The Columbian | Serving Clark County, Washington

Camas man, sheriff’s deputies mark channel with buoys

By John Branton

Columbian staff writer

A couple of years ago, Lou Kobet of Camas bought an unusual toy: a one-person Illusion II sailboat that, at 13½ feet long, is shorter than a lot of sea kayaks.

Although it’s shaped like an America’s Cup regatta racer, no crew is needed. You just sit in the back and work the sails with your hands, and control the rudder with your feet.

“It’s a head-turner,” said Kobet, 67, a retired process engineer, of his pretty boat. “Every time I take it out, people stop and ask me about it and take pictures.”

It is a type of one-person keel boat that is raced in the 2.4-meter class, including by skippers with physical disabilities in the Paralympic Games.

Last summer, Kobet hauled his vessel to the boat ramp at Heritage Park on the east end of Lacamas Lake and launched it.

The boat, which he christened Cork 2, dumped him in the water the first two times, once because he failed to put a substantial amount of lead ballast in its keel.

But he soon learned the ropes well enough to stay fairly dry.

Then he decided he wanted to sail Cork 2 from the park west — through the lake’s shallow zig-zag channel between submerged rocks and into the main part of the three-mile-long, 315-acre lake.

He asked other boaters for advice and learned that the Heritage Park channel, with only one buoy, was poorly marked.

“Watch for rocks and proceed at your own risk,” one boater said. “Trial and error (mostly error) is the normal way of learning the safe passage,” said another.

A third boater told of damaging the prop of his expensive ski boat.

Kobet decided not to risk hitting the rocks in his boat, which needs 3½ feet of water to float. But after the lake was drained down several feet, he took photos to map the exposed rocks, which normally are just barely submerged.

He decided that more buoys were needed to mark the channel. Needing help, he started with Camas City Hall, the Camas Police Department and Vancouver-Clark Parks & Recreation.

Kobet ended up exchanging e-mails and phone calls with Deputy Todd Baker with the Marine Patrol Unit of the Clark County Sheriff’s Office. Baker was familiar with the problem.

Early last month, said Baker, “We went out when the water was really low and checked out the channel.”

Deciding to add several new buoys, Baker and sheriff’s Sgt. Fred Neiman enlisted Kobet to make the anchors — five-gallon buckets filled with 100 pounds of concrete and a chain leading upward to attach to buoys.

The deputies had a few buoys on hand, obtained from a state marine fund, Baker said. Late last month, Baker and Neiman placed three rock buoys to mark the channel, and another to warn boaters away from a small island with rocks that are submerged when the water is high.

Now, Baker said, boaters should bear left of the buoys when heading out into the main lake, and stay right of the buoys when heading in.

In addition, Kobet and the deputies are hoping to find a Boy Scout planning an Eagle project to add colored markers this spring, in accordance with the old marine rule “red right returning” from the sea.

The new buoys should help boaters to navigate the channel this summer, Baker said.

The deputies “went far beyond what I expected them to,” Kobet said.

And Kobet vows he’ll cross that channel soon aboard Cork 2.

“No question about it,” he said. “I will be on the main lake in the spring. No excuses now!”

John Branton: 360-735-4513 or john.branton@columbian.com.

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