Missing Boats On The River?!?!?!?!?!

    With all of the rain bringing high water levels it's important to keep SAFE. We are all between swims so it can happen to anyone, at any time. When swims happen boats can sometimes go off on an adventure of its own. Sometimes the boats are never to be seen again. Claimed by the River Gods. Either way, that situation is going to suck! No boat, though walk out and then having to deal with claiming off your insurance.
Ever wondered what happens when the boat tur up in a random place?
Neither had I.
 
So, I found out from my friendly local shop and their contacts. Kent Canoes.
 
 
    When a boat is found by any sort of emergency services a search will be started. This could be via social media or actually getting hands-on and doing a full search. This all depends on the type of boat, the environment it was found in and the time of year. So if they find a touring boat on a canal they probably won't go looking for a body. However, if they find a creek boat at the bottom of a grade 4/5 river they will make the assumption that something has happened to the paddler and they are potentially dead. 

What can you do to help?


    To help the situation there are a few things we as paddlers can do. Firstly, if you do lose a boat and can't find or retrieve it let the Police aware. Give them as much detail on the boat as you can. Colour, size any definitive features such as things that might be clipped inside the boat. On top of this, you can also leave your contact information inside the boat. This also improves your chances of being reunited with your much-loved plastic tub. All decent canoe shops will have free stickers for you. These stickers go inside of your boat somewhere easily visible. Pop down your name and number on the sticker and Bob's your uncle. Your boat now has all of your contact details in. This just means if your boat shows up somewhere, is found by the emergency services, they can give you a call. You can tell them the classic tale of your antics from the day and how you're sat at home next to the fire alive and well. Everyones a winner. 
Sticker from good canoe retailers.
     If you don't have a local canoe shop or if your local shop hasn't got any stickers left you can get them free from the government. Click me to go to the Gov.uk website to get your boat identity sticker. 
 
Hopefully, none of us will ever need to deal with this situation. But it's better to be proactive than reactive! 

Stay safe and catch you on the water!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kit Care and Re-proofing

Image
My chosen weapons against dirty kit!                     So with all of this time we are spending at home it's a perfect time to get on top of your kit care. To be honest, before doing this blog I'd never washed my kit with any specific washing things. I'd always opted for fresh water and then left to hang and dry. Well there's a first time for everything I guess! For this monumental task I've chosen to use a range of products from NikWax. For technical outwear such as my cags I've gone for the Tech wash and then TX. Direct. For all of my base layers and thermals I will be using Base wash and Base fresh.      Let's start with thermals and base layers, lets be honest, they have a certain sent to them! To combat this they went straight into the washing machine. Instead of using normal detergent I added one cap full of the NikWax Base wash. pressed the buttons that brought the almighty cloth cleaning machine to life, then ran for the hills. Once the washing mac
Read more

Summary Of My Week in Nottingham

Image
    Yet again I was set to be spending a week up in Nottingham training for the World Championships in the coming future. As I had heard from Jamie that the course was re arranged to have some waves on I was expecting some good waves. When I arrived I found there was no inlet gate and all of the features were shallow and very hard to retain, still I had to train and make the best out of it! Going for a Loop     At the end of my first session I went away a bit dissapointed with the course and finding that I hadn't made any progression. Over the weekend Jacko was coming up for burners so I was hoping he would be able to shed some light upon my training. As Jacko was also planning on training hole moves we were all a bit lost. We all started paddling and getting used to the new set up, Jaws was the main feature we would be using as it was probably the most retainable, sort of like a really small shallow Plattling! A key thing I was trying to practise was plugging shallow so that
Read more

Hurley Classic 2019

Image
    As per usual the Hurley Classic was another fantastic event! So great to see all of the young rippers out on Saturday for meet the stars. If your not aware of the event meet the stars is where the best paddlers in the world come down and take a group of young kids kayaking! This is the perfect way to inspire the younger generation and give them coaching at the same time.     I went out for the morning session on the water with Morgan, a talented little boater from Lee Valley. Together we looked at getting him onto the middle wave. On his second attempt he managed to cruse his way across to the middle wave. Amazing to be seeing Morgans progressions from play boating on the Legacy course to the wave at Hurley. Jumping for joy     Boater cross was an interesting event this year. The course had been changed from previous years which was nice to see! As always, it's always about taking part and not winning, mainly because I wasn't anywhere near winning ;) Super fun to f
Read more