St David's rescue^

[SeaDoug]

Taran- many thanks for being so open about the incident and continuing to answer questions.
Mark - the only other source of analysis of paddles gone wrong that I know of, is in the US magazine Sea Kayaker - and hosting this sort of discussion must make a contribution to the safety of us all. Many thanks.
SeaDoug

[Mark R]

Posted this week by St David's RNLI...

St Davids RNLI all-weather lifeboat launched at 2.10pm on Thursday 19th April to reports of seven kayakers, a party of advanced kayak instructors, in difficulties in rough seas near St Davids Head. Initial reports indicated that there were people in the water.

When the lifeboat arrived on scene it was quickly established that three people, one of which had been washed out of his kayak, were ashore on Porthmelgan beach. It was decided that St Davids inshore lifeboat should be launched to escort two of them back to Whitesands whilst St Davids coastguards brought one person to Whitesands in their 4x4.

Meanwhile the remaining four kayakers had come ashore at on a small beach at Gesail Bay, about 1 mile north east of St Davids Head. As the beach was inaccessible from land it was decided to evacuate the four men onto the lifeboat with an RAF rescue helicopter standing by. Sea conditions at Gesail Bay made it difficult to recover the kayakers and their equipment onto the lifeboat. Once all of the kayakers were onboard they were taken to Whitesands where they were met by the coastguard.

The lifeboats then returned to station arriving at 4.10pm.

[Lock and Load]

I think its great that so many people are passionate about sea kayaking. 5 stars or not 5 stars, we all want to paddle safely.
Is there a UHF tidal atlas for good and bad signal along our coastline? Someone could gather all this data, make some money from it, colour red areas for less likely/bad signal and green for a good likelyhood of signal.
When planning a trip this information could save lives or save CG call outs.

I'm not new to paddling but I am new to sea kayaking.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Chris

[Jim]

I think its great that so many people are passionate about sea kayaking. 5 stars or not 5 stars, we all want to paddle safely.
Is there a UHF tidal atlas for good and bad signal along our coastline? Someone could gather all this data, make some money from it, colour red areas for less likely/bad signal and green for a good likelyhood of signal.
When planning a trip this information could save lives or save CG call outs.

I'm not new to paddling but I am new to sea kayaking.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Chris

Um it's VHF we use, and I'm pretty sure there is a map in the RYA course book, or the OFCOM website showing the various approximate coverage of marine VHF, shortwave etc. Of course the map only really shows ranges, you would need something more detailed to indicate where line of sight would be lost, but than would then depend to an extent on the height of the vessel's mast, so you would need different maps for different mast heights....

Generally speaking, there is pretty even cover for VHF, except where interesting coastal features (hills/cliffs) intervene, and that's just the coastguard towers, other vessels may have line of sight when the CG don't.

[MattB]

Long thread, I have to confess to not having time to read it all. A couple of comments though. The assessor (or assisstant) who broke his boat, surely a plastic boat makes more sense for assessors on five star courses? A plastic boat may have prevented this.

Surely the conditions shouldn't necessairly challenge the student. Providing the students are assessed in the conditions prescribed by the BCU, does it matter if the individual is out of their comfort zone? After all some paddlers maybe paddling in 5 * conditions every week, and just doing the assessment to get the paper work. It's the conditions that are important, not whether the individual student is challenged.


Happy paddling, and thanks for the blog