Surely that's crazy, a rescue every trip? Hopefully not! No, I'm talking about how you look at paddling that completely changes once you begin to learn SWR.
I'll use an example from a recent paddling trip. I was on the Lower Yough, which is mostly class III, which is at the outer limit of my paddling skill. I was in a sit-on-top kayak that I had tested on a handful of Class I and II rivers. To put it mildly, I was in way over my head, and I fell out of my boat a lot. But whether I chose to run a given rapid versus portage it, and which line I chose, had everything to do with what I knew about SWR.
The Lower Yough is wide and fast, exceptionally wide in many places. I was sticking to lines pretty close to shore, because those lines presented a lot of rescue options. Mid-river, the only rescue options would come from other boats in the water. The lines were simply too far from shore for any other options. Failing this, swimmers were faced with a long, painful, and potentially dangerous swim.
I was thinking about this during one of my many swims. One of the kayakers I was with gave me a brief tow (great paddlers, and their tolerance of me was much appreciated!). I dragged myself and my boat to shore, and as I looked out toward mid-river, I was thinking about how I would carry out a mid-river rescue. Just as I was having this thought, a large group of rafts entered the rapid. It was a commercial rafting company, with each raft full of teenagers and a guide. A few teens bounced out of the rafts into the huge waves. Two were pulled back in immediately, but one teen was swimming and far behind the rafts. Although his PFD was keeping his head above water, he was panicking and screaming for help. The large group had several safety kayakers following the boats, but none of them was able to reach the swimmer, due to the strong current. Just as I was wondering "now what?" their sweep boat appeared, a large, oared raft. The oarsman was able to position himself perfectly alongside the swimmer, who was able to scramble into the boat.
And that was the answer to my question. A boat rescue was the only possible choice. The teen was facing a long swim, but had he been entrapped there was no option for team wading, V-lower, Tyrolean traverse, or any other advanced rescue; the river was just too wide. Boat rescue was the only option.
Another example is the problem of cold-water immersion. Every year, there are fatalities caused by boaters (usually fishermen) falling out their boats into calm but cold water. They hit the water, experience cold-water shock, and with no PFD they sink immediately and drown. Anyone having any experience with chilly water, no matter how experienced a paddler or how calm the water, would be terrified to get in a boat on a day where the water temperature is 40 degrees (F), wearing cotton clothing and with no PFD, as was the case for an unfortunate paddler on the James River in 2024.
That is something experienced paddlers would never do. We wear appropriate clothing for the water temperature and we wear PFDs, because of what we know about the risks. Learning about rescue saves lives, even when those saves come before we ever get in the boat.
When you learn SWR, and when you get a chance to practice it, the way in which you see the river will change, and before you paddle and as you paddle, the decisions you make will go a long way toward preventing problems. You may not even realize it, but what you learned in SWR may save your life.
Being able to tie the prettiest alpine butterfly or set up the fastest Z-drag rigging is unlikely to save a life, but learning a new way to read the river and examine your lines is a skill that will last you a lifetime and will almost certainly save the lives of you and your fellow paddlers.
Local schools offering Swiftwater Rescue classes
• Appalachian Guidance (led by Jeff Cogle)
• Calleva
• CKAPCO (led by Mike Aronoff)
• Paddlesport Institute (led by Jordan Taylor)
• Potomac Paddlesports (led by Eli Geisenberger)