Lake Champlain real story
We had this couple show up at informal rescue/skills sessions that were being run weekly on a local small lake. Well attended- they were free.
The were in one of those big open cockpit tandems, rec boaters who simply didn’t know any better, and got themselves halfway across Lake Champlain - because they didn’t know any better - before finding they in way over their heads. They barely made it back and showed up wanting to learn how to get back in the boat at this session 4 days later.
Sorry to those with good judgement, but most of the stories of something going south in a kayak ARE lilly dippers or beginners who decide that they want to go “out there” when they do not realize that “there” is a serious risk for them. The young man in a rec boat who drowned not all that far offshore on Bar Harbor a couple of summers ago in a rec boat, the older woman who had the same happen the fall before, a guy whose body they found in the vicinity of the Narragansett a few summers back, the young man who died off of Cape Cod in the last year who turned out to NOT be a kayak instructor or whatever was first suggested. At least half of these folks. A had significant seat time in their rec kayaks, but had never learned about paddling.
This is why so many people who have trained up come off as annoying nannies. We have seen story after story of people getting into trouble or not making it back home in a situation that should not have produced fatal results. The only reason that those folks got hurt was because they had never learned enough to understand the risks, not because the same scenario would have been an issue for people with barely intermediate skills.
Maybe
Some people just want to have fun, and aren’t that serious about it. Taking lessons for everything under the sun, is a rather recent affliction. It didn’t used to be that way. Paddling can be anything you want it to be, however, that being said, if your going to take a boat, and head out to big water with no instruction, the gene pool didn’t need you anyway. Tkamd
It’s a lot like seatbelts I guess
No one likes being told to wear a seatbelt and
people get pissed off when they get a ticket
for not wearing one.
What I'm gathering is that people should be left
alone to do the dumb things they do and figure it
out on their own, instead of being guided toward
a demo before they buy, or instruction before they buy.
It's the American way it seems.
Let them buy a pet rock, it's their money.
Don't tell them the pet rock will just sit there.
In no way shall you dissuade anyone from the purchase.
It's okay to take profits and oh yeah - "customer beware"
Cheap kayaks are flying off big box store shelves
and that's just fine is the take away.
Try January…
Family of four out on a calm pond on a January thaw day in the northeast with their Christmas presents, rec kayaks… water about 38 degrees. Somehow all of them ended up in the water. The local rescue squad got some real life practice only because a local kayaker on who was out got the kids at least partially out of the water and called for help. Pretty near miss with severe hypothermia.
Granted that is not a story that happens at every spring thaw on this lake. But it would have been truly tragic for the mother and a lot of relatives if they hadn’t gotten lucky. It’s not necessarily about the numbers, but the loss of life due to truly and easily avoidable mistakes.
Face it - anyone who paddles long enough on bigger water will almost be a newspaper story, some of us will succeed. Big water has a way of making you humble. But most of those stories require a far more complicated set of things going wrong than the newbies who end up in inappropriate places in rec boats.
Well…
I happen to agree with you on societal costs being a slippery slope, it is my concern with the sugared drinks bans we are seeing. I don’t like diabetes, but I dislike this kind of logic more.
But for certain portions of local budgets they are pretty real. There has been an active debate running in towns in the Adirondack Park about charging for rescues where the hikers were idiots by the local rescue squads, which are unfortunately beginning to cost dollars from small town budgets that people can see. In better times economically this would not come up, but as things tighten up it gets noticeable.
Your sneaker analogy is more apt than you may realize - one of the classic real calls was from a young woman who had gotten to the top of a mountain in platform shoes on Columbus Day weekend and couldn’t figure out how to make it down again. Then there are the folks who are unprepared for hitting a snow squall up there - in sneakers and shorts.
Most rescue folks are more than happy to perform the rescues, no matter how silly the circumstances that caused it. The problem happens when someone has to pay the bill afterwards, in staff time or gear or training for more new volunteers to keep up with the demand, then it is the accountants who are making the arguments.
Training new people is an increasing cost in most organizations as well, because the boomers are aging out and it is taking some sweetening to fill the ranks as easily as they could 20 years ago.
Whether or not we agree, the money part may drive some decisions that experienced hikers, paddlers you name it will hate unless people get smarter about how they recreate.
Why, because they can.
Celia touched on this but I think the wide stable recreational craft allows people with 0 aptitude and skill to float around whereas years ago, you needed skills just to be in a kayak. The price also allows for a very casual approach to get involved in it on a superficial level.
I think learning is one thing but having to take “official” instruction from an “official” coach is not necessary. There’s so much free information everywhere and if people want it, it’s there. Also, some people are just stupid.
In CT more often than not, it’s rec boat paddlers out in big, cold water getting into trouble with no pfd and in street clothes.
Training may have benefit
but most people learn on their own.
We have a very large group of enthusiasts many with a lot of experience. Most of the best boaters learned on their own by lots of paddle time, through books/videos, and through paddling with others from which they learnt techniques either by asking how to do it or observation and self development.
I have an extensive WW background and became quite good at it, not through any formal training or lessons but by paddling a lot, developing my own technique, and observing fellow paddlers. I taught several of my friends to WW kayak, and they in turn taught others and learned techniques from others.
I decided to get into seakayaking a number of years ago. Already having a good background in things sea related from my sailing days, I found the skills from WW translated up quite nicely. Sea kayaking is most decidedly not just about paddling; there is much more you need to know than just paddling a kayak to be safe and competent at it. I currently paddle most often with about a dozen folks, all of us over 50, most of whom I have taught techniques just by paddling with them. We have advanced to a competency point where we have paddled areas and made trips that are advanced in anyone’s book. One of the most ~incompetent~ paddlers who ever tried to paddle with us had had many lessons and refused to consider group input. The problem was that because of her formalized lessons, she thought she was much better than she actually was.
So is formalized instruction good? Maybe. But joining with a good group of fellow paddlers goes a long way toward helping to become a good paddler; you’ll likely find out that works out for the better. Most folks are willing to help you learn if you are personable, fit with the group and show both an aptitude and willingness to learn. The best part is, it’s free.
And if you aren’t, then you might as well pay for lessons from an instructor if you want to advance, because no one is going to want to paddle with you anyway until you know what you are doing. And maybe even then. It is a personal choice to paddle and most paddlers seem drawn to it because of the independent nature of the activity. The true spirit mind of the most competent paddlers would reject the idea of a nannyist approach requiring specific training.
starting off slowly…
That is exactly what some expedition kayakers do as well. I believe that when Leon Somme, Shawna Franklin, and Chris Duff circumnavigated Iceland, they intentionally started at 10 miles a day, and then added more mileage as they got into the trip and grew accustomed to the heavily loaded kayaks. Unless you are hell-bent on breaking some sort of “record”, this makes a lot of sense.
Greg Stamer
Time and Money
What I’ve seen is people who aren’t retired or independently wealthy have to train. They have to budget their time to get back to their jobs.
I didn’t know any of the athletes
in there. Thank you, slushpaddler, for introducing me to Bolt.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u18_-87Pb6U&feature=endscreen&NR=1
Exactly
The largest reservoir close to me used to allow paddling before opening their boat ramps to the “big boats”.
In March 2002, a mother and father flipped their rec kayaks, weren’t wearing adequate clothing, etc etc (yes, they were wearing their PFDs) and could not get back in the boats or swim them to shore. They had to be rescued, and since then ALL boaters have to wait until the ramps are opened for the season, even if they don’t use ramps.
One mistake like that cost all the other paddlers their right to exercise their own judgment.
Good if the trip is long enough
If it’s a week or less, not so good.
Do you deliberately miss the point?
So, there's this incredibly small proportion of hikers who are idiots that end up too far up a mountain with the wrong shoes and clothes. Does that REALLY negate my point? Should we really start worrying about the "preparedness and training" of the millions and millions of hikers in tennis shoes who simply go out for a little nature walk when they get the chance? Is it totally without merit to point out that the vast majority of newbie paddlers are using their boats in very benign situations, just like the elderly couple out birdwatching in their local park? I just can't believe there's any kind of epidemic of new-paddler accidents going on, with paddler numbers going up exponentially the last several years and STILL, accident reports are few and far between.
Also, is it REALLY acceptable to invoke the statistic that 15 percent of all boating accidents involve paddlers as "proof" that newbies hitting the water without training represents a huge safety issue? To what extreme must a person go to illustrate that his statistics are totally without meaning? Should someone cite the number of traffic fatalities each year on the highways as evidence that left-handed people are bad drivers? The logic involved would be no different.
Excellent post
Dear ayornamut,
You did a fine job of explaining things. In the thread a few days ago I posited the notion that most people are perfectly capable of teaching themselves.
Personally, I find it much more gratifying to figure something out on my own than to be told how to do it.
There are of course some people that are ignorant of many things, not stupid, but they simply don’t have a very good grasp of the concept that every action has a resulting reaction.
People like that may be brilliant in their field of work, but they need a little help figuring things out when the task involves some level of physical input.
Those folks may benefit from lessons. The rest of us should be allowed watch and learn, or read a book, or simply coach ourselves.
Regards,
Tim Murphy AKA Goobs
People are People
I once saw a documentary on TV that someone put together to show that teenagers on motorcycles are a bad combination. Can't say I disagree with that either, though I also wouldn't say we need more rules to try to fix that. Anyway, the reporters found this enormous motorcycle junkyard and started looking at the odometer readings on the bikes. They looked at a bunch of wrecked bikes without finding a single one of them with more than 1,000 miles on the odometer. That seems to say that a lot of motorcycle wrecks happen with newbie riders. Does motorcycling suffer from any kind of lack of popularity due to all the newbies getting in wrecks? Are motorcycle clubs worried about "promotion" of the sport? Hardly. Every year I see more motorcycles than the year before. Seems like the activity is growing by leaps and bounds in spite of a situation that SEEMS to say there's a huge need to train the newbies.
In every activity that people do, there will be those who pick it up casually and don't care too much about technique, and there will be those at the opposite extreme who really want to develop their skill. Some of those activities, such as photography, involve no danger to anybody regardless of the operator's skill level. Other activities are fairly dangerous no matter how skilled one becomes (Someone already mentioned rock climbing, but check out how much your life insurance rates will go up if you take up scuba diving). Paddling is pretty low on the danger scale for most people, but of course there are situations where the danger becomes pretty high. That's life. Politician's attempting to "do something" about it will often end up looking like idiots before they are done, and maybe your can influence them before they do something stupid, but you can't prevent the events which motivate them. No amount of hand-wringing and whining will change the fact that people will always be people.
Didnt have a chance to read every post
and as I have to get ready for work I will put in my 2 cents worth and hope Im not repeating someone else…but… if 15% of accidents are on canoes and kayaks, that seems to me like its far safer than whatever caused the other 85%! I think, rather than place the blame on newbies getting into the sport, we should examine the fact that as we learn, we try more difficult and harder things. Therefore, when do you graduate form being a newbie? if you paddle for 20 years and then decide to go White Watering, are you a newbie, or just an experienced hand trying something new? As a newbie to kayaking myself, all I can say is…How am I ever NOT going to be a newbie if I don’t get out on the water and paddle? My kayak sitting in the garage isn’t going to gain me any knowledge of any kind, but an hour on the water will!
No, you missed mine
What I did say, and you missed, was that the numbers of people who got into trouble and required rescue was not the issue. It was the visibility of that impact, and visibility did not always match up with the apparent statistics.
You are arguing that on the large scale the numbers are small. But if you look at the post by pikabike somewhere in this thread, you'll see that all it took was two foolish paddlers out of years and probably hundreds of paddlers to make the authorities shut down early season access to a water body. We have had similar events around here at a local small lake, where only a few complaints about paddlers carrying boats to the main launch shut that down. It had been a primary paddle/fishing boat launch for decades.
The likely statistically small numbers of rescues in the Adirondacks are causing serious discussions about charging for rescues. You can disagree with that, but it is happening. We have family living in those communities.
I don't believe I said anywhere that I liked this trend. I said it existed and was a risk, which are both true. Unless and until I control the policies of the world, I can't stop all officials from reacting this way to statistically small but highly visible bad stuff. Nor can you unless you are lurking here as someone with far more political power than we know.
It’s how you approach it
If all you ever do is go straight fast and never learn how to handle a capsize, you will be limited in what you can do. If you do learn how to handle trouble, you are not so limited.
I’ll let the WW folks answer about starting that - suffice to say they get to pull long time long boat paddlers out of the water a lot when they try the foamy stuff. 
Fair enough
Okay, you are right. I’m mainly trying to stick with the O.P.'s theme, which I think is sorely lacking in logic.
Should the ACA go away
Does the ACA serve any purpose in modern society
-- from what I've read it's not worth a penny
http://www.americancanoe.org/?page=Resources
No one wants lessons, no one needs lessons,
and people figure it all out on their own.
Now that the internet exists all is well.
http://www.americancanoe.org/resource/resmgr/sei-educational_resources/critical_judgement_aca.pdf
http://www.americancanoe.org/resource/resmgr/sei-educational_resources/critical_judgement_ii_aca.pdf