I'd imagine that it was partly lack of knowledge/experience, coupled with the force of the water, which
looks "pretty tame" but even if the boat was in still water, it's going to weigh about 3/4 of a tonne when full of water.
It's almost like a parachute on the ground in a strong wind, the chute may only weigh a few kilos but fill it with air and try to run it into the wind.:yikes:
The lack of any additional flotation fitted to the boat, in the form of airbags, which also displace huge amounts of water, makes it even more difficult to shift.
The whole point of my thread is to illustrate, that paddling canoes, of
any kind is a pastime that, unlike a lot of others, quickly takes you to levels that require you to know what you are doing and what to do when it goes wrong.
I was pretty ignorant of the actual skills involved in paddling when I started back in 2008. I wasted about 2 years trying to teach myself and learn from books and videos then gave up,
almost completely as it happens, but then got myself on a basic weekend course with a local coach called Kim Bull. I've come on in leaps and bounds since then, though I don't paddle white water
and won't, until I get some more coaching, relevant to the discipline under my belt.
I paddle big, open water almost exclusively, with the odd pootle up a creek now and then but I'm happy and confident in conditions on open water, that might seem a "bit much" to
some folk.
[video=youtube;dD7fD9zPhQ4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD7fD9zPhQ4&list=UURdd L3mkjOvJ3tAtVHpW-XQ[/video]
The conditions in the clip above developed while we were on the water by the way, I wouldn't generally consider
setting out in conditions like that with an open canoe but I'm confident in my abilities and skills, to deal with such situations if they arise while on the water, as these did!.
Just as a bit of a "footnote", I now try to avoid paddling tandem. I find that the folk who might wish to join me in my boat, simply don't have any understanding of the dynamics involved, a bit like when I first took my girlfriend on the back of my motorbike "back in the day".
This is another factor that can lead to tragedy, indeed its one of the main causal factors in the incident in the first video I posted earlier.