Hi, A few days ago, there was a discussion on cold water education for new paddlers. As someone who took the sport up only a few years ago, I can give a little insight. It is very easy to underestimate the amount of thermal gear that is needed. Plus, the cost of the clothing on top of a kayak is sort of intimidating until you know that you really like the sport. The key for me was a short section in a general kayak training video mentioning the cold weather threat. Plus, everyone in the video was wearing a lot of gear. Obviously, new kayakers just sort of want to fit in. So it stuck with me that everyone has a paddle jacket and some thermal gear. I jumped on the idea and at least got the basics. As my experience increased, I keep finding the limitations of my gear and have to add more stuff. My suggestion is that just sitting someone down to watch a general training video with a short safety section is something folks are willing to do. Safety videos are too scary until your really involved in the sport. Everyone just wants to know how to paddle, keep their boat going straight or turn. So most of us would be willing to watch a how to paddle video and the safety information on rescues and stuff just sort of gets slipped to you. Sort of a soft sell approach. Scot Check out Yahoo! Shopping and Yahoo! Auctions for all of your unique holiday gifts! Buy at http://shopping.yahoo.com or bid at http://auctions.yahoo.com *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:33:25 PDT