Wayne Langmaid wrote: --snip of some good stuff-- > My question is - "Why is it by default, so safe to paddle with someone? --snip-- As we both agree, group paddling isn't necessarily more safe, as you have clearly illustrated in you example. Why is it promoted so strongly? It works for most paddlers most of the time. For example, in my region, Ontario, Canada, most people only paddle about their cottages/camps for very short periods on warm, calm weekend afternoons, and remain within swimming distance of shore. They have little if any paddling skill or experience. If one were to come up with a short list of safety "rules" for these folks, group paddling would probably be on it. General rules such as this are intended to be idiot proof. They assume that the average person might be able to remember a few simple rules, but will not be able to analyse the application of the rules competently. Thus the rules remain extremely simplistic and become written in stone for the majority of happy paddlers. This is very utilitarian as far as general public safety goes, but falls short for serious paddlers, for once written in stone, these rules tend to be mis-applied to situations which extend beyond novices paddling about camp. Richard Culpeper *************************************************************************** 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 Thu Jul 09 1998 - 08:59:29 PDT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:29:57 PDT