As I'm sure you know if you have been reading the nearly fatal thread I feel pretty strongly about personal responsibility. Ultimately there is only one person sitting in that cockpit and that one person is 100% responsible for his decisions. I also think that a retailer should do all that they can to promote safety. I can honestly say that I don't think I ever sold a boat without suggesting classes. Classes appear to benefit everyone, the new paddler is not only safer but has a greater enjoyment of the sport because of the control and efficiency they have learned, the instructor (in many cases me) is happy because he gets to earn a living doing what he loves, and the retailer is happy knowing that his customer is safe and is having such a great time that he is telling all of his friends about the great shop with the swell staff that took such fantastic care of them. The shop that I used to work for (actually I still teach for them, I just no longer work the retail side of things) in my opinion goes out of its way to encourage safety. When someone purchases a boat they receive a BOP ( the company says this stands for boat owners package, I always thought it was boat owners propaganda). In this BOP among other things the customer receives coupons for discounts on classes as well as discounts on wetsuits or drysuits. I think that as a whole we tried really hard to get safety across to clients. That said, not all clients are receptive... The Famous Dying (almost) Corsican Brothers (or spike and mike go a boating) It was a typical rainy November day in Seattle when their van pulled in. I remember greeting them and watching them gravitate towards the whitewater room. Once they had a chance to settle in I approached them and struck up a conversation. As it turns out Spike and Mike want to become whitewater boaters, they have seen them on TV and it looks like a kick in the pants. Great I tell them we have a class starting next week and it still has two slots left in it and hand them a brochure. I continue to query them about what kind of paddling they will do and suggest that they need to get boats that match their physical size and the style of ww they intend to pursue. I start to suggest that they sit in a couple of boats so we can discuss proper sizing when Spike says "got any black ones?" "yeah" says mike, "we want black ones". I'm kinda shocked here and go on to say that choosing a model first is the way to go, but it comes back to me as "well do you have any black ones?". So I go check inventory and in fact we have a pair of all black Corsica's (hence the dying Corsican bros). In those days the Corsica was considered something of a nice predictable general use/creek boat, so it was not really a bad choice for these two. "Fantastic" says Mike "we'll take 'em" says Spike. Ok, you'll need float bags for those. "Huh? Don't they float?" "yes but just barely and they are very tough to rescue when full of water. Think of float bags as cheap insurance." "nope, we're on a tight budget" Me "but, but" Helmets, "nah got bike helmets" "Do they cover your temples? etc. etc." no sale. Life Jackets, "nope we have ski belts" "you mean those old foam belts water skiers used to use" "yup" "those are not even close to adequate, they offer no padding do nothing to keep your head up etc.etc." no sale. This went on and on and on. They left with two black boats two paddles and two skirts. I told them over and over about lessons, I made comparisons to other dangerous sports I used the word death (I think that excited them, not sure really). They insisted that they were tough, after all they did ride moto-cross, and had taught themselves all other sports. What could I have done? The only thing I could have done would have been to refuse the sale. would that have helped? I doubt it, in ten minutes they would be at another shop buying boats and who knows what they would have told them. I may have been able to talk them into a video, I really can't remember if they bought one or not. Anyway these guys had definitely been read the riot act multiple times during the sale. As they left I told a co worker that I hoped we didn't see their names in the paper in the next couple of days. I told him to keep an eye out for black Corsicas stuck in log jams. About a week later they re appeared (hooray they're still alive!) It seems that they had disregarded everything I told them about sticking to flatwater learning strokes learning to roll etc. They had gone out and launched on a class III stretch of river that was running pretty high. They had both capsized and had long miserable swims. One paddle was gone and it had taken along time to find one of the boats. Well, slowly and definitely the hard way they were learning. They bought wetsuits and helmets and pfd's and float bags and some of the other things that the "salesman" had tried to "stick them for" the first time. They still would have nothing to do with lessons. I think this must have been when they bought the video. Over the next few weeks months and years these two became regulars in the shop. Each week they had new carnage tales and each week they grew more receptive to advice. These two were lucky. Their first experience could have been fatal, but instead they learned from it and became a little safer. They did teach themselves how to roll and various other skills. I saw them on the river myself and they were learning. They were definitely hacks and had no river etiquette and ticked people off more that once at playspots, but they were alive and becoming safer and more skilled. My only point in telling this is that sometimes no matter what you say people do dumb, sometimes very dumb things. Actually there is another point. Perhaps if someone heard that a store had sold two inexperienced paddlers whitewater boats with no safety gear and no instruction they would rashly jump to conclusions and make accusations of negligence. I hope one of the things we learn from this is that there are two sides to every story. Cheers, -- Rob Cookson "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" Benjamin Franklin *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************
Hi Rob et al! At 08:35 AM 03/08/2000 -0800, Rob Cookson wrote: >Ultimately there is only one person sitting in that cockpit and that one person is 100% responsible for his decisions. <snip> >That said, not all clients are receptive... <snip some more> >They left with two black boats two paddles and two skirts. <clip the rest for brevity> Rob, some of us call this process evolution. Just my $.02 on a thread already beaten nearly to death . . . Great illustrative story tho, thanx! ByeBye! S. *************************************************************************** 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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