On Thursday, March 6, 2003, at 09:28 AM, ralph diaz wrote: > ... > Put it another way: All the proper/best gear in the world in terms of > sea > kayaking won't be worth squat unless you have real life experiences in > using > it. On the other hand, lots of experience and sea savvy can extend the > margins of safety with less than orthodox gear. Connecticut has recently had a bill proposed in the legislature that would require everyone get "safety certified" before they could use a kayak. While this concept is self-evidently wrong headed to anyone with any experience kayaking, the proposal lets an ignorant legislator feel very holy. In my research to fight the bill several things became evident. 80% of the fatalities in boats nationwide occur when the victim was not wearing a PFD. But if you looked deeper it becomes apparent that the fatality rate is more closely tied to the experience level of the boater. The fatality rate is highest for those with less than 100 hours of experience (about 64/million hours) and drops quickly after 100 hours (22/million hours) and after 500 hours of on-the-water experience, the rate was extremely low (0.0018/million hours). In other words if you put a million beginner boats on the water for 1 hour, it is likely that 64 would die but if you had a billion experienced boaters on the water for the same hour, only 1.3 would die. This data comes form a USCG study done in 1998 called the "National Recreational Boating Survey". This survey was of all boaters, not just kayakers. Gear is good, but experience and wisdom is better. Nick Schade Guillemot Kayaks 824 Thompson St Glastonbury, CT 06033 USA Ph/Fx: (860) 659-8847 http://www.guillemot-kayaks.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/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Mar 06 2003 - 11:39:06 PST
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