I still have the shell, wire, and plastic lid of the aerial flare I fired that day. I put the lid and the wire back in the flare shell and it looks like it had never been fired before, so I wrote "fired" on it with permanent ink. It is now an excellent teaching tool. In my last class, while talking about signalling systems, I wanted to stress the need of reading the instructions and learning how to use everything before you ever need it. To prove my point, I gave the fired flare to a student and told her "would you please fire this flare?". After 30 seconds she was still trying to make sense out of the instructions on the shell, then the other students could not resist pitching in. Half of them could not even read the fine print on the shell, without their reading glasses which they did not have. After two minutes they had unscrewed the cap that holds the chain and were in the process of figuring out what to do with it. The student pulled the chain and said "no, this is too hard, it must be something else" (note that the flare had already been fired before, so the wire should come out more easily). Then I said "OK, pull really hard on that chain, even if it hurts a bit on your fingers, make sure you point the flare up and away from you". The student finally pulled the wire out of the flare and I made the sound "boom! do not worry--it is empty". conclusion: Would that student be capable of using a flare in an emergency situation with cold hands before taking my class? What do you think? Are you 100% sure that you would know how to fire an aerial flare in an emergency situation under stress with cold hands? Please ask yourself the same question about each and all items that you carry in a kayak. happy paddling! - Julio *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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