Jim said: > Outside of paid lessons/classes I have never seen a group of paddlers act any other way. I paddle with two clubs in Auckland - on the water, one behaves essentially as a collection of solo paddlers, while the other has a very strong culture of no-one-left-behind. If I'm paddling as part of a group, I prefer the second approach and I think I'm lucky that such a group has come to exist in my area. If I'm paddling for exercise or adrenaline - then I won't go on a 'club trip'. I'll chose to go just with similar speed/skill friends, to avoid any tensions between getting a decent workout and 'watching each other's backs'. If the skill/speeds are similar, it's easy enough to do both. As Matt says, something like a sea-anchor would be a cheap 'parachute' if other gear fails. We all know that often paddlesport fatalities are domino-effect disasters (with many small events combining to create an unsurvivable situation) - but this event seems like a single-point of failure left them with really no good survival strategies to exploit. I've been banging on for years about having critical survival gear on the paddler and not just 'on the boat'. This is another instance where the simplest insurance would have been a comms device (phone, VHF or PLB) on each paddler. If it's too hot to wear on the torso - strap it to the leg like a dive knife. With a comms device each, it would have required two separate failures (of both comms devices) to... well, to kill them. Perhaps the take-home from this event is that one of the most useful things a kayaker can do - more useful than buying gear or gaining certificates - is sit quietly - alone or with some kayaking friends - and play the What-If game... I think it was Eisenhower who said "I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." It took me a while to wrap my head around that. RIP Mr Ellison - and may the rest of us paddle a little safer, in memory of you. Best Regards Paul Hayward, Auckland, New Zealand *************************************************************************** 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 Oct 14 2011 - 06:50:37 PDT
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