The Moral Delima - What to do with a canoe found pinned

arhdc · Post by **arhdc** » Sun Oct 02, 2011 3:13 am

Ok, this is a general river etiquette question......

Found today on a local class II river, OT Discovery 174 (in nice shape) lightly pinned to a rock. There was a dry bag with clothes, a life vest and a floating cushion stuck in it and nothing else. There are no names or registration stickers and nothing in the dry bag that has any id or names. We un-pinned it and wrangled it 1/4 mile downstream where things slowed down enough to tether it with a throw bag and hauled to shore. I then loaded my OC1 into it and paddled it 10 miles or so to the takeout. There is an easy, if long, egress from any point on this run via Rails to Trails so the former occupants HOPEFULLY walked out after loosing their boat.

Question: Who do I contact and what steps should be take to find the owners and confirm that there is not a need for a body search?

Thanks all.

Creeker · Post by **Creeker** » Sun Oct 02, 2011 4:58 am

call the local police, state police and park rangers (if the river flows through a state or national park). Give them the best you can for aprox location of pinned canoe and hold onto the canoe. I towed a tandem out by my rescue pfd 10 miles on a remote run up here. I Posted it in all the paddling forums and after 2 years of nothing I just sold the boat to a friend on the cheap. Worst case I'd be able to get the boat back if I ever found out who's it was and meanwhile the boat wouldn't be totally wasted just killing grass on my lawn.

Barskekarsten · Post by **Barskekarsten** » Sun Oct 02, 2011 10:44 am

I would definitely call the police.
When I lose my boat I always call the police as fast as I can get a hold of a phone. (Yes it has happened) Here in Norway a canoe found in a river without paddlers = huge rescue operation. Hopefully the paddlers have called the police to say that they are OK. Then it is easy to get a hold of the unlucky (or unprepared) canoe owner.

arhdc · Post by **arhdc** » Sun Oct 02, 2011 11:19 am

I am attempting to contact some authority's.

As far as the paddlers, the bike trail had traffic on it, even yesterday in the cold and rain and it runs along the rive the whole way. There were also folks camping about a mile down stream, so if they survived the swim they would have been found. The boat looks like it floated a bit before getting pinned and there is damage to the bow like it hit the nice flipping rock upstream that flips a lot of novice canoeists (major yard sale along the banks below). There is nothing dreadfully hazardous about the swim other than the current is pretty continuous in that section so wrangling a 17'4" polylink tandem is a bear when it is full of water.

Post by **sbroam** » Sun Oct 02, 2011 11:59 am

In a similar situation, I contacted the police and all of the local paddling outfitters.

Shep · Post by **Shep** » Sun Oct 02, 2011 12:33 pm

Here, the go-to place for getting the word out that a boat has been lost/stolen/pinned/recovered is the Arkansas canoe club message board. Does PA have a paddling club with an active website?

Shep

Silent Bob · Post by **Silent Bob** » Sun Oct 02, 2011 1:23 pm

Report it to local authorities and/or outfitters as mentioned.

Maybe post a note at put-in& take out.

Try posting it on Craigslist (found, of course, not for sale)

Then,depending on the outcome, reunite it with it's rightful owner or enjoy your new tandem...

gumpy · Post by **gumpy** » Sun Oct 02, 2011 5:26 pm

What river?

arhdc · Post by **arhdc** » Sun Oct 02, 2011 6:49 pm

This was on Pine Creek PA. I talked with the local Outfitter today and they will notify dept of Forrestry locally, which they said was the normal procedure for such things there as it is all PA forrest land surrounding that part of the creek.

Also, normally the outfitter is the first pace folks call about missing boats/people in that area.

gumpy · Post by **gumpy** » Sun Oct 02, 2011 11:51 pm

Owasee rapids?

(oh, I see rapids!)

arhdc · Post by **arhdc** » Mon Oct 03, 2011 12:05 am

Yep, the boat was a bit below The Dreaded Owasee Rapid (1/4 mile ish). Not much to it but the water level was almost 6' Friday. It is the classic place for canoes to flip.

It would be fun to hang out some spring weekend with nice weather and watch the red neck carnage as they flip their overloaded Colmans with lawn chair seats bolted in. I have seen many an unatennded beer cooler floating down Pine Creek when doing family camping trips. Its the first time I've found an unattended canoe though.

arhdc · Post by **arhdc** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 2:59 pm

Ok, so my paddling partner for the day went through a drybag that was with the boat and found a set of STAFF sweats with the name of YMCA in Maryland. He googled it and called the Y and from that found the son of the owner who had been paddling his dads canoe.

I guess that there were two canoes running together and they both flipped and sent the occupants for an out of boat experience. At least some of them were not wearing PFD's (but it was ok because they were expert swimmers

) and the water/air were quite cold for the time of year. They recovered one canoe, lost one and were lucky enough to find a camp downstream with smoke coming out of the chimney where they were warmed up and fed. They sent the remaining canoe out to call for help and state foresters drove up the rail trail to rescue them. The canoe was pinned to the rock that we found it on for about 24 hours as near as I can figure.

So that is the story. Arrangements are being made to return the canoe.

Thanks all for the suggestions, I really was not sure how crazy I should go with this thing.

Post by **PAC** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 3:10 pm

Nice to hear there is a happy ending....

Good river karma to you and friends for the effort!

PS: Shows it pays to put your name and number on your gear!

C-Forum

The Moral Delima - What to do with a canoe found pinned

The Moral Delima - What to do with a canoe found pinned

Canoe Owner Found