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I have two Tiderace Xplore_S kayaks for sale. I will soon add the Xcite’s if you are hungering for one.

The details on these awesome barn burning sea kayak deals can be found here.

The short of it is, I have one used and one brand new Tiderace Xplore_S, the fast, small and nimble of the fleet.

Check em out.

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When we talk about risk management, certainly we do it to avoid casualties, fatalities, rescues and all of the grim business we’ve been reading about in the news. But if we are very lucky we do it for the final moments at 10-20 seconds before the end of this film.

You’ve prepared a student. Taught them how to do something extraordinary, possibly even dangerous, but, you’ve given them the tools to do it well. Then they totally stick it despite their worst fears. That moment of pure elation is the result. Often we focus on the avoidance of catastrophe, rather than the engagement with pure joy. Let’s hope we do better in 2012.

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Canoecopia 2012 went really well, it was great to see so many people interested in paddlesports. It was great to see some old friends, and make some new ones. I am always happy that the biggest paddlesports expo is in the midwest.

The madding crowds were hungry for gear, information, and warm weather. I have added my 2012 Canoecopia presentation on Leadership and Risk Management for Sea Kayakers. One story the slides may not tell is that risk is a big part of life. We can either be very afraid and never take any, or be on our guard and progressively take them within reason. This website, my aims as a coach and what kayaking is about is engaging risk. This presentation isn’t meant to frighten people out of doing expeditions or trips, whatever you might call them. I hope to make paddlers cognizant of how we think about our ability to fare against an unforgiving environment with the best knowledge, skill, gear and preparation possible.
Go Kayak Now! Leadership and Risk Management Presentation

And as promised here is the safety bullseye, and the risk assessment factors used in the presentation.

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What is the difference between a trip and an expedition? I had a prolonged heated discussion with Leon from Body Boat Blade about this finite, maybe even niggling point. What is a trip and what is an expedition? The definition listed above might explain it. But from a semantic view is there a difference?

Could you make a point that there are no expeditions, just trips. What makes an expedition an expedition, vs. someone just going on a trip. Maybe it is my midwestern humility that makes me feel like bloated wanker if I say I am going on an expedition, vs. “Hey I am going on a trip.”

When we picture expeditions, do we picture a long protracted affair with pith helmets, Sherpas, (or subjugated aboriginal peoples) carrying our divan and priceless china and crystal set to a remote location where we shoot at endangered wildlife and drink 20 year old scotch as the sun sets? Picture Sydney Pollack’s film Out of Africa with Robert Redford.

Or do we picture a simple affair with friends deciding to see the local coast from the water? Pack some food, tents and gear to make it work in the near wilderness for a week or two.

Leon mentioned that Nigel Dennis referred to all of his journeys as expeditions, no matter the length or place they were undertaken. So if he had three groups on the water, he would say, “I have three expeditions out today”. It sounds kind of breezy and fun when you say it like that.

This leads to the real question, what makes an expedition an expedition? Is it distance? Is it exposure? Is it risk? Is it a purpose? Is it sponsorship? What is it?

Bryan Hansel of Paddling Light, has also written extensively on this subject, with infographics!

Send us your thoughts.

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Are you looking to fine tune your paddling? Want some of the best coaching in the business?

The inimitable master of forward stroke paddling, Ben Lawry will be stopping in Harbor Springs Michigan from June 8-10 to give a power paddle clinic with the very impressive Ginni Callahan (pictured below).

Ben, if you have never seen him in action offers up a very direct, athletic approach to paddling that is practical. His dry British wit, and long pregnant pauses mid-sentence in his presentations make for great days on the water.

I also had the distinct and unique pleasure of having Ben speak to me on one occasion during Canoecopia in 2011. He was giving his forward stroke talk. I got out my phone to take a picture, and Ben Lawry turned mid-sentence looked me right in the eye and said, “No videos mate!”. True story.

Brochure PDF – Midwest Power Paddle Camp with Ben Lawry and Ginni Calahan.

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Dalua Downhill – Episode 4 Teutonia (English Version) from Zeppelin Filmes on Vimeo.

I saw this on kottke’s blog. It definitely got me thinking about the nature of risk vs. reward. While we do have a lot of discussion about the nature of risk, leadership, and duty of care, it is also important to remember why we got into the outdoors, paddle sports, and specifically kayaking at all. Without risk there is no reward. Watching these crazy bastards fly down a hill on skateboards at 70 mph made me realize that sometimes we can get a bit nuts about our thinking of risk and duty of care, and forget that there is a reason we are out there.

This video perfectly captures the nature of the dilemma, for some of us, we have to have the risk factor tweaked a bit to get some reward out of it. Minute 3:41 of the video says it all for me. Watch the subtitles for the operative phrase.

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This video demonstrates amazing athleticism and teamwork in challenging conditions. The Pa’a ‘Eono ironman canoe race allowed for multiple canoe designs. Looks like the swell was definitely up and moving pretty well. I would have paid real money to be paddling hard in that crew to feel a canoe go that fast on the open ocean.

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Alder Creek Canoe and Kayak put together a brief, (four minute) intro to the surf zone video. Some great initial thoughts on surfing long boats or surfing sea kayaks. I was really glad to hear some discussion about safety and not running into one another, (as has been my complaint in the past about sea kayak surfing videos).

The video touches on, but doesn’t cover in detail the subject of positioning for take-off, body trim, paddle strokes. This is part one, so I hope they have many more videos like this. Great introduction and I hope they come out with a more detailed series in the future.

Surfing sea kayaks is a great way to get an introduction into the surf zone where you can surf what you’ve got and catch a lot of rides.

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I had a great ride with Greg Anderson from Chicago at about 5:00 AM on Saturday during the Gales. We talked a lot about the kayak club CASKA and its relationship with local kayak shops. And I talked about WMCKA and its relationship with local kayak shops. In short we as a community, have a very dysfunctional view of our relationship with retail entities.

We as members of paddling clubs seem to be very reluctant to endorse kayaking shops. Shops on the other hand seem to be very willing to help support kayak clubs, as these are their customers, their community. I’ve been struggling with how to say this for some time, so in typical Go Kayak Now! fashion, I thought I would just come out and say it. Paddling clubs need local shops. We need to support them for the benefit of the community. The worry about getting in bed with a commercial entity is always a risk, but the larger risk, is not having a commercial entity around to get in bed with. Kayaking is a sport that is very gear intensive, and very skills intensive. In order to have a good paddle shop, the local community has to actually buy their gear from the shop.

I’ve actually even heard of retail outlets getting pissed at clubs for having a favorable relationship with a more local club than another. Meaning a shop that was further away didn’t get the treatment they would have liked because there was shop that was closer that did. To this I say, “Hell Yeah.”

Without a local shop, where are you going to send new paddlers to buy or try immersion gear, new paddles, new kayaks. Where can you send them to get charts, VHF radios, compasses, books on kayaking, get repairs done?

The trend in the outdoor industry has been to do comparison shopping and find the “best” deal online. The “best” deal often turns out not to be, as people buy something from somebody they don’t know, and they end up having problems. They also end up not having a relationship with the one local entity that can actually help them fix it, their local kayak shop. I’ve been guilty of this myself. I’ve done the comparison shopping, and bought some gear that doesn’t work the way I’d like. And I can’t go back to a person to return it. A student of mine just told me on the phone yesterday he bought a used boat from a stranger in another state. It is his first composite boat. I am really happy for him. But I am also kinda frustrated. Our local shop needs his sales, and I could have guided him to a boat he was going to love, and into a relationship with the shop.

In short, I suck. And I am not going to do it anymore. I am drawing a line in the sand, and I am going to start buying all of my gear at my local shop. I am going to encourage, (if not insist) everyone in my community to start doing likewise. There should be a symbiotic relationship with shops and clubs. Clubs should be telling shops the gear that they want, and the shops should be fulfilling that need by stocking that gear.

Sometimes it means having to wait for a special order to arrive. But to me that is a small price to pay, to know that there is a real person who is getting my money.

In my area, Lee’s Adventure Sports has invested heavily in paddle sports, they support my lessons, and pay for the pool time during the winter in Southwest Michigan. The were the first distributor of P&H Pyranha, before P&H became the wild US success you see now. They were carrying Lendal’s and Werner while everyone else carried mushy plastic no-name brand paddles.

How about investing something back? Our local clubs should be finding out what they can do to support local paddle shops, before there aren’t any… If there is something your shop doesn’t carry or offer as a service, for the love of Christmas, tell them. They want to be there for you! It is your shop make it the kind of shop you want to buy stuff from, by stepping up and offering some feedback.

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The Gales Storm Gathering has now concluded. A lot of my effort over the last few months has been directed at making the event a success. I am not ready to stick a flag in the hill and declare victory. But I was very very happy with how the event was attended and received by both the participants and the coaches.

Whenever I get together with Shawna and Leon from Body Boat Blade, I walk away with a healthy dose of humility. They are such great people, and terrific paddlers who put a lot of thought into everything they do.

One of the courses that was most heavily attended was Incident Management. I learned most of what I know in this area from Shawna and Leon and Jeff Allen. When I teach this course, I take a good chunk of their approach and put the Wikle filter on it. I am not ashamed to point out where I have stolen from the best. I have been fortunate in my coaching life to have had access to many great mentors. WMCKA has had so many great coaches come to teach at their symposium that all of us have had one on one time with. This alone has put so many of us in a position to learn from the best.

During the Gales a phrase was tossed around quite a bit by Shawna and Leon, called Greater Duty of Care. Maybe the rest of the universe heard this phrase and took heed. I blithely assumed I had prepared myself for duty of care by being an instructor at all. During the course of the symposium I gained new respect for the expertise that Shawna and Leon have developed to this end.

On the trip down the Menominee with Shawna, Leon, Alec BP, Sharon BP, we got on the water with fading daylight on a class IV river none of us had been down, with all new equipment, and no leader. It was a classic deep trouble list. If something had gone wrong what was the plan?

As instructors, what is our duty of care? What can we reasonably be held accountable for? What gear and precautions become necessary to ensure this duty of care is handled. In my paddling life with students, or fellow instructors we rarely do any of the things we say we are going to do when we get together.

So in examining this phrase duty of care, the first part that occurred to me is that the phrase that is often used, is Greater Duty of Care. Meaning not only do we as coaches have duty of care, we have Greater, or sometimes called Higher Duty of Care. What does this actually mean?

From a legal standpoint it means that because instructors or coaches have received training, those heading out with us, have a higher expectation of trust in our decisions, and our ability to lead them out of danger. For ACA/BCU instructors this has always been a cause for some debate. Especially because the ACA and the BCU are there in some senses to provide insurance against litigation in this regard. Though it seems that this litigation happens with very sparse frequency, I for one, would not count on the ACA’s insurance to protect me from a pack of blue-pinstriped hyena attorneys if something horrible really happened. Suffice it to say, this higher expectation of trust is really the operable phrase.

What does that higher duty of care mean? To me, in it’s simplest terms it means that the expectation is I should be able to take a group of about 6 people out on open water and be able to bring them and all of their gear (if possible) back safely to land. I should be ready for whatever comes and be able to pick up the pieces and get everyone back home safely. Though medical conditions and freak accidents do sometimes just happen.
In seeing how seriously it was taken at the Gales, I think I may have to up my game on a daily basis with students and even fellow instructors.

Here is a simple list of things in the arena of Higher Duty of Care I feel I could vastly improve upon.

• Communication of Risk Assessment on land. We often rush through this prior to getting on the water because everyone wants to skip ahead to the fun part.
• Communication of Leadership for any trip.
• Communication of Outs and possible retreats if the weather, or other incidents arise.
• Communication of hand signals
• Communication of radio frequencies, who will use them, and when they will be used.
• Communication of float plan, I am great at doing this for surf, but terrible for journeys. I actually tell my wife where I am parked, where I will be surfing and to call the coast guard if she doesn’t hear from me by [x] time when I surf. I want to be found alive man.
• Communication of what first aid gear I have and where it is.
• Communication about what signalling devices I have and where they are located.

So in this series, not sure how many articles. I am going to be covering how to improve these issues for all paddling groups. In some cases it may be gear we are talking about, in some areas I am woefully deficient, in others I am doing ok.