Re: [Paddlewise] Nearly Fatal and Always Damaging

Outfitters vary a lot in the kind of safety instruction that they give.  Last
summer when I was helping Mike Petzold of Caribou Expeditions teach a short
kayak course to prepare his customers for our guided trip I met a couple who had
rented a double on Hudson Bay.  They asked about doing a self rescue and the
outfitter told the " Doubles are so stable that they never flip, and if one ever
did it would be impossible to do a self rescue in one".  They asked if could
teach them a self rescue in a double (our focus was on group rescues since it
was a guided trip), and I talked through a self rescue which took them only
about a minute to complete - a little longer till they were pumped dry.

Chuck Holst wrote:

> I am always amazed when I hear of a paddle shop that rents kayaks without
> appropriate safety gear or instruction. My first experience sea kayaking was
> in a kayak rented from Trek & Trail in Bayfield, Wisconsin. Trek & Trail
> then and now has a policy of not renting to people who have not taken their
> basic safety class, which includes instruction in wet exits and rescues. My
> former landlord and some of his friends, all novices, once rented kayaks
> from Trek & Trail for a camping trip on Lake Superior. During the crossing
> to Oak Island, one of the group capsized and was rescued by the other
> members of the group. My former landlord told me afterward that if it were
> not for the training they got from Trek & Trail, they wouldn't have known it
> was even possible to do a rescue in open water, which I think illustrates
> the value of such training.
>
> Chuck Holst
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