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This one happened on the
Lower
Winnipesaukee River in Franklin, NH
in June 12, 2005 with the river at 1750 cfs.
This is a medium high level; quite pushy. (The state had to shut down the
water flow temporarily when two people drowned and a third was rescued.
That happened below the Lochmere Dam in Silver Lake upstream of the class I
and class III whitewater sections. Story at http://tinyurl.com/cw5d6.)
During the trip several boaters swam at or below Coliseum Rapid. It was only because it was a large, very strong group (10 boaters or so) that all the boaters and most of the gear was rescued. Laurie Cresnick (in a Jackson 1.5 kayak) had problems going thru Coliseum and was swept against the wall at the S turn and didn't roll up. She ended up swimming the full length of Railroad (a very bumpy swim) and was pulled out by Pat Taft. Her boat drifted down, was almost rescued several times by a number of boaters, but ended up getting pinned against a bridge abutment at the bottom of Zippy's (the last rapid). The local police were notified so they would not deploy any rescue teams if anyone reported the pinned kayak. The boat stayed pinned there for five days until recovered by Bill Smith and Seth Wales. (Seth's exact words "They're serving pancakes in Franklin tonight.") Bill repelled down from the bridge to get to the boat. Shown below is the boat shortly after it was recovered. Most of the gear (including seat) was ripped out, the only thing that survived was a bombergear backband. |
| Kerry Guptill (of Suncook River Canoe and Kayak) retrieved the boat and left it in the sun. After only one day baking in the sun (plus with a little help from Kerry) it was back to almost its original shape with only one small hole. |
| Most people were surprised at how well the boat recovered. There had been plans to sacrifice it on the bonfire at the Pig Roast. |