@qajaqman said:
Maybe these guys weren’t taught about dam dangers in their instructor cert, which would be scary because then they wouldn’t teach their students either. Hard to say, and I don’t want to make any assumptions.
I don’t have high regard for certifications. Plenty of very good, smart, safe paddlers get them and plenty more learn the same things other ways. There certainly have been a number of certified instructor incidents that I’m aware of in recent years that give me some pause.
They had to have been taught that as the ACA Level 2 Essentials of Kayak Touring includes the following under safety and rescue: “Hazards: wind, waves, weather, current, rocks, bridges, piers, dams, strainers, traffic.”
But oddly such hazards aren’t mentioned in the instructor criteria: https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.americancanoe.org/resource/resmgr/sei-courses/l2_ekt_instcrit.pdf
The article you cited stated:
“The men, along with two other kayakers, were paddling southeast of the dam on a sunny January day when temperatures rose into the 50s. Chicoine and Beatty got too close to the stilling basin, where water pours from Lake Red Rock through the dam gates. It’s extremely turbulent, Tracy Spry, a park ranger with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said Tuesday. ‘The water has an immense amount of force, and if you get beyond that restricted area, there are chances you can get drawn in,’ Spry said.”
Terrible consequences from a lapse in judgment, risk assessment, and situational awareness.
As to certified instructors, I like that they all have to undergo training and testing. But they’re all different and I think have different levels of safety concerns. During one class a L4 coastal kayak instructor had us practice with a contact tow. When I worked with an L5 coach, he checked my boat and disapproved of the contact tow (he doesn’t use one). It was all about safety, so now I wear my tow belt instead.