stay focused
Published June 29, 2008 | 
Sadly a woman died yesterday while practicing rolling. Apparently she was an acomplished kayaker and roller and was just doing what we all do quite often, just rolling. She was practicing in a white water boat and according to one article, club members speculate she may have just tucked the sprayskirt’s grab loop in by mistake. – Read More
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3 Responses to stay focused
nononononono..I hate to read this stuff. In all my intro classes, I teach students to put on the skirt and then run their hands around the perimeter until they get to the grab loop. Next, they are to look at and GRAB the loop in their hand so there is visual and tactile confirmation that it is out. I make them do it over and over and every time so it becomes habit. Then I read this…..
From my old whitewater days using dish gloves 25 years ago, I still put a biner on my grab-loop. Upside down, it hangs making for an easy find. Like my grandmothers huge keychain set, it also jingles as I install the skirt – reminding me to check for the grab-loop. The biner makes it easy to clip the skirt up on my PFD, allowing shore-side sandbox visits without ‘wetting’ my skirt!
Not ignoring those who feel the loss of this lady’s departure, there’s another perspective to this story: She died doing what she loved, what we love, not in a hospital bed after months or years of suffering.
I dunno…I wonder if something else happened…I can get out of ANY boat with or without a grabloop…the motivation to breathe for me is too high to worry about a technicality like whether or not there is a grab loop. I actually sew a whiffle ball to most of my sprayskirts so it’s a visual indicator of the grabloop being out and it’s easy to find in a capsize.
I would suspect that there was some other problem…heart problem perhaps, who knows.
Like Marc said, better than dying in a hospital bed connected to a ventilator.