"Fully informed" does not mean they need to be told how they will feel when they are actually in the water. It can be "You may die if you fall in this water. Chances are very low that you will, however if you do, there are a few things you can do that help your survival. We would like to help you practice them before we, but you will get wet and cold. You are not required to practice them, but we strongly recommend it." I don't think it is a bad business model to forego the wet exit training given how low the likelihood of the clients swimming really is. There are kayak tour groups going out somewhere in this country every day. How many deaths due to the inability to wet exit have there been? I can only think of one, and it has lead to this proposed law. How much effort should a business go through to reduce the death rate to zero? It is impossible to create that kind of safety, so a line must be drawn somewhere. I don't know where the proper point is. There are many businesses which operate with much more risk. Ski areas let their customers choose where on the mountain they will ski without the requirement to prove they can do it safely. Shouldn't they require everyone pass a test before they start down a double black diamond? Nick On Jun 15, 2007, at 8:34 AM, Ralph Hoehn wrote: > The water was not all that cold, but I was glad that I was wearing my > neoprene farmer john! By the time we got back into the car, our > friend, in > light shirt and shorts, was shivering quite badly from the combined > chilling > effect of the immersion and the subsequent drying in the breeze. I > wonder > whether he would have been "fully informed" other than through this > experience -- mere words might not have got the message across. > > I'm no friend of restrictive legislation, certainly not when it > concerns > personal safety -- in general that's best left to personal > responsibility in > my view. However, I wonder whether it is a good business model, > whatever the > short term profit motive, to take paying clients "to experience > beautiful > places" if those clients were to display a singular lack of personal > responsibility by being put off the proposed trip by going through an > exercise that is quite necessary to increase their safety and that of > would-be rescuers if things do go wrong? 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 Fri Jun 15 2007 - 06:50:15 PDT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:31:24 PDT