A Compassionate Plea for the White Water Paddler

[Simon R.]

Our trip on the Annamoe yesterday raised an issue which I feel needs to be addressed urgently regarding the clubs gear lending policy.

At jacksons, to adhere to the rules currently being enforced, the freshers were forced to swap equipment. As luck would have it what was swapped in the end was relatively small pieces of gear. However it did approach a situation that one of the freshers would have to swap into a boat they were unfamiliar with, with paddles they were unfamiliar with to run the hardest rapid on the river to adhere to club policy. This situation is madness and dangerous.

The celtic tiger is dead and the vast sums of money required to get into this sport are prohibitively expensive for some. They were, even in the celtic tiger, prohibitively expensive for me. I had the good fortune to be facilitated in my early kayaking days of using club gear on private trips. This I did for a number of years only being able to afford my own boat in recent years.

When I started there was a rich culture of older members bringing younger members on private trips. This meant for me that I had run the Dargle, Glenmacnass, Shankhill, Upper Liffey, Middle Roughty, the Glens among a host of others by the time I reached the end of my second year in the club. In my opinion when this culture disappeared the standard of club paddler dipped noticably. Not because people didn't have the potential, but because they hadn't the opportunity to run these rivers.

If this culture is be encouraged again then, in my opinion, the club lending policy needs to be updated to facilitate people getting out with other members on other things apart from club trips. To be honest i think that we can all recognise that the club has long focused itself as an entry point for new kayakers. Second years upwards run the same rivers with instruction focused on the new members. If we are to facilitate the development of our 2nd,3rd,4th years then they need to be getting out on things like the upper Liffey and glens which are the easiest 4s in the country. We also need to support them if they haven't the financial capacity to buy their own stuff.

Does this mean I suggest we ride the club gear down the flesk every christmas? Not at all. We experimented with club creek boats and they were misused and abused by a small number thereby making the experiment a resounding failure.

What I prepose is that we all collectively take a look at what can be done to make a better working club lending policy for the betterment of our club paddlers. This policy I might add is self imposed (as far as i'm aware) and is not a requirement of UCD. Therefore it is ours to improve!

With the club on an upward curve once again, now is the time to seize the opportunity to foster a culture and level of participation from members past and present that I remember from long ago which yesterday I had a taste of once again.

[kmck]

The club should act like I would lending my gear:
1. You break it, you've bought it.
2. I won't lend gear to people I don't know or haven't paddled with
3. I won't lend someone gear who I think won't be able to do the river they want to do This is the problem area, I'm making a judegement choice. So if something goes wrong I've a degree of responsiblilty because I deemed that person capable.
4. It has to be returned to me on time and in good condition

1,2 and 4 are easy it is number 3 that causes the problem for the college and the committee, figure out someway to deal with that issue.

Also the era of the stealth mission with club members has also disappeared, not just due to lending requirements of the club.

[kmck]

Just had an idea, let's say in the next few months I buy a replacement for my mamba. I then store my mamba in the club boathouse on the understanding that it could be lent to paddlers at my discretion? If we had 4 such boats not donated to the club but stored by the club lent by their owners to people who want to get out on the water to run the dargle, glenmac and the clare glens. Would that be a solution?

[DervM]

That would be a good solution - until we get down to smaller things, like BAs and cags. In my family anything we replace gets brought home and reused. At the same time, I might be able to store a helmet, a bad cag and a club-style BA?

[Matt]

I think it's a bit much to expect to be able to bring club gear on a grade 4 river. It might have happened in the past, but the times they are becoming quite different. Rules and regulations are far stricter, and since the college essentially owns all of our club boats, from an insurance point of view the college/committee are responsible if anything goes wrong.

So whatever the club's lending policy is, I can't see the college being willing to allow club gear to be used on anything above grade 3.

Borrowing private gear is an option. Then all the responsibility is with the individuals and not the club or college.

[Simon R.]

What rules and regulations apply here?

What insurance point of view from the college applies? where does it say the committee are responsible if something happens?

where does it say the college has any say in how the club operates in terms of its lending policy?

These are things people always throw out there when this issue comes up and i'm yet to see any document that supports them. If it is the case that it is explicitly said some then thats fine. But i don't see the point in hiding behind this stuff to avoid tackling this issue. What'd be the problem of lending club gear for a grade 4 river it'd have the same conditions attached to it thats on the grade 3s "you break it you buy it". People already commonly run grade 4 in club gear when they run jacksons. Most grade 4s in ireland are grade 3+s with a few grade 4 rapids (eg. the dargle). Is it any different to the club doing a static at jacksons and everyone running it 5 times?

its an easy out to say this stuff and then kill off discussing it and improving whats in place at the moment.

[Matt]

My bad, I'm being a buzz-kill. Go on have an auld chat with the Sports Office or the AUC Simon, and see what they say to you.

[Tiny Tim]

I'd have to agree with mat im afraid. While it is really important that people get out on harder water and up their skills, club gear complicates matters.

With grade 4 rivers (the Dargle and Glenmac in particular) boats and bodies can get broken during a swim.

While if you break it you buy it is a fine idea, the time it could take for a student to get 500 quid together may mean the club being without boats for a good few months on club trips. Imagine being short on say 3 GTs for a few months.

I think the annamoe however is good to go (including Jacksons). Perhaps an exception could be made for Jacksons somehow. Its arguably grade 4, but only arguably. While there is difficulty in terms of getting the line right (making it grade 4) the consequences of blowing your line are low (far lower than the likes of the Dargle or Glenmac)

Lastly how is it that club trips can be run down Jacksons with club gear but private trips cant? Is it cos we get a level 4 instructor?

[Matt]

Lastly how is it that club trips can be run down Jacksons with club gear but private trips cant? Is it cos we get a level 4 instructor?

Cos of the L4 instructor. I suppose if you had a L4 instructor you could run a club trip on the Glens, could you?

[Tiny Tim]

Lastly how is it that club trips can be run down Jacksons with club gear but private trips cant? Is it cos we get a level 4 instructor?

Cos of the L4 instructor. I suppose if you had a L4 instructor you could run a club trip on the Glens, could you?

Yeah i thought that was it alright.

[Maryanne]

Simon, I think you're on the right track...not sure how we can follow it straight off, but it's certainly worth examination.

Speaking as a club member, I was really frustrated for parts of my second year in the club when I couldn't seem to make out the next step out of fresherdom into rescuedom, and got caught in many level 2 training scenarios after having developed skills for grades three and four (at least a little four).
I'll mention at this point, that I did own all my own gear at that time, so perhaps the limiting factor was a group in a similar position with which I could paddle.

Quite a lot of effort was invested this year in training as many of the freshers to certificate level (as many L3 as possible, and the rest L2) very much in mind along this process was that their next year in the club would have to support their continued learning curve. Part of this relates directly to the gear lending policy, having official L3 certs for example, makes it 100% ok to have the cert holders on grade 2 water with no instructor, phase one of workable private trips.

Phase two, progressing past grade 2 water to grade three and four, is a big step, worth taking, but still big.

I'll look into finding what the documents say as a starter point, you're right about making sure that any limiting policies should be in writing and binding rather than second hand and paraphrased.
** This should be after the exams, for my own sake...

What I've heard for sure (form UCD's Safety Officer) last year at the start of being the safety officer, is that
(he explained that these all arise in response to the way a lawyer could argue against us if there was ever an investigation after an accident)
- if a committee member is on the trip it can be argued that the trip is a club trip
- if (any) club gear is present on a trip it can be considered a club trip
- as a club trip the travel form and after trip form should be filled and submitted
- these forms record all paddlers present and are testament to appropriate instructors and ratios in case of accidents
- the committee (as the only official key holders of the boathouse) are responsible for any club gear being used at any time (he stressed that any non-committee held keys were a huge liability)
- when we do lend gear we undertake to lend it according to the gear lending policy and safety document we submit to the AUC (that does seem to suggest we could alter it)
- he said that it's unlikely anyone would try to sue the committee in the case of an accident/incident (cos UCD has more money)
-> considering all of these in the case of an accident, we could be shown not to have followed our own policies, which would get us (the committee and therefore the club), probably not sued, but in significant trouble, with the AUC and with UCD.

**this is to the best of my understanding, I'm not an expert/all that proficient even on legal jargon or how particular wording of the policies might help/hinder us**

[Eoghan]

Simon, I think you're on the right track...not sure how we can follow it straight off, but it's certainly worth examination.

Speaking as a club member, I was really frustrated for parts of my second year in the club when I couldn't seem to make out the next step out of fresherdom into rescuedom,

I'll mention at this point, that I did own all my own gear at that time, so perhaps the limiting factor was a group in a similar position with which I could paddle.

I agree completely!


What I took from the Safety guy was that it is a question of what is a club trip. As a result I always made sure to say in passing that it WASN'T a club trip (when there was some event on the fringes) 


I don't know the layout of the actual rules but responsibility really just comes down to the captain, I think. Even if it isn't a club trip and members of the club are caught up in some incident the college will contact the captain (one would assume). So captain is responsible.

I agree with kmck and Simon...what I took from it -  Once the captain is aware of the standard of the group and deems it strong enough I don't see any reason people should be limited to levels or grades. People obviously get hurt on stuff, but once the captain (ultimately responsible) trusts the leaders of the trip and knows the standard of the others isn't way below the standard required, and says that this is being classified "not" club. That would also assume that the leaders of the trip aren't being stupid and saying to someone that they should come - putting pressure on the cap to be the bad guy.

Sorry I've just finished the final year report so quite wordy 

to sum up:
Captain with trustworthy/competent leaders + people taking club gear with good attitude and not too far off required standard + "NOT" club trip statement = happy days! 

[kmck]

Propose it as a trial:
To fufil the gap in training of rescue and paddlers we view that exposure to different types of whitewater will improve the skill base available to the club as a whole
Each trip will follow the normal procedure at the end of each trip like this a full debrief covering the trip. This can be turned into a blog post as well as providing a record of the trip.

[Nuala]

I think that the current club lending policy does allow this. Instead of creating specific criteria based on ICU levels it keeps the whole issue very fluid just saying that the call would be made on an individual basis, by two competent members of the Committee, at least one of whom is the Captain.

This means that club boats can be borrowed to run the Upper Liffey or such provided the committee are happy that the group standard is good enough that they'll get their boat back in good condition.

(If this is based on the policy we drew up in Roger's year I think that was the whole point - to make it less rigid and easier to borrow boats if you got the opportunity).

[Chunderdragon]

we're going to have to work  very hard at the freshers stand next year to recruit a law student....