Jackie Fenton <jackie_at_intelenet.net> wrote: jackie> I was wondering, though, how they missed that a participant could not jackie> swim and one participant had never paddled a canoe in his life. Did There is no swim test required. However one rule says, in its entirety, "as a condition of entry, participants are expected to be able to swim". In Queensland, the only paddling test was a self rescue in a pool. jackie> Thanks for that clarification. I heard on an earlier report that one jackie> of the teams that participated in '97 (Killroy) was not accepted jackie> into this year's race because the organizers believed them not to have jackie> enough experience. Every year, the standards are raised. There have not been many opportunities for teams to race and acquire demonstrable experience. But fortunately that situation is changing. jackie> I also noted that there was a blackout called by the organizers for jackie> the whitewater rafting (if teams did not reach the put-in for the jackie> whitewater rafting in time to finish that portion before dark, then jackie> they were required to wait until the following day). However, the jackie> canoeing portion was allowed to continue in the dark. The rafting was the only section that had a "dark zone". The kayaking and canoeing both went on all round the clock. In past years we've done class 3 drops in Canadian canoes at 1 AM (no moon) - now that was stupid. jackie> I did like that, for the most part, the organizer wanted the teams to jackie> make their own choices. One team chose not to rapel and instead took jackie> what they thought would be a shorter route over a hill which was jackie> reported as dangerous due to the loose rocks and steep climb which jackie> the participants did not expect. Teams were allowed to choose whether jackie> to rapel and swim the distance across the river to climb the other jackie> side. The TV show was very unlcear about this so you may have drawn improper conclusions. In fact, all of the rope sections were compulsory (and the white water swim). The segment on Pure Energy scrambling up a crumbly face occurred *after* they had ascended the ropes after the ww swim. There was still about 100-200 feet from the top of the ropes to the canyon rim - that's where they became a little exposed. What they were scrambling over was pure powder. But yes (to tie things vaguely back to Paddlewise charter) judgement is a significant factor in adventure racing. The most significant probably has to do with sleep - when to, how much to. But it enters into a thousand decisions a day - drink this water or not, route finding (on water and land), picking lines (on water and land), etc. jackie> btw, I would love to see any comments you might have about the Texas jackie> Water Safari. And good luck! :-) I refuse to comment on the ground that I might incriminate myself (I'm dealing with Texans - they're alreay hoisting my petard). RN ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert J. Nagle http://yuri.harvard.edu/~nagle *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Tue Apr 21 1998 - 03:12:56 PDT
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