Some time ago I gathered together stories of paddling epics when things had gone wrong. I interviewed the paddlers to get their story and let them identify where they had messed up. It was quite revealing and certainly reinforces the earlier comments that paddlers are keen to discusss the technical aspects and gear rather than weather and navigation skills for example. There were few instances of gear failure. Often paddlers blamed the weather department for "getting it wrong" when had they perhaps had more knowledge of clouds etc then they might have worked out what was happening. It is of interest that many sea kayak books have for instance been quite light weight on weather stuff in the past. Other problem areas was that paddlers did not consider the impact of outside factors such as getting back to work/home in time or completing the expedition goals and therefore found themselves overstretched on the Sunday having to get back for work. Failure to recognise the effect of wind featured on coastal and offshore incidents. Again more weather knowledge would have helped. Human error- in some cases all the paddlers trusted the leader. Fine until the leader makes a mess of the navigation and no one notices or double checks it. Lack of experience- featured but often in the sense of one person holding the group back. Closer study indicated that in many cases had the leader asked a few more questions then they might have rethought about the suitability of that person going on the paddle or else might have altered the trip to take into account that persons level of ability. There was one or two instances where I got the distinct feeling that a les experienced paddler was encouraged to go along just to bolster up numbers. Communication- some strong willed paddlers can have an adverse effect. One story recounted how a paddler was so set on getting to the island that it took the other paddlers to turn around and go back before he acepted that it really was not feasible due to the currents. Incidently these stories were gathered from paddlers with five years or more experience. Obviously some date back to their early days. But if experienced paddlers are getting these problems at times then its likely less experienced paddlers will also be getting the same things. The above is only a very short synopsis. What I do with all this is to present the scenarios to paddlers at our symposium. Usually I get shreaks of " this is just the sort of thing we have seen happen". At our Symposium in Jersey (23-29 May) we have in the past done stuff on weather and navigation which are well attended so I think people will attend the less exciting stuff and not all go for the rescue clinics etc. This year our club has run a navigation and weather evening class with the aim of getting people used to the idea of trip planning. It has gone well and has encouraged more paddlers to get out and plan trips. We also have been running clinics on our Tuesday night sessions daling with rescue and other paddling skills having found that while you can learn a lot out on a club paddle it is good to spend some dedicated time doing towing,rescues,and other skills..But then we are lucky to have a club with 150 members and all live no more than 40 minutes drive away. For any club its worth considering running a mini symposium style event to cover some of the issues of safety and techniques.People do seem keen to take part and learn and the advantage of club members getting together to share skills is that we have found people get lots of hands on practice as well with some newer paddlers getting taken under the wing of 'older hands'. Please excuse if some of this is old chatter, but I've just got back from a great weekend paddling with some French Paddlers in St Malo and havent had time to read all the latest stuff. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
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