[Paddlewise] Decision time-cold water workshops

Greetings, 

Back around 1990, Our cold water mentor, Moulton Avery, and  Brian Price
ran the first ever Cold Water Workshop at the  Washington Canoe Club on 
the banks of the mighty Potomac  River. After a few years, I started 
participating in these workshops  for the Chesapeake Paddlers 
Association and for Bill and Janice  Lozano's Atlantic Kayak Tours 
paddling shop. More recently, I have  participated in these workshops 
for The Small Boat Shop in  Norwalk, CT,  and for other organizations, 
schools, Boy Scouts,  and even in French Creek State Park with Ted 
Danforth in PA. 
Other paddlers around the country have also run such programs.  

All of us have participated in these programs with the intent to  
educate paddlers about the broad range of effects of cold water  
immersion on boaters not dressed for such immersion--with or  without a 
PFD. 

Many of us have had the unfortunate experience of paddling on cold  
water with a group of inexperienced boaters when one of them not  
prepared for immersion has ended up in the water. It is an  immediate 
crisis that has many times resulted in the immediate  termination or 
severe reduction of what should have been a fine day  trip. Such crises 
are an immediate threat to everyone on the trip. A  rescue must be 
carried out and consequences dealt with  immediately. Many clubs have 
strict rules- you don't want to dress  for immersion-- you can stay home
or paddle by yourself. Your  failure to prepare shall not be allowed to 
threaten everyone else on  the trip. 

The Cold Water Workshop format is three part and often runs from  about 
10 am to 3-4 pm. It is always the product of many hands.  Someone 
supplies the venue, someone versed in cold water  physiology speaks for 
60-90 minutes about cold water immersion  effects. This includes case 
examples that illustrate the points  being made in the physiology 
presentation. Students in lesser  programs are often lead to believe 
that they will be among lucky  victims that survive with no problem. It 
is important to emphasize  that the effects of cold water immersion have
killed many top  athletes at the absolute peak of their training 
programs. The  50/50/50 rules and air+ water temperature guidelines must
be  erased from the options list. 

Part two of the workshop involves many generous individuals that  bring 
their varied collections of wetsuits and drysuits, boots, hoods,  
gloves, signal devices, VHF radios, etc to show students how we  prepare
for cold water paddling. Many times, we have had the  generous 
participation of Kokatat reps who have brough along an  array of 
drysuits for students to test. 

After a break for some sort of lunch, we allow students to try on the  
cold water gear and test it out in the water with a bunch of trained  
paddlers standing about in the water to make sure no one gets into  
trouble. Did I mention we always run these clinics in the winter  months
when we have honest cold water somewhere near the NICE  WARM LECTURE 
ROOM. We have often had local EMS units and  Marine rescue personnel 
come along to watch over the gear testing  sessions. We have never 
required their assistance, but this type of  exercise gives them an 
opportunity to learn to recognize trained  paddlers from folks that 
bought a boat, paddled a few times to  convince themselves that they 
know everything there is to know.  Sometimes when they are out there in 
t-shirts and shorts they even  have a PFD attached to the back deck of 
their boats. They need  that, since their boats don't usually contain 
flotation--don't want a  new boat to sink if they go over I guess. 

MY PLAN  

My plan is to write out a draft of my cold water physiology lecture,  
including case studies, and post it on the web for anyone to use.  There
is to be nothing proprietary in it. I will invite anyone interested  to 
help us tinker with its content. I am sure that many of us know  of 
important cases that illustrate various crital effects of accidental  
immersion. 

I will also include my best list of references that address cold water  
immersion effects on human physiology. Moulton Avery's original  article
on this subject printed in Sea Kayaker a couple decades  back still 
stands as reference # 1.  

I will try my best to get this document up on a website by the end  of 
this month or very soon thereafter. 

Our specific objective here will be make it possible for any  individual
or club or shop to present a solid cold water workshop  program. We 
specifically will not allow the program to be dumbed  down to the point 
of advising boaters to just wear a PFD and be  content with having just 
10 minutes of useful time in the water  before they are totally 
dependent on having a bunch of highly  trained maritime pilots aboard 
rescue boats that are within a few  minutes of them to carry out miracle
rescues where no one gets  hurt and only great headlines are created.  

We want our boaters to be able to carry out their rescues  themselves, 
and go on their way with no one hurt and no serious  disruption of their
plans for the day. Let us go on our way OFF the  RESCUE RADAR!!  The 
reason that it seems as if all kayakers are  ignorant about cold water 
effects and have such a high profile in the  rescue statistics is 
because the trained paddlers are nearly ALL  OFF THE RESCUE RADAR!!!!!!
   

Thanks, 
Chuck Sutherland 
send comments to me back channel: 
skimmer_at_enter.net 
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