Standup Zone Forum
Stand Up Paddle => SUP General => Topic started by: SeaMe on February 28, 2015, 04:11:41 PM
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I just saw this and my feelings are mixed:
https://twitter.com/SUPFORALL/status/571702394096128000
On the one hand it's wonderful that she was able to overcome her fear and she's the poster child for SUP as therapeutic activity. On the other hand, should SUP really be promoted as a non-swimming sport?
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No.
That's stupid and ridiculous. If she can afford a board, paddle, and pfd she can afford swimming lessons.
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Lame.
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Good for her, as long as she's wearing a PFD and staying in reasonable places.
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I was talking to a guy who was renting a boat for him and his family on Lake Tahoe. He said he was a little nervous because he and his family didn't know how to swim. His youngest kid looked about 2 or 3 years old. I wanted to tell him what a bad idea that was, but for some reason I didn't? Sometimes you just got to through caution to the wind.......
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Generally doesn't work anyway. Headmount and I were getting ready to do a downwinder on a somewhat offshore day with the wind blowing 25 mph. This family of yahoos showed up with a variety of relatively uncontrollable plastic kayak thingies show up and were getting into the water like keystone cops. One of us said something--I don't recall who--and we were basically told to f$#k off by the charming Mom. Darwin's waiting room, thinks I, but actually they were fine.
Most folks get away with doing dumb stuff. A lot dumber than paddling a huge standup with a leash and PFD when you can't swim. Sometimes I remember something monumentally stupid that I did and just shudder. Should have been dead or crippled dozens of times. Shit happens, but most times it doesn't.
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still makes me nervous when kids play in waist deep whitewater on big days, while parents are oblivious.
saw an 8 YO get swept in by white water from a clean up, and couldn't even see the kid for like 15 seconds--so scary, and she popped up like 25 yards from where last seen. could've been a tragedy. were it not for others watching, parents wouldn't have even noticed.
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It seems that a lot of tourists seem to think that the ocean is the same thing as Disneyland. Safe, clean, protected...idiot-proof.
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I think idiots get away with a lot. I owned a beach house at Manzanita for about 30 years. Whenever I wasn't windsurfing I was usually sand surfing or riding my bike on the wet sand. I pulled dozens of people out of rips and near-drowning situations. And yet when I wasn't there, people didn't drown. Manzanita Oregon is seemingly a very dangerous beach--currents, rips and big logs washed up at the waters edge abound, but it's really rare for people to actually drown there.
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I know of a fair few paddlers that cannot swim and they are even very good paddlers too. In my early days as an kayak, canoe and sailing instructor, all three were activities were sold to non swimmers too..
It is all on the understanding that the chosen disciplines were done wearing a bouyancy aid. So customers are allowed to partake as long as they have a bit of water confidence and can float in their BA..
It is not law to wear a BA in the UK but it is seriously frowned upon by most other paddlers if you don't wear one. Consequently we have a load of paddlers who are not great swimmers.
One chap I know has even kayaked the Mighty Zambezie to a high level but he can't swim!
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We need a test similar to being PADI certified for SCUBA. I had to swim 30 minutes in the ocean without any assistance, along with all the other tests, before they would give me a SCUBI cert. I think every SUP class should have something similar, maybe shorter, but a test of swimming ability. Leashes break, PFD's come off or malfunction, things happen sometimes.
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Off subject, but UKRiver how did your Richmond repair go?
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Off subject, but UKRiver how did your Richmond repair go?
Good question :)
It is now in SUPUK's (Charlie) workshop awaiting repair...
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Sorry Zoo, but PADI cert is such bullshit. Swim test but no blow and go. Everyone in modern scuba gear is wearing a bouyancy compensator that is a fine PFD, but you can't swim in it. The only way you can swim in scuba gear is to ditch it all, and then you're wearing a mask, fins and snorkel. People who can't swim a stroke can go for miles in rough water with those three things. So the swim test is nonsense.
Blow and go is not. If you haven't been trained to ascend safely from 100 feet without air then you shouldn't oughta be there.
Reliance on a buddy system--more bullshit. By the time you find your buddy who has wandered off, you're in a full panic and probably done for. I don't dive with other people very often, because I find myself to be an uncompensated babysitter. They're not paying attention to their gear, their buoyancy, their air, their depth cycling--I am. Nine times out of ten their gear is unmaintained crap, or rental gear, which means used up crap. And they aren't helping me. Better off relying on myself and my own gear.
I don't say this because I'm not PADI certified, I am--to Rescue Diver. Modern gear might fit the PADI model better than the old school stuff, where most dives ended in what would now be considered a full-on emergency and reportable incident. But when the shit hist the fan, PADI cert is useless.