Scott Hilliard said: I can state for a fact that when the class becomes wet and cold you will lose their attention. Once that happens you might as well pack it in - nobody's going to learn anything more. My two cents' worth - I lead trips for a youth counseling service. We take eight teens to Maine every August and do a Spring Break trip somewhere, usually the Everglades lately. Especially in Maine, where the water is cold, we have determined that a wet exit is not a good idea before sarting on the trip. Same reasons Scott gives - the wet, cold kids are not in a frame of mind to paddle safely. Our solution is to explain what they should do if they tip and to make sure before we go that everyone is comfortable swimming. The kids are always, without exception, in doubles, so the risk of tipping is greatly reduced. We don't paddle in rough conditions. And, most importantly, the spray skirts are nylon and pass the "knee test" before we paddle. That is, each kid sits in the cockpit, puts the skirt on, and then lifts his or her knee. If the skirt pops off, which it always does, then we know the kid will be out of the boat if it tips. The doubles have large cockpits, no concern about being stuck. If we get a warm day and are in camp early, we have the youth do wet exits before they go swimming, but the cold water keeps most of them from wanting to swim. This isn't ideal, but we have had doubles tip over only twice in all the trips we have done and no one has panicked or got hurt. I have always wanted to have a pre-trip wet exit session in a pool at home, but we feel nylon skirts is a safe and prudent compromise. The one time we went to Glacier Bay and had real skirts we did a half day pre-trip session that included wet exit and paddling practice. Jim Tibensky *************************************************************************** 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 Mon Jun 11 2007 - 06:17:56 PDT
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