Hi all, The wet one hopefully learned his lesson. Without proper equipment he would have been a candidate for a fine by the coastguard or whoever is in charge. Bad for him that nature stroke first. >From my experience dealers try to sell you as much as possible - telling you more or less good reasons why you need all that stuff-, but shouldn't manufacturers outfit boats like the loon, i.e. made without bulkheads, with at least on floatbag installed ? That shouldn't increase the price significantly, what is probably the concern of dealers if they sell only outfitted boats. Most of you mentioned safety equipment like sprayskirts, paddlefloats, bailer, flares, vhf radio...... At least the last two are out of question for most "once in a while boaters". In some parts of the world you need even special permissions and certificates to carry them in your boat (another problem if you travel and smuggle flares on aircrafts, you might break local firearm laws). But what is all safety equipment good for if people don't know how to use it. You read in a book about the paddlefloat rescue, are you able to do it? I doubt that! You wouldn't be successfull in a pool (no waves, no wind, not cold) within the first 2 or 3 attemps. And who can do a paddle float rescue in moving water? For sure not somebody like the wet one. If you never did a wet exit, how likely is it that you panic because you feel trapped by the sprayskirt (ripcord under the coaming) in a real life "head lower than your butt" situation? Maybe that was the reason when I rented a Loon last summer and had to ask for a spray skirt. To solve this kind of problems a driver's licence for paddlers would be required..., but nobody would like to see that happen. BTW: Could I rent a seakayak in, lets say BC, without proofing somehow that I have experience to handle boat and conditions? If the answer is NO, what would be such a certificate? BCU level whatever certificate or a on site demonstration of paddling skills? My two cents Ulli (who was the first time in a kayak during a self rescue clinic -I wanted to know what to do if....) Ulli Hoeger Dept. Physiology and Biophysics Dalhousie University Halifax, B3H4H7, Nova Scotia Canada Phone I : 902-494-2673 Fax: 902-494-1685 Phone II :902-488-6796 http://is.dal.ca/~uhoeger *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************Received on Tue Mar 07 2000 - 06:57:24 PST
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