How to Get Back Into Your Kayak in Deep Water (After You Fall Out)

What actually happens when you go in

Most capsizes are undramatic. You lean a bit too far reaching for something, or a boat wake catches you side-on, and suddenly you are in the water next to a floating kayak. If you are wearing your PFD (life jacket), which you always should be, you are not going anywhere, so the first thing to do is nothing: get your breath, and take hold of your boat and paddle. Both of them float, and a kayak, even a swamped one, holds far more of your weight than you can hold on your own. People get into real trouble when they let the boat drift and try to swim for shore. Do not do that. Your kayak is a big, buoyant, brightly colored raft that other boaters can see, and it is worth staying with.

The flip is rarely the dangerous part. Two things are: cold water and panic, and they feed each other. Cold water triggers an involuntary gasp and fast, shallow breathing the moment you go under, which is why sudden immersion in water below roughly 60 degrees Fahrenheit deserves real respect even on a warm day. A common guideline is that if the air temperature plus the water temperature adds up to less than 120 degrees Fahrenheit, you should be dressed for the water, not the sunshine. Give yourself a few seconds to let that first gasp reflex pass and get your breathing under control, then start the re-entry. Panicking and thrashing burns the energy you need for the climb.

This guide assumes you already know you want to be out there. If you are still weighing up the sport itself, our full kayaking hobby guide covers what it involves and what it costs to get on the water. From here on, we are focused on one skill: getting back on.

Climbing back onto a sit-on-top kayak

Most beginners are in a sit-on-top, and that is genuinely good news here, because it is the easiest kind of kayak to get back onto. The move is often called the cowboy scramble, and the single biggest secret is to do it as one committed motion rather than a slow, careful crawl. Slow and careful just means slipping off the side again and again until you are worn out. Commit to it.

Here is the sequence:

1. Right the boat first if it flipped. Come to the side of the upturned hull, reach across it to grab the far edge, and lean your weight back while you pull that far edge toward you. The kayak rolls upright in a couple of seconds. A sit-on-top does not fill with water, so once it is flipped back over it is ready to climb onto.
2. Get to the middle, next to the seat. The center of the boat, right where you sit, is by far the most stable place to board. The bow and stern tip and bob much more, so never try to climb on over an end.
3. Reach across to the far side. Put both hands on the far edge of the kayak, past the seat, not the near edge closest to you. This matters more than anything else: reaching across means your body weight counterbalances the boat. Pulling on the near edge just drags the kayak over on top of you.
4. Kick yourself flat and horizontal. Kick your legs up behind you so you are lying flat on the surface of the water, as if you were about to swim. You cannot lift your whole body straight up out of the water, but you can slide a floating body across a deck. Getting horizontal is the step people skip, and it is the one that makes the rest possible.
5. Pull your belly across in one go. With a hard flutter kick for momentum, pull with your arms and slide your stomach across the seat so you end up lying face-down over the boat, like a beached seal. Keep going in that single motion. Do not pause halfway.
6. Rotate and sit. Once your belly is across and your weight is centered low over the boat, roll over and twist your backside down into the seat, then bring your legs in one at a time. Keep your head and chest low while you do it, because sitting up too early raises your center of gravity and rolls you straight back off.

The first time, it feels awkward and you will probably flop back in once or twice. After three or four honest tries it clicks, and it stops feeling scary. That is exactly why you practice it on purpose in calm water before you ever need it for real.

If you are in a sit-inside kayak

Sit-inside kayaks are drier and a little faster, but recovering one in deep water is a real skill, not an improvisation, and it is a lot harder than a sit-on-top. If you flip in a sit-inside, you first have to get out of it underwater. This is the wet exit: stay calm, lean forward, find the grab loop on the front of your spray skirt if you are wearing one, pull it to pop the skirt off the rim, and slide out. It sounds alarming but you have more time than you think, and it is worth practicing in shallow water until it feels routine.

Once you are out, hang onto the boat and paddle and flip the kayak upright. Now, unlike a sit-on-top, the cockpit is full of water and the boat is unstable, so the standard fix is a paddle float, an inflatable bag you carry and slip over one blade of your paddle. Blow it up, then lay the paddle across the deck just behind the cockpit with the float end out in the water, and hold the shaft firmly against the boat. That float turns your paddle into an outrigger that stops the kayak rolling while you climb on.

From there the moves rhyme with the sit-on-top: kick yourself horizontal, slide onto the back deck on your stomach with your weight pressing toward the float for support, then twist your hips down into the seat and swing your legs in one at a time. You will be sitting in a bathtub, so the last job is to pump the water out with a hand bilge pump before you paddle off. If reading that made a sit-on-top sound a lot more appealing to learn on, you are not wrong, and most people starting out are better served by one.

Common mistakes that keep you in the water

When people struggle to get back on, it is almost always one of these, and every one is fixable once you know to watch for it.

• Pulling on the near edge. Grabbing the side closest to you drags the kayak over on top of you. Always reach across to the far side so your weight balances the boat.
• Trying to climb up instead of across. You cannot haul your whole body straight up out of the water, and attempting it just wears you out. Get flat on the surface first, then slide a floating body across the deck.
• Easing on slowly. A slow, tentative crawl means you slip off over and over. The re-entry works as one committed, slightly ungraceful lunge, so kick hard and commit to it.
• Boarding over an end. The bow and stern bob and roll far more than the middle. Always climb on beside the seat, where the boat is most stable.
• Sitting up too soon. Popping upright the moment you are aboard raises your center of gravity and tips you right back in. Stay low and centered, get settled, then sit up.
• Swimming away from the boat. Your kayak floats better than you do and is far easier to spot. Letting it drift so you can swim for shore is how a minor spill turns serious. Stay with the boat.
• Only trying it for the first time when it counts. The worst moment to learn this is cold, tired, and far from shore. Practice it on purpose in warm, waist-deep water until it is boring.

None of these are about strength. Instructors regularly watch small paddlers remount big boats on the first go, purely because their technique is right.