RE: [Paddlewise] Rental Boats

At 09:23 AM 10/15/99 -0400, Sidney_Stone_at_amsinc.com wrote:
>Why did the instructor need to exit his kayak.  All he needed to do was
>come along side and reach underneath the kayak and release the trapped
>paddler's spray skirt.

Assuming that the grab loop was out.  I'm not sure why he decided to 
jump out of his boat.  The guy was really trashing around so perhaps 
the instructor thought he could calm him down easier that way.  There
was also another instructor and seven other kayaks so both swimmers
could easily be rescued.
 
>Had the instructor explained the wet exit technique before putting people
>into the kayak?  If not, triple shame on him/her. 

No, he hadn't.  The class was at a sea kayaking symposium.  I mentioned
this awhile back on a newsgroup and someone tried to explain it by 
indicating that at large symposiums like this one the classes are often
not a good measurement of how good the instructors or the organization 
providing them might be.  They just get so many people that they don't
have time to evaluate all of the students.

Personally, I don't think that beginners should have been allowed in an
intermediate class without demonstrating a wet exit.   Actually, I would
have been better off in an advanced class, and in fact, had the opportunity
to take the "Advanced Touring Techniques" class with Derek Hutchinson 
the next day.   Unfortunately, they didn't check any prerequisites when
people signed up for the class.  Five of the eight students had signed up
for the beginners class (because they had never kayaked before) for
Friday, and the Intermediate class on Saturday.  For some odd reason they
didn't do wet exits in the beginners class, but instead had a separate class
on rescues.

BTW,  in the local outfitting club that I am affiliated with does a lot of pool
sessions and has weekly paddles during the summer that gets a lot of 
new paddlers.  The first thing they do is have them do a wet exit.  Once
they've demonstrated two of them, and that doesn't just mean the ability
to exit the boat, but to do so in a calm manner, they're allowed to use a 
paddle.


> Second, some sprayskirts
>have adjustable loops where the skirt attaches to the cockpit which can be
>adjusted loosely so someone capsizing will almost immediately exit the
>kayak.

And some sprayskirts have "implosion bars" about midway between the 
tunnel and the front of the skirt that do double duty to keep water from 
pooling on the skirt.  Unfortunately, the boats, paddles, and skirts were 
being supplied by a third party so the instructors were not familiar with
what equipment was being used.  I found that out last year when I took
a class with Chris Duff.  He hopped into one of the "class" boats and
tried, and tried to get his spray skirt attached.  Eventually, he asked me
to come of and stablize his boat and hold down the back of the skirt
so that he could get it attached.  He was pretty perturbed about the
shoddy gear that was being supplied for the classes.

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