Regulation
Education, training and practice, and the occasional accident will still happen. Passing laws will not make people 100% safe. Paddle,and be safe.VF
You misread
You misread what I wrote, please, read it again. Thanks.
Or I’ll clarify. Teach it on land, have them practice on land, before the instructor and students head out on the water. In 40 F water, if participants practice it in the water at the start of the training, they get very cold.
It works. In addition consult the ACA instructor outlines for more guidance.
Wet exit training must be in water
> Or I’ll clarify. Teach it on land, have them practice
on land, before the instructor and students head out on
the water. In 40 F water, if participants practice it
in the water at the start of the training, they get
very cold.
I believe the Mass bill is written to require teaching wet exit in water – hence “while submerged in a controlled water setting”. In fact, the class in which the student died did dry-land training, but the victim was unable to release his spray skirt when he capsized.
The solution most instructors have adopted is not to use secured skirts in the class until the water-based wet exit training has been completed. In the spring, that means not in the first class at all, or best at the end. Considering the environment and topics for the first day of training skirts are not really all that necessary.
The latest version of the bill recognizes all that, though it took years of beating up on the sponsors to get them there.
Also, wet exit training in practice is no longer just orders to dump, release and exit. Hey, when I was taught wet exit, the instructor stayed in his boat in deep water, showed me how to pop the skirt and then said “go to it.”
That’s no longer acceptable. It’s now a number of carefully designed steps, starting with demos, through a standing HOG, then a partial dunk and recovery while holding on to the instructor, and finally an unassisted but closely monitored wet exit with the instructor standing by, hands on the deck lines for a quick roll up if necessary.
Bad bill
– Last Updated: Jul-12-08 8:29 AM EST –
Loose nylon sprayskirts are much better for beginners, the neoprene skirt used was questionable. The Mass. bill sounds like it's going to all but eliminate sea kayaking tours. Too bad.
We've always taught a step by step procedure on how to get out of the kayak.