RE: [Paddlewise] Nearly Fatal

The thing with dealers is that they seem to be afraid --- and I'm afraid they're correct in being afraid, in our lawsuit-conscious world --- that if they provide *any* advice, other than a recommendation to join a paddling club or read a book and become aware of what paddling's all about, that they'll be sued for missing something or providing incorrect advice.  It's stupid, but I think there's something to that --- they don't carry the insurance they'd need to be instructors, so they feel the least bad thing they can do is to do nothing.  And, unfortunately, for the sake of their ongoing business, they may be right.

In the Baltimore-Washington-Annapolis area, the Chesapeake Paddler Association has a pretty good rapport with most of the major kayak retailers; they all keep and give out our flyers and applications, and, to the extent they can, they tout joining the CPA and directly support our work in outreach to the growing "newbie" population of sea kayakers.  They "use" the CPA as the clearinghouse for valid kayaker info, missing that responsibility in the process, and we profit, as a club, from the support that they provide and the service they do for the newbies.  It works.

Jack Martin
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