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How to float using pants

31K views 17 replies 14 participants last post by  Jennie@ifish 
#1 ·
#7 ·
Same. Camp Napawon, Wisconsin. I think it's part of the swimming merit badge. Boy Scouts was awesome for a suburban kid who didn't have outdoorsy parents.

We did our in the community pool. Getting your pants off while treading water was interesting.


Sadly no longer a requirement of that merit badge
 
#8 ·
My Jr. High school had swimming as part of their PE for a semester and we did the pants thing in that class. We also practiced a number of other skills to avoid drowning, like taking a canoe out to the middle of the pool, capsizing it and then dealing with the situation as if we were in the middle of a lake. Without PFD's of coarse, because they assumed we were dumb kids that would be out in the middle of a lake in a canoe without PFD's.

I think we did some other emergency survival, keep from drowning stuff, but I don't remember what, so I'll likely drown one of those comes up.

My kids have gone through all the swim classes at the local community center. I mentioned the technique of using there blue jeans as flotation devices and they looked at me like I was a crazy old man.
 
#9 ·
Root, the over turned canoe was part of the canoeing merit badge with the scouts. The hardest one was while treading water lift and rotate the overturned canoe and rotate it again and get back in without flipping it again. Fun times
 
#10 ·
Much, much better idea is to be WEARING your PFD when the need to go in the water can't be avoided. Mike makes it look easy there in that still water by the dock, but when you go into the open ocean, chances are that you'll just drown yourself the quicker by attempting that maneuver. One of the things you want to do when you go into this cold NW water is to conserve as much energy as possible. You have about an hour before you go unconscious, more if you're carrying an extra layer of blubber. The more you splash around, the quicker that you'll succumb to hypothermia. Even swimming is not a good idea. Better to hug your legs up to your chest and hope help arrives in time. For that you'll need flotation...
 
#11 ·
Much, much better idea is to be WEARING your PFD when the need to go in the water can't be avoided. Mike makes it look easy there in that still water by the dock, but when you go into the open ocean, chances are that you'll just drown yourself the quicker by attempting that maneuver. One of the things you want to do when you go into this cold NW water is to conserve as much energy as possible. You have about an hour before you go unconscious, more if you're carrying an extra layer of blubber. The more you splash around, the quicker that you'll succumb to hypothermia. Even swimming is not a good idea. Better to hug your legs up to your chest and hope help arrives in time. For that you'll need flotation...
Smart man. :applause:
 
#15 ·
A few years back we had an extra chubby commercial fisherman who was fishing solo and went overboard do 3 hrs before rescue by clinging to a crab trap buoy...
The guy was very lucky. He was big. His boat ran onto South Beach and thank goodness some buddies showed up and redirected search crew from beach to likely autopilot course. He was able to get to his pocket knife and cut the buoys loose and stuff under his tee shirt. I'm remembering 45 minutes but you could be right. Memory is not one of my strong suits.
 
#18 ·
I found this on the salty dog board and thought it needed to be on every forum! So cool!
 
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