22 | BOATINGMAG.COM | MAY 2018A SEA DOG
IS SAVED AND
THERE’S NO TRICK
What I learned from what didn’t happen
WANTED: YOUR STORIES Share your boating mistakes and mishaps so that your
fellow boaters might learn from your experience. Send us your first-person accounts, includ-
ing what went wrong, what you’d do differently, your name and your city, to editor@boating
mag.com and use “ILAB” in the subject line. If your experience is selected, we’ll send you a
$100 West Marine gift card.O
n May 15, 2017, I went overboard into the 36-degree water of
Newfound Lake, New Hampshire. If I had not been wearing my
40-year-old Stearns Type III life jacket, I would not be writing this
account. First, some backstory.
I am a boating instructor for the State of New Hampshire. I teach the
National Association of State Boating Law Administrators’ curriculum. I’ve
been a boater since childhood. As long as I put on my life jacket, my parents
allowed me to take out the rowboat by myself. I was 7 years old. I learned to
sail our 16-foot sloop at age 8. My first real job was as a gas-dock attendant.
I’ve cruised lakes Michigan and Huron, the Finger Lakes and the Erie Canal
system. I’ve been at the wheel of a 65-foot schooner off Nova Scotia, and I’ve
had a couple of “Cheeseburgers in Par-
adise” on Florida’s Cabbage Key, where
it is rumored Jimmy Buffet made ’em
famous. I’m an Aquarius. Boats and the
water are in my blood.
On the day in question, I volun-
teered to help the staff of a summer
camp transport their boats to a launch site to be inspected for the season. We
used a pontoon boat, securing the aluminum skiffs, one on each side. The day
was sunny with broken clouds, quite cool, and a lot windier than we had hoped.
Shortly after heading out, the bow of the boat lashed to the port side, broke
free and swung away. The young man with me boarded the aluminum boat
while I knelt on a bench seat to pass a line to him to resecure the boat. I leaned
over to hand him the line, and I went headfirst into the water! The bench seat
was not fastened to the deck of the pontoon, and the railing gave way.
I’m a pretty good swimmer at the ripe-old age of 69, but it took all I had to
claw my way to the surface. My heavy, soaked clothing was weighing me down.
The 15.5 pounds of buoyancy in my old life jacket were just enough to helpme to the surface. I grabbed the deck
of the pontoon and gave a couple of
forced, loud exhalations to help con-
trol my breathing. That cold water
was beginning to take its toll. The
other man called 911, gave me the
end of an oar, and helped me get up
the boarding ladder.
Next thing I knew, I was in an
ambulance getting stripped down
and covered in warm blankets. It
was embarrassing to be seen in
this condition by one of my marine
patrol colleagues, but better to beembarrassed than to drown because
I hadn’t worn my life jacket.
When I got home, I weighed
my plastic bag of wet clothes — it
weighed 19 pounds! And they had
even drip-dried for a while. Remem-
ber: It’s better to have it [a life jacket]
and not need it than to need it and
not have it!
Paul A. French
Bridgewater, New HampshireRemember: It’s better to
have it [a life jacket] and not
need it than to need it and
not have it!
ILLUSTRATION: TIM BOWER; PHOTO: COURTESY PAUL A. FRENCHTHE LIFE JACKET I wore was
purchased in 1977 when three friends
and I canoed 70 miles of the Allagash
River in northern Maine. I didn’t need it
then; glad I kept it, though!