IT’S KNOWN AS the 5-50-50 rule: A boater who falls into the chilly waters of Puget Sound or the Strait of Juan de Fuca has about five minutes to swim 50 yards, with a 50 percent chance of surviving hypothermia.
Students at two local schools are learning how to increase those odds by hitting the water themselves.
Students at Port Townsend High School and Jefferson Community School are training with Salish Rescue, a community lifeboat program whose volunteers respond to on-the-water emergencies.
The goal: to save lives by trimming minutes off response time to calls.
20-minute time frame
“Our goal is to have a boat to the scene in 20 minutes,” said Erik Wennstrom, who leads the training.
“That’s why these high school kids are priceless. They can get a boat launched in less than five minutes.”
The students are available during daylight hours, he said, when the Coast Guard cutter Osprey may be out on other missions.
And they’re close: The public high school is just up the hill from Point Hudson at the end of Water Street, while Jefferson Community School is downtown two blocks away.
JCS, a seventh-through-12th-grade private school that combines academics with experiential learning, got involved in Salish Rescue last year through Ossian Foley, an English teacher who is an all-weather boating instructor, Wennstrom said.
The students receive elective credits for completing the training and if called to go out during regular classtime hours will be excused to respond.
“This is something the community needs,” Wennstrom said, “and these kids will step up and do a great job.”
Wennstrom started Salish Rescue four years ago with a boat, a bunch of people and some radios, he said.
Volunteers on call
When a call comes in to the Coast Guard, the mission, called a “tasking,” may be assigned to volunteers on call.
A week ago Sunday, they responded to a report that a boat had sunk off Port Hadlock, with a person swimming to shore — who was gone by the time they arrived.
Other taskings included a boat fire in the bay and a rescue on Rat Island.
“We’ve not pulled anybody out of the water this year — yet,” Wennstrom said. “Hopefully, we’ll be skunked.”
That’s unlikely — Salish Rescue covers all of Port Townsend Bay and Admiralty Strait (the north end of Puget Sound) bordering Jefferson County; all of the west side of Whidbey Island; and the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Point Wilson to Diamond Point.
The rescuers have two Hurricanes — rigid inflatables — one in the water at Point Hudson and one stored at the Northwest Maritime Center, that can be trailered to other launch sites.
The NWMC supports Salish Rescue by donating a classroom and space under the stairs for rescue and training equipment, Wennstrom said.
Donations cover costs
Expenses are covered by donations.
“For almost no money, you have rescue boats available 24/7,” Wennstrom said.
The group’s original volunteers had fireboat experience or were Wooden Boat Festival Harbor Masters, he said, referring to the people who “park” boats at the docks during the festival.
While most student recruits have experience handling small boats, they must learn to operate a boat in all kinds of conditions, Wennstrom said, noting that emergencies tend to arise in bad weather.
“One student, Anchor Jensen, was out in 20-foot waves,” Wennstrom said. “He said he had never done anything as scary — or as much fun.”
The students started the training course in the fall and have been on the water two afternoons a week since the end of January.
If the seas are too calm, Wennstrom said, they go back to the classroom.
Checklist of maneuvers
Otherwise, they take turns at the tiller, mastering a checklist of required maneuvers: big-wave turns, man overboard and search-and-retrieves in drifting seas.
Last week, Wennstrom donned a flotation suit and waded into the water beside the Northwest Maritime Center dock.
With Brian Clark, also of Vessel Assist, observing from above, the two crews practiced approaching someone in the water and maneuvering their boats alongside safely.
It doesn’t have to be done right the first time, Wennstrom said; on the water, knowing what to do when something goes wrong is just as important.
When one crew overran a floating buoy they were practicing approaching, they put the motor in neutral and paddled off.
Wennstrom yelled, “Why are you paddling?” — a challenge to them to defend their action, which was the right response in the situation.
“Our motto is ‘Everybody makes mistakes’ — it’s how you figure it out,” he said. “These guys are problem-solvers.”
Common in Britain
Community lifeboat associations are common in coastal towns of Great Britain, where in past centuries, volunteers, alerted by a church bell that a boat was on the rocks, launched rowboats to try to reach survivors.
Hurricanes are now in common use, Wennstrom said, noting that they were developed at Atlantic College in Wales, where a JCS student, Isaac Urner, is enrolled in the international baccalaureate program.
With cutbacks to funding for emergency service programs, the community lifeboat concept is catching on in the Northwest.
“The Guemes Island Fire Department has asked us [Salish Rescue] to come up and show them how to run a program, which we are going to do in September,” Wennstrom said.
One of Wennstrom’s goals is to have three boats in the water — one at Port Hadlock and one at Cape George, in addition to Point Hudson — by summer, a season that brings an influx of visitors who may not be aware of the danger of cold-water boating.
He’s looking for people who live in those communities to take the training.
“It’s a good way to get out on the water while doing something that’s desperately needed,” Wennstrom said.
Seeking new sailors
A 1982 graduate of Vashon High School, Wennstrom was a 15-year volunteer with the fire department and led the Boy Scout Explorer Search and Rescue post in Jefferson County.
He now works for Vessel Assist in Port Townsend and teaches rescue operations in other parts of the world.
Two years ago, he went to Mexico to instruct in a lifeguard training program near Puerto Vallarta that was established after a Port Townsend resident drowned.
Preventable deaths
“Every year, someone drowns in these waters,” he said, adding that it could have been prevented.
Salish Rescue averages 12 rescues a year and responds to 30 other calls. The volunteers also provide safety boats for the Kinetic Sculpture Race and other events on the water.
To volunteer, phone Wennstrom at 360-301-2831.
For information on Jefferson Community School, visit www.jeffersoncommunityschool.com.
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Jennifer Jackson writes about Port Townsend and Jefferson County every Wednesday. To contact her with items for this column, phone 360-379-5688 or email jjackson@olypen.com.
