kayak rescue for events - your opinions?

hunnymonster

This is a topic of conversation in our house regularly as we tick the paddler, triathlete and swimmer boxes so sit on both sides of the rescue fence so to speak.


I'm not a paddler although I'm slowly gaining more interest in it so I really appreciate when kayakers and canoeists give up their time to help out at events. This is particularly true of triathlons where Triathlon Ireland have laid down minimum numbers of water rescue for the event to get a permit.

I guess I just wanted to say thanks, I appreciate the efforts people make to help.

wet-paint

I'm not a fan, I've been on too many dodgy events to want to put forward my time.
Triathlons are alright I guess, but sponsored swims are worse. they're longer, usually in more exposed areas, and have no such minimum safety numbers setup.

Also, they take anyone who volunteers to do safety, meaning that any gob****e with a boat can sign up, even if he swims doing safety, as happened about a month ago, or if he gets scared or sea sick and pops off a flare while doing safety in heavy swells, as I've also seen before.
It's a can of worms. Get a kayaker to organise the safety I'd suggest, instead of just opening the gate and looking for volunteers. You'll get a minimum standard then.

irishlostboy

sligo kayak club has done safety for swim series's and triathlons. we do not get involved without a good talk with the event organisers/ safety people. there has only been one event i was not happy to get involved with. someone asked for assistance 2 days before event. they got nothin. apart from that, it has all been good experiences. it is good for the reputation of the sligo kayak club, is good experience for our intermediate paddlers, and obviously good for the event participants. and we usually get looked after with free food and drink in large portions
for event organisers it makes good sense to foster ties with their local kayak club.

hunnymonster

irishlostboy wrote: »

. and we usually get looked after with free food and drink in large portions

That's one of the things I'm particularly interested in. Obviously the organisers are trying to keep costs down for the participants (or maximise the profits for the charity) so I am interested to hear what you consider appropriate in the way of thank you. beer and burgers it is so :-)

irishlostboy

hunnymonster wrote: »

That's one of the things I'm particularly interested in. Obviously the organisers are trying to keep costs down for the participants (or maximise the profits for the charity) so I am interested to hear what you consider appropriate in the way of thank you. beer and burgers it is so :-)

beer and burgers are good bonus. the real key for us has been communication though. the guys in the sligo triathlon club dont treat with us as an afterthought but as a core part of the overall thing. we sometimes get free tshirts and hoodies and whatever, and we always get as much free food and drink as we can ingest. but first and foremost make sure you have maximun consultation with the various elements of your rescue and marshaling team. the effort of a good "people person" is vital.
also your civil defence and RNLI will usually join in. of course treat them the same.
another good thing to have is a few waterproof radios you can furnish to the lead of each rescue group. makes communicating anything vital a lot easier.
hope this helps.

Truley

irishlostboy wrote: »

and we usually get looked after with free food and drink in large portions

+1 on that. I still haven't fully recovered from all the booze we had at the swim series

But yeah, what Irish said. Keep communication open. Treat kayakers as an essential part of the event. We were asked to help months in advance, and the club was asked personally based on our competency. Another triathalon club asked us to do their rescue by posting on our forum two days beforehand. We decided not to get involved as we hadn't a clue about how it was run or what was expected of us.

As a thank you we were invited to the bbq and after party. Given a framed group photo of our club (which was really nice), sponsored tshirts/bags and of course lots of beer which most of the competitors insisted on buying us :P They went above and beyond what we could have expected from them. I personally love getting involved and helping out at these events, I don't do it for payment.

Pigeon Reaper

I've done alot of safety boat work over the years mostly in powerboats but also in kayaks for different water events including swim races, boat races, festivals etc. The boats must always have radios, and good comms with the organsiers. One thing that must be done is that the safety boats have final say about the event going ahead on the day or not. This can be due to weather conditions etc. I've called events off in the past as the team could not have provided cover safely. I'm not popular when doing it but then I've never lost anyone even when the s**t has hit the fan due to unforeseen incidents. If the organisers aren't willing to co-operate I won't get involved as I don't need to be answer questions as to why someone died/injured. some take the safety crew for granted but others do bend over backwards to thank us. at the end of the day we do it just to help out. Offers of food will never be turned down though.

Zuppy

I now straddle the fence. I spent years doing safety and lead kayaker on the water.

Now I also organise swims and safety along with professional water rescue.

It is always nice to be taken seriously but to sailors and Swimmers who think having a kayak means knowing how to use it, still annoys me.

I took years and some supervision before I was allow to run water rescue on my own. I won't allow a swim to go ahead without enough COMPETENT cover.

Thank you's are important and I used to like being thanked personally. I try to do the same when I am organising but sometimes with all that's going on I miss a number of people. But mostly it's a thank you that works best for me.

Pigeon Reaper

I agree about the competent part. Nothing more dangerous than someone supposed to be providing safety cover who hasn't a clue about what they're doing. The same goes for people who are gung-ho and take needless risks. Thankfully most of the time we're bored silly just keeping an eye on things which is exactly the way it should be.

Evil Phil

Is safety/rescue kayaking something that is regulated or certified?

Zuppy

Evil Phil wrote: »

Is safety/rescue kayaking something that is regulated or certified?

Nope. Not at all really. I have been looking into this for the last year for a project that I have running at the moment.

The BCU have their lifeguards and if anyone has the full manual can you PM me.

Triathlon have only ratios to Swimmers for water rescue.
Rescue 3 cover quiet a bit but not specific.
RSR from ICU is mostly kayak rescue but they are looking at RSR 4 to cover this.

As far as I know I am the only one to write general guidance for kayak rescue for swims. But most of it will be seen around soon, just it has to be general so as not to expose people to risk.

adrianshanahan

ZuppyLurk wrote: »

RSR from ICU is mostly kayak rescue but they are looking at RSR 4 to cover this. .

Not true, there is no kayak based rescue on the RSR Syllabus.


Adrian

MugMugs

Did a gig in the North East a while back. Had to scream at the swimmer to avoid rocks. He looked up and essentialy flipped me off and headed straight for them....... Reeeeally felt like leaving him too it but I stuck the boat in front of him and the rocks forcing him to divert.

As for payment. If a club accepts money then if something goes wrong it could have issues for the club. Donations are completely different though

T shirts and a cup of tea are always nice to get.

Did one in Dublin last year and they gave us a LOAD of Oust.... House smells fantastic even still !

Zuppy

adrianshanahan wrote: »

Not true, there is no kayak based rescue on the RSR Syllabus.


Adrian

Sorry, yet again my mind thinks faster than my fingers. All the self rescue for kayakers and all the river rescue set ups in the RSR is based towards rescuing kayakers ergo 'kayak rescue' in my original post.

RSR is designed for kayakers and the rescue of kayakers by kayakers. Kayak rescue is but a tiny part and will probably take a bigger part in the new version RSR 4. Apologies for calling it a Kayak rescue course.