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 *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************
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