The leader in the dragon boat appears to have given up his PFD and thus his life in an effort to save his charges. To me, this indicates that the students were well served by trusting his leadership. Do we have any indications that the teacher/coaches took this adventure lightly? Obviously they did not take it seriously enough, but that is almost always the case when bad stuff happens. With a little more regard for dangers most accidents would not happen. With a little more regard for dangers most of us would not enjoy kayaking as much as we do. Analyzing the Danish incident is good, but after a point there is no more to be gained by identifying specific actions that others did wrong. It is easy to say "I don't do that" I'll be safe. Eventually, we need to turn it around and look at ourselves. I have been in situations where I had to work very hard to keep on this side of a disaster. Sadly for the Danish dragon boat crew, their efforts were not sufficient. They could have had dry/wet suits on but where is John Winters to talk about risk homeostasis when you need him. I honestly don't know what lessons can really be drawn from this discussion. We are human, we like to push the boundaries, sometimes the boundaries push back, sometimes they give way. We can step back from the boundaries or move past them. Some of the Danish students may never get in a boat again others will gain strength from their experience to go on to do riskier things. Identifying one set of boundaries may just mean we push against others that we don't recognize. So, my question is: How do we take the Danish incident and learn to paddle safely? On Feb 23, 2011, at 1:10 AM, Doug Lloyd wrote: > Maybe Nick just meant in general. But due to an historical context, casting > stones is typically associated with being hypocritically culpable of course > and while I understand what Nick is getting at, I don't see the hypocrisy > here on the list. I do see some pretty big magnifying glasses coming out > which is perfectly understandable when there's a tragedy of this magnitude > where trust is element and has been broken. > > Exemplary leadership is something on the decline these days. Just look > around or listen to the news. > > Doug Nick Schade Guillemot Kayaks 54 South Rd Groton, CT 06340 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 Wed Feb 23 2011 - 05:43:05 PST
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