Multiple Exmoor coast rescues

[Mark R]

http://rnli.org/NewsCentre/Pages/Ilfrac ... ather.aspx

[rockhopper]

Who on earth would be daft enough tom hire out kayaks on a day like Thursday without some sort of proviso to at least have a support boat to keep an eye on them. Four separate kayaks and young children involved it could easily have been so much more serious.
Scary!

Rog.

[chillipepper]

a few years ago I was out off the south coast of Cornwall with another local kayaker, conditions were choppy F5 offshore, a local beach hirer of sit-on-tips had hired his craft to a couple of young girls who had paddled off downwind happily, tried to turn, fell off, got back on, fell off, couldn't paddle back to the beach. we towed them a km or so back to safety, my 'colleague' being somewhat more vocal than I stormed off up the beach to give the business owner a piece of loud advice... I wonder how do you enforce a duty of care... other than after the fact of someone being hurt..?

[jmmoxon]

Many of them are rented from campsites or beaches where they don't have any knowledge of paddling on the sea. They may also have been rented for the week, rather than that particular day...

Unfortunately specific legislation won't catch up until after there is a serious incident, maybe the RNLI need to visit all rental sites & offer them some advice along with a collection box.

Mike

[jmmoxon]

& another kayak was rescued on Thursday whilst trying to rescue his daughters...

http://www.thisisnorthdevon.co.uk/Warni ... story.html

Mike

[Daker]

Perhaps the rental companies should be deemed liable for any call-out involving their craft and sent a bill.
That may make them think twice about the conditions and skills of those using them.

[mduncombe]

Not all kayak hire companies are the same. I was in Devon about to launch my own kayak when the boss of the rental company operating nearby came over for a chat. He was interested in where we were intending to paddle and gave some sensible advice for the conditions on the day, breezy but sheltered. Our plans were to go the way he was suggesting anyway but we stuck our noses round the way he advised not to go for a look see, we found his advice to be spot on, so turned around.

[trigger]

Perhaps the rental companies should be deemed liable for any call-out involving their craft and sent a bill.
That may make them think twice about the conditions and skills of those using them.

I agree completely.... corporate liability, if a commercial operation was guiding and run into serious issues there would be litigation for allowing it to occur, the same should be the case for a rental company, although by taking to the sea, the argument for volenti mit endura is implicit?