Search for Kennedy family members missing in Chesapeake Bay has ‘turned from rescue to recovery’

Washington Post ^ | 4/4/2020 | Rachel Weiner, Peter Hermann, Dana Hedgpeth

[Vaquero]

Crazy. Better to play football while skiing a black diamond trail. Or flying an aircraft through dense fog with poor or nil IFR skills while your wife and sister in law scream and cry in the back seat.

[KevinB]

I’m sick of every 28th cousin of someone named Kennedy being in the news referred to as Kennedy family.

In fairness, this was the granddaughter and great-grandson of RFK. They were legitimate Kennedys. Further, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the woman's mother, was lieutenant governor of Maryland and ran for governor. And finally, yet more tragic deaths in light of all the other tragic (yet largely self-inflicted) deaths in the Kennedy family is newsworthy.

[shelterguy]

Instead of canoeing in the ocean they should go down a peaceful river instead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il0IelOoXa4

[GranTorino]

It would make me puke seeing my kid get in a boat with no PFD.
Course I would have to be paralyzed or held down not to stop them.

[tapatio]

Sad story all around. Prayers for the family.

[AndyJackson]

She [McKean] currently works as the executive director of the Georgetown University Global Health Initiative.

Life in the swamp here in DC. Does anyone here think this is a real job requiring real professional qualifications?

The quintuple barrel name is to ensure that everyone can keep track of the anointed membership of the US aristocracy. This is a habit that plagues modern day Spain, where nothing can be done if you don't make someone with such a long title a do-nothing director.

[hecticskeptic]

A canoe in three foot waves?

Totally agree... but an even bigger issue was that the winds were 26 knots. I don't care how good a canoeist one is, that's way too high a wind speed to overcome, especially when turning around. The wind was probably far less than that right close to shore perhaps protected by some trees, buildings etc and gave a false indication of how high they were... and no doubt picked up fast once they were a scant few feet off shore. What a horrible miscalculation.

[originalbuckeye]

And the family ALWAYS includes ‘Kennedy’ in the middle names? Hers and her son’s middle names include Kennedy? They surely want to have the association.

Sorry to hear they both are lost. Bad decision on the mom’s part to try and retrieve a ball in choppy waters.

[Paul R.]

Yes, something like that almost happened to me on a visit to KY Lake. I was in a sheltered medium-small bay with modest wave height and wind, but some idiots racing by forced me to turn into their wakes, and at the same time the wind came up, pushing me “crosswise” into the main lake where now I had large waves coming at me from two directions. I did have on my life jacket, but hoo, boy, that wasn’t fun at all...

[sphinx]

My experience was more instructive than dangerous. We started off paddling downstream. There was a strong current and that was fun. Getting back though ... well, the Ohio River is bigger and stronger than we were. So there we were: two intrepid Boy Scout types, pretty canoe savvy but mostly on smaller creeks and rivers, paddling furiously and going backwards. We finally figured out that if we stuck as close as possible to the shore, the current was much slower. We still had to work at it though. Had it come to it, we could have beached the canoe and walked back, but that would have involved serious loss of face.

I have learned to respect flowing water.

[Right Wing Assault]

Yeah, you get in the trough between waves it's a challenge especially if you are only used to calm days.

Years ago I had a small rowboat I often took out in Lake Erie. The lake could go from mirror smooth and medium wind from the south (shielded by land as you mentioned), to 5 feet or more in minutes if the wind swung around in any direction. The oar on one side would be deep in the wave and in a second it would be a couple feet in the air. Water coming over the side. A bit scary.

[Mastador1]

Kennedy’s, never get in a car, boat or plane with them.........BAD MOJO!

[Bonemaker]

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