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Learned that in Boy Scouts and had to prove we could over 40 years ago
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.
Smart man. :applause: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...
In the army I learned to swim in jump boots and full load of gear, ammo and my weapon. As I recall this test caused alot of people to wash out.One of the first things they taught us in Navy bootcamp.
In cold water I would consider 5-10 min about the max time you can survive with out floatation. If your wearing a life jacket 20-30 min.Smart man. :applause:
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.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...
Learned it in Navy boot camp 53 years ago. Only then you jumped into a pool with mean guys on the sides of the pool with very long poles used to keep you from going to the sides of the pool if you panicked. I am sure in today's Navy that would not be politically correct. But, it sure got everyone to pay attention and learn that trick quickly.