Folly afloat

[Carl]

There as been a packet of rain this month, so UK rivers are running full
& fast. It's been a considerable inconvenience to rowers & regatta
organisers but, AFAIK, everyone in rowing has acted very responsibly.

Unfortunately there is no shortage of naive folk who think a river in
spate is a great place to play:

www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/s/2113951_children_rescued_after_thames_boat_capsized
www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/s/2113241_boat_pair_helped_out_of_spot_of_thames_trouble

As ever, the reportage is crap. But at least some of the various
incidents mentioned in these articles happened near the exceedingly
dangerous Penton Hook sluices, ~1km upstream from our workshops. It was
in these sluices that 2 men died a couple of years back, trying to
rescue a dog (I believe the dog survived), & several members of Staines
Boat Club died there just over 40 years back

As ever, the news articles are full of empty stuff about what the
emergency services did & all the official procedures that are in place.
This is unfortunate since, by the time the Fire Brigade get to the
scene with all their kit, the involuntary swimmers may well be dead, or
as in at least one of these case, passers by & others will already have
risked their own lives to make the rescue.

It does seem to me, after these recent incidents, & another a week or so
back where, fatally, a father took several of his kids straight over a
weir in Barford in the English W. Midlands, that the dangers of flowing
(& static) waters are simply not perceived by the wider public. And I
fear that the pompous officialese which often litters news reportage on
such events, making them all seem like complex military exercises run by
controlling experts, further detaches the minds of Joe & Jane Public
from any proper sense of personal risk & responsibility for daft deeds.
"Hey, let's have fun on that wild water, kids" might be an appropriate
response in a Disneyfied 'adventure-world' park but it can quickly
become an act of deadly folly in the real world on rivers & lakes.

It would be good to get more people rowing & involved in rowing, to
widen the public appreciation of the goods & bads of water. And it
would be good to get more rowers actually into the real water, so rowers
know better how to avoid becoming statistics.

Cheers -
Carl
--
Carl Douglas Racing Shells -
Fine Small-Boats/AeRoWing Low-drag Riggers/Advanced Accessories
Write: Harris Boatyard, Laleham Reach, Chertsey KT16 8RP, UK
Find: http://tinyurl.com/2tqujf
Email: ca...@carldouglas.co.uk Tel: +44(0)1932-570946 Fax: -563682
URLs: www.carldouglas.co.uk (boats) & www.aerowing.co.uk (riggers)

[Henry Law]

On 18/05/12 13:05, Carl wrote:
> It does seem to me, after these recent incidents, & another a week or so
> back where, fatally, a father took several of his kids straight over a
> weir in Barford in the English W. Midlands, that the dangers of flowing
> (& static) waters are simply not perceived by the wider public.

Indeed; I agree with the whole of your post. The particular incident
above was especially tragic. If you watch the BBC footage you can see
that the family's house was just above the weir - about fifty yards as I
recall - and had a river frontage. So from the time that Dad and the
kids got afloat to the time they hit the weir can only have been less
than a minute. The boat was new, so Dad had no experience of what it
felt like or (probably) how to steer or even row it. If I'm right the
tragedy was certain from the moment they pushed off.

--

Henry Law Manchester, England

[edgar]

I quite agree with Henry. I have never seen a picture of the boat in
question and suspect that it was too small to be rowed efficiently with five
people aboard.
I do not suppose Dad had any idea how fast he might be able to row it and
I doubt that he could have beaten that stream with a fully loaded small
dinghy even if he had been expert in dinghy work..


"Henry Law" <ne...@lawshouse.org> wrote in message
news:JOGdnccM8s39_CvS...@giganews.com...

[fastyacht]

I don't understand the "school outing" part. Were they on boats in a
swollen river, without pfds, drysuits or wetsuits, some training, rescue
boats etc? Seems quite unusual for schools. At least on this side of
the pond, the "official school outing" tends to be pretty organized. We
have high school sailing in early March, water temps 2 deg C, etc but
all are equipped....

[Carl]

On 20/05/2012 04:50, fastyacht wrote:
> Carl wrote:
<snip)

>
>
> I don't understand the "school outing" part. Were they on boats in a
> swollen river, without pfds, drysuits or wetsuits, some training, rescue
> boats etc? Seems quite unusual for schools. At least on this side of the
> pond, the "official school outing" tends to be pretty organized. We have
> high school sailing in early March, water temps 2 deg C, etc but all are
> equipped....

Part of this problem is that the to-do about the "rescue-engineering"
buries the cold, stark & awful facts of a lost or nearly lost life under
the welter of burbling tosh.

When a life is lost the most relevant information is that the emergency
services couldn't get there soon enough. The vital message is: play in
a fast river & probably no one can save you, & maybe you'll endanger
would-be rescuers too.

There's a voyeuristic desire to pad out news reports, & emergency
services' wish to be noticed whatever the outcome implants the idea that
we can be saved from any daft mistake by a swarm of heavily kitted &
expensively equipped "heroes" descending - deus ex machina - to save us
from our folly. That's a dangerous, feather-bedding message for folk
already short of activities involving a real understanding of risk.

Recently a junior four was out on a fast-ish river stretch which ended
at a weir. Conditions were safe enough, all rules were obeyed, but when
told to turn well above said weir the kids' brains were switched off or
elsewhere. No problem, another coach closer to the weir would wake 'em
up, & they'd still have time & room to turn safely. But the kids were
apparently unhappy at being told what they absolutely _must_ do, &
seemingly blind to the consequences of ignoring a clear order. Slowly
they realised the risk & then began to turn. But as the danger became
crystal clear they panicked & stopped turning. Woken belatedly from
their reverie, where was the big kind hand that should stop the river &
save them? Sad to tell, that hand was busy elsewhere. So they went
sideways over the weir, wrecking the boat beyond repair. The kids
escaped unhurt.

It is this precious other-worldliness which now so endangers people. A
naive ineptitude in the rational assessment of risk now pervades several
decades-worth of people. In that setting, when rivers are in spate, we
get fathers taking their kids over nearly adjacent weirs & teachers
putting ill-prepared kids in kayaks where no inexperienced person should
be out in a small boat. The flip side is a similarly unbalanced
mentality which says kids must be taken less that 1 mile to school, &
back, in mum's SUV, thereby endangering every child who still walks to
school.

[Brian Chapman]

Can only agree with everything said, children are so wrapped in cotton wool that they have no way to measure risk. Someone is always expected to be there to tell them what to do and step in when they get it wrong.

[andymck...@gmail.com]

> Can only agree with everything said, children are so wrapped in cotton wool that they have no way to measure risk. Someone is always expected to be there to tell them what to do and step in when they get it wrong.

But I can see a counter danger, apposite to the weather and river conditions that we have had recently. At the first flurry of snow, or bit of increased flow, the 'authorities' issue 'cover their backside' warnings. Stay at home, don't take unpowered craft on the river. By the very act of issuing these warnings we are saying 'don't assess risk - nanny knows best'.

At the risk of contradicting my own argument, you then have a real danger of crying wolf. If a section of river has red and yellow boards up for 14 days, when there was significantly abnormal flow for but 3 or 4 of those days, or if the snow melted hours ago, you might well discount the real warnings, that you should be paying attention to, when they come.

Andy

[fastyacht]

andymck...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Monday, 21 May 2012 13:02:02 UTC+1, Brian Chapman wrote:
>> On Sunday, 20 May 2012 17:35:41 UTC+1, Carl wrote:
>>> On 20/05/2012 04:50, fastyacht wrote:
>>>> Carl wrote:
>>> <snip)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I don't understand the "school outing" part. Were they on boats in a
>>>> swollen river, without pfds, drysuits or wetsuits, some training, rescue
>>>> boats etc? Seems quite unusual for schools. At least on this side of the
>>>> pond, the "official school outing" tends to be pretty organized. We have
>>>> high school sailing in early March, water temps 2 deg C, etc but all are
>>>> equipped....
>>>
>>> Part of this problem is that the to-do about the "rescue-engineering"

>>> buries the cold, stark& awful facts of a lost or nearly lost life under

>>> the welter of burbling tosh.
>>>
>>> When a life is lost the most relevant information is that the emergency
>>> services couldn't get there soon enough. The vital message is: play in

>>> a fast river& probably no one can save you,& maybe you'll endanger
>>> would-be rescuers too.
>>>
>>> There's a voyeuristic desire to pad out news reports,& emergency

>>> services' wish to be noticed whatever the outcome implants the idea that
>>> we can be saved from any daft mistake by a swarm of heavily kitted&
>>> expensively equipped "heroes" descending - deus ex machina - to save us
>>> from our folly. That's a dangerous, feather-bedding message for folk
>>> already short of activities involving a real understanding of risk.
>>>
>>> Recently a junior four was out on a fast-ish river stretch which ended
>>> at a weir. Conditions were safe enough, all rules were obeyed, but when
>>> told to turn well above said weir the kids' brains were switched off or
>>> elsewhere. No problem, another coach closer to the weir would wake 'em

>>> up,& they'd still have time& room to turn safely. But the kids were

>>> apparently unhappy at being told what they absolutely _must_ do,&
>>> seemingly blind to the consequences of ignoring a clear order. Slowly

>>> they realised the risk& then began to turn. But as the danger became
>>> crystal clear they panicked& stopped turning. Woken belatedly from

>>> their reverie, where was the big kind hand that should stop the river&
>>> save them? Sad to tell, that hand was busy elsewhere. So they went
>>> sideways over the weir, wrecking the boat beyond repair. The kids
>>> escaped unhurt.
>>>
>>> It is this precious other-worldliness which now so endangers people. A
>>> naive ineptitude in the rational assessment of risk now pervades several
>>> decades-worth of people. In that setting, when rivers are in spate, we

>>> get fathers taking their kids over nearly adjacent weirs& teachers

>>> putting ill-prepared kids in kayaks where no inexperienced person should
>>> be out in a small boat. The flip side is a similarly unbalanced
>>> mentality which says kids must be taken less that 1 mile to school,&
>>> back, in mum's SUV, thereby endangering every child who still walks to
>>> school.
>>>
>>> Carl
>>> --
>>> Carl Douglas Racing Shells -
>>> Fine Small-Boats/AeRoWing Low-drag Riggers/Advanced Accessories
>>
>> Can only agree with everything said, children are so wrapped in cotton wool that they have no way to measure risk. Someone is always expected to be there to tell them what to do and step in when they get it wrong.
>
>
> But I can see a counter danger, apposite to the weather and river conditions that we have had recently. At the first flurry of snow, or bit of increased flow, the 'authorities' issue 'cover their backside' warnings. Stay at home, don't take unpowered craft on the river. By the very act of issuing these warnings we are saying 'don't assess risk - nanny knows best'.
>
> At the risk of contradicting my own argument, you then have a real danger of crying wolf. If a section of river has red and yellow boards up for 14 days, when there was significantly abnormal flow for but 3 or 4 of those days, or if the snow melted hours ago, you might well discount the real warnings, that you should be paying attention to, when they come.
>
> Andy

We have the crying wolf problem over here with "no skating" postings on
certain perfectly safe public skating ponds....while others really are
dangerous.