Rubber Raft

This Story was in the 3-19-07 Oregonian.
It actually opened up a whole can of worms (memories)
for me.
Wayne Kingwell, 40, spent five hours in a rubber raft on the Niagra River in near freezing temperatures before being rescued.
Kingwell explained that he regularly crosses the river from his home in Fort Erie, Ontario, to Buffalo, New York, to pay his credit card bill in person because he says he is charged extra if he mails the payment.
A Rubber Raft was my first boat and I only have a few good memories.
I would like to hear your Rubber Raft Stories.
Thanks,
Doug :D

I was in the U.S. Army's then only all aviation unit, the 6th Air Cavalry Brigade (Air Combat) out of Ft. Hood, Tx. Since we were a so called "Elite" unit and Rapid Deployment Force we had to train in just about every environment on earth. Most of our survival training was jungle, desert and temperate climates. One of the things we had to be able to do was utilize the two man rubber recon rafts then in use by Special Forces.

We were on the Texas Colorado, not the Colorado that runs through the Grand Canyon, on a three day float and survival exercise. I was one of the few that had white water experience and we were teamed up with novice members. Made good sense to me at the time.
We had a week of extensive pre-trip training in class room and hands on at Ft. Hood prior to the exercise. It was constantly stressed that in rapids paddle faster and never stop paddling.

Fast forward to day two of our trip. I had drawn as a partner Sgt. Egghead (name changed to protect the guilty) and I was one step in rank lower than him. Regardless of rank, the Captain put me in charge of our raft as I had prior experience in white water rafting. Egghead was told to obey my orders without delay or question. Ha!

I put Egghead into the back of the raft as he never could see approaching, submerged rocks. I figured he shouldn't have problems steering the raft. We are on our knees in the raft and I see that we are approaching a rock shelf at the head of some rapids. I holler steer left to Egghead. No response. I holler Sgt. Egghead steer left NOW! No response. I turn to see Egghead sitting there on his heals, paddle shipped across his knees. OH S@#%&!

I turn and paddle furiously, trying to save the day. The raft strikes the rock shelf and I go forward over the bow. My legs get hung up in the safety line so my bottom half, from the waist down, is in the raft. My upper half is pinned, underwater, between the raft and the rock shelf. The force of the river has me stuck tight and my lungs are beginning to ache. It took all my strength but I managed to lift the front of the raft enough to free myself and get my butt back into the raft.

Much to my delight, and Egghead's chagrin, I had somehow managed to hang onto my paddle. Once I got the raft to the safety of the shore I swung that paddle like a Louisville Slugger at Egghead's egg head. He ducked just in time as the blade went Swoosh, right over his head. He had his steel pot on so if I would have made contact he would not have been too seriously injured.

The Captain saw it all happening and had been closing all the time. He hears Egghead threaten to bring me up on charges. The Captain tells Egghead, "Be glad I don't order him to swing again. I am certain that he won't miss on a second swing.". The Captain then sends Egghead, tail between his legs, packing back to the fort. I finished the float trip with PFC Glass and we had fun. There were some other wicked, dangerous, things that happened during that exercise, but that is another story.

Okay, here's another Army rubber boat story. As a member of the 82D Airborne Division, we too, were required to train for every possibility. We were tasked with moving our 15 man rubber boats from Fayetteville, NC to the ocean. A mighty nice trip. Unlike Nighthawk's fortunate soldiers, we were given a 2 hour class on paddling a rubber boat. There are no rapids on the Cape Fear River so that should not be a problem. We sat on the inflated part of the boat, seven men per side and a Coxwain in the back.

Day one and our company is loaded into a mess of rubber boats and the CO announces that the first boat to the ocean gets five days in Myrtle Beach after the trip and won't be charged leave time.

The CO fires a starter pistol and we're off, well sorta. Everyone decides they are the boss of the boat shouting "Give Way Together", "Stroke" and all that stuff.

As I am senior man in our boat I, too, am yelling "Give Way Together" and other boaty stuff, when Isapuro Fenii, a young paratrooper from Samoa says "Your doing this all wrong". This is how we do it at home, then thumps the shaft of his paddle across the tube of the boat and took a stroke. Not being a dummy I said to follow his lead. Pretty soon we're traveling a pretty good clip going thump, stroke, thump, stroke, thump, stroke. Then Fenii breaks into a Samoan paddling song and the thump, stroke matches the tempo of the song.

By day two we were all able to sing the paddling songs once Fenii started them and we sounded pretty good as we thump stroked our way down the river. We arrived at the ocean on day four, the next boat arrived on day five. Fenii was a new boat hero, and we had a grand time at Myrtle Beach.

REE

Ron,
I do hope a few barley sodas were hoisted in honor of your victory and the leadership of Fenii. :D It would have been fun to have been there with you and the other troops. Thanks for sharing.

I had a one-man survival raft...shaped like a pear...think they were for the aviators....I used to take my kids fishing in it...one at a time... on the backwoods lakes at Fort Lewis...they were little twerps then...so I'd put them between my legs..give them the rod and we would troll a woolly worm..as I paddled back wards with ping pong paddles.....their eyes would get huge when those 18/20" rainbows would hit ...that's when they became fisher persons :D

Spent 2 days looking for the leak. Found it near the valve. Fixed it in time to go home and back to work.

spent two days looking for the lea