were preventable. Maine does not require kayakers to wear PFDs, but it could. Beyond that kind of regulation, education could help people learn about the hazards of hypothermia and stiff winds and about how preparation and communication can prevent problems. Anyone who is unsure of their abilities should be encouraged to go out with an experienced guide who will help keep them safe.

But with kayaking's growth in popularity, more deaths of paddlers has been inevitable. The image of kayaking peacefully over glassy water and along pristine shorelines has powerful allure, and for many inexperienced kayakers this image it may well overwhelm their perception of actual paddling conditions or of their abilities. If you're on vacation and heading back home tomorrow, you might well decide you're going out for a paddle regardless of whether you've got a PFD or there is a stiff breeze blowing.

As for having access to boats, I'm not sure what can be done. Kayakers don't have to be certified, the way scuba divers do, and if you have a few hundred dollars it is easy to buy one. Kayak rental outfits perhaps could be more aggressive about vetting customers for experience, but that's easier said than done. Many customers, outfitters will tell you, are not as honest about their skill levels as maybe they should be.

Could the kayak rental industry come up with uniform procedures for ensuring their customers' safety? Would the industry stomach having such standards imposed by the Legislature? If the answer to these questions is "no," it might not make good business sense for a rental firm in a competitive market to have higher self-imposed safety requirements than another rental firm a few hundred feet away.

Even with a paddling safety awareness campaign, Maine will always attract tourists from far away who may be here for only 48 hours or even less. Such a campaign might be helpful for some, but no doubt there are many who would miss it or - intent on realizing a long-held vacation goal - would brush it off in favor of going out.

For my money, I bet some sort of safety requirement ends up being proposed in the Legislature. But I don't know if a handful of preventable deaths is enough to generate broad public support for new regulatory mandates in Maine's tourist industry. With an economic impact that some estimate to be worth $15 billion, the industry is the biggest in the state.