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therefore, that we address and dispose of them here and now: 

 Safety 



Those opposing motorized river craft give the impression that jet boats leave 

 bleeding and battered bodies behind them at every turn. Nothing could be 

 further from the truth. The Forest Service has no records of any incidents 

 involving a jet boat hitting a float craft while running on the river in Hells 

 Canyon or the other two major rivers these craft share, Idaho's Salmon and 

 Oregon's Rogue. The one event in Hells Canyon often cited as a collision, 

 inaccurately, took place in 1984 and involved a floater standing on the tube of a 

 raft, not floating the river but pulled up on a beach. The floater was bending 

 over with his derriere displayed. An angry power boater pulled into the bank to 

 talk with him and bumped his raft, launching him into the air. 



Wakes are cited as having swamped rafts. That would be quite a trick for 

 craft that produces a wake from 4 to 18 inches high, depending on the size, 

 speed and draft of the boat, depth of the water and distance. The faster a jet 

 boat moves, the higher it rides in the water, the less water it draws and the 

 smaller its wake. The rafts we are talking about run the river's most challenging 

 class IV rapids, their passengers laughing and screaming with joy as they 

 plunge into gigantic holes and smash into 5 foot waves. 



This is not to say that wakes are not a concern. Their biggest impact is on 

 rigid craft sitting on or against rocky shores. This can be largely disposed of 

 with boater education and strides were made towards that end in 1995 via a 

 cooperative education brochure we will discus later. 



Since the Forest Service brought on its HCNRA management team in 1980 

 there have been six fatalities directly related to boating on the river, three 

 floaters and three power boaters. All but one could have been prevented if the 

 victims had been wearing a type I or V life jacket approved for Whitewater. 

 None were caused by interaction between power boaters and floaters. In fact, 

 after one of these fatal accidents involving an overturned dory , a jet boat tour 

 driver rescued another of the boat's passengers, possibly preventing a second 

 fatality. 



Daily during the peak summer season, rafts overtum and people are thrown 

 into the river. Each summer one or two power boats will sink. Most of these 

 incidents don't involve injuries and the craft are recovered. Sometimes, 

 however, there are injuries; Whitewater boating and other "thrill" sports all 

 involve a certain amount of risk. When accidents happen, power boats often 

 make a big difference in quickly getting injured parties out of this remote 

 canyon to medical help. Ask Notre Dame's Head Coach Lou Holtz. When 

 thrown from his raft in a rapid, he found himself under the boat with his broken, 

 mangled thumb tangled in a rope. After this near-drowning experience, Lou 



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