Tag Archives: kayak

Disaster was averted this afternoon off Compo Beach.

But not before dozens of police and pleasure boats searched Long Island Sound, and hundreds of beachgoers watched with worry.

The drama began when an abandoned kayak was spotted a couple of hundred yards offshore.

The Westport Police leaped into action. So did those from other jurisdictions. Fire Department trucks raced to the scene.

Chris Tait — the District 1 Representative Town Meeting member, on his boat in the water — saw Westport Police pull a kayak out of the water. He heard them radio an appeal to all boaters in the area, to be on the lookout for anyone who might have been in the kayak.

Westport Police boat, searching Long Island Sound off Compo Beach. (Hat tip and photo/Jim Hood)

Chris  called his daughter Emmah — a Staples High School graduate, and rising sophomore at Colorado State University — who was in another boat. He told her what was happening.

“Oh yeah,” she said. “I picked him up!”

Emmah told Chris that earlier in the afternoon, she had seen a man hanging on to a kayak, waving in distress.

He was not wearing a life preserver, and appeared exhausted.

She helped him into her boat. He said he had been in the water for about 45 minutes.

They tried to get his kayak into Emmah’s craft, but could not.

So the man — a Westport resident in his 40s — sat next to Emmah’s dog, as she brought him back to Ned Dimes Marina, where his car was parked.

Apparently, he told no one that his kayak was still floating in the Sound. He got in his car and drove home.

But at the same time — as Emmah pulled into her slip — a police boat sped out of the marina. A boater had just called in a report of an upside-down kayak.

Chris quickly texted a photo of the kayak — which had been distributed earlier, by Westport Police — to Emmah.

Kayak, in police vessel.

She confirmed that it was the abandoned kayak.

Chris informed the police. All units returned to shore.

Congratulations and thanks to all the boaters — police and private — who responded.

And of course to Emmah and Chris Tait, for their alert and crucial help too.