Are you carrying the correct emergency equipment?

As we now find ourselves at the beginning of a Northern hemisphere season, a quick glance at various social media outlets are awash with various stories of epic high water runs and carnage.

Most of us will have been surrounded by snow all winter and are counting down the days until it begins to melt and all of our local runs start to rise for the season. During the winter you have found yourself watching countless amounts of online kayak porn with our minds mentally writing out mental cheques that we now want our body to pay off on. What can go wrong?

I noticed a comment  on social media the other day that California is finally experiencing a high-water spring. This quote sent a shiver down my spine 

“We are experiencing some of the highest levels in 10 years, a whole generation of kayakers have not experienced these rivers at these level before, its not pretty."

The next day I opened up my Facebook page and watched in horror some of the world's current well known expedition kayakers chase boating a swimmer down a tree infested run in flood. The life of the swimmer was at risk along with the team of accomplished kayakers that were chasing him.

Are we honestly thinking that we can not paddle all winter and pick up where we left off from last season? Are we not warming up on easier class runs first!

Let's imagine for a minute that a paddling buddy takes a swim and looses his or her boat and you both find yourselves stranded on the river. Help is going to be a good few hours away and long walk out. Worse case scenario you may even have to spend the night next to the river and wait for first light before you can hike out. To top it all off your buddy has badly twisted an ankle and is unable to walk.

The odds are now stacked heavily against you.

Do you have a back up plan & are you carrying the correct emergency kit if you need to spend a little extra time on the river?

Are you carrying the correct amount of emergency kit in your kayak to ensure your own personal safety and that of your injured friend ?

I do notice time and time again kayakers spending money on the latest kit: drysuit, kayak, paddle, PFD, sprayskirt and not investing in the correct emergency safety kit or training.

By simply investing  some time and money into the correct training and emergency kit you can rapidly re-stack the odds in your favor.

I personally carry the equipment below in the back of my kayak each time I go kayaking or if I am working as a safety kayaker on a commercial trip. The kit fits neatly into a watershed Ocoee drybag (besides my split paddle).

·         Samsplint

·         Headlamp / Maglite

·         Lightstick

·         Energy bars

·         Lighter, matches, kindling

·         Rescue saw

·         Leatherman / multi tool

·         Mobilephone

·         GPS/ SPOT device

·         Small first aid kit with note book and pen, water purification pills

·         Survival blanket / jacket

·         Woollen hat.

·         Group shelter (optional)

·         Duct tape

·         Spare split / breakdown paddle

·         Water bottle

Let's have a look at some of the items in detail and justify their inclusion.

Sam-splint

Sam-splints are a lightweight reformable splint that can be used to splint a wide variety of injuries. Sam splints can also be cut and used in kayak repair or to block the drainage hole if you have lost your bung. Samsplint have some amazing tutorials on their website.

Headlamp

The ability to see and for others to see you is going to help you lots when it gets dark especially if outside help is needed. Hiking out when its getting dark will be a lot easier when you can see where you are going. A headlamp is also going to come in handy if you need to inspect a wound that needs treating or removing a foreign object from an eye.

Lightsticks

The batteries on your headlamp or torch will eventually run out. A lightstick is a good back up. Military light sticks normally last for up to 24 hours & can make you even more visible to rescue teams.

Energy bars

Once the adrenaline has worn off you are going to need to eat in order to keep warm & restock energy levels. I like to carry both an energy bar and a drink solution as it will go further.

Lighters/ matches Kindling

Its getting dark and you are cold, wet & tired. You need heat & light, its time to get cracking on with building a fire. A fire will also provide you with a source of light that will make you noticeable to the emergency services. The task of simply building a fire will also keep your mind occupied whilst you are waiting for help. Lighters will also help if you a paddling in areas prone to leeches.

Rescue saw & Multi tool 

A very handy tool to deal with small trees blocking the river or worst case scenario getting through a piece of wood that is causing an entrapment of a paddling buddy. Also will come in handy if you have to make that fire or improvise a walking stick or stretcher for an injured paddler. The multi tool can be used for lots of tasks, it really is a must take piece of kit on all trips.

Mobile phone

If you have reception a phone is indispensable in an emergency situation . For those working in a commercial environment or providing first aid treatment the ability to film and record any treatment given may help you post incident if the courts become involved. I was once taught:

“No Notes, No defence”

GPS / SPOT device

As modern technology progresses satellite communication and tracking is becoming more accessible and most of all affordable. The ability to give someone your exact location or see a route out is going to help you lots. SPOT devises not only allow you to log your tracks they also offer an affordable way to contact emergency contacts or help when there is no mobile phone coverage.

First aid kit

The ability to support an injured limb, stop bleeding and dress a wound or give pain relief is a must. 

Survival blanket / jacket

The technology in survival blankets has increased 10 fold in recent years to the point where ultra marathon runners are now carrying modern survival bags instead of traditional sleeping bags. Foil based bags not only keep you warm & work in the prevention of hypothermia  they will also make you highly visible as they reflect the light. I personally use and recommend Blizzard survival blankets. If they are good enough for the Norwegian airforce and mountain rescue they are good enough for me.

Woollen Hat

2/3 of all body heat is lost through the head, if its going to be a long night you should try your best to keep warm.

Group shelter

Coming originally from the UK I cannot understand why the rest of the world have not started using group shelters. A group shelter weighs around 100grams and can keep people protected from the elements and provide shelter.  A rolled up group shelter can also work as a great improvised stretcher.

Pic Jon Gorman 

Pic Jon Gorman 

Pic Jon Gorman 

Pic jon Gorman 

Duct tape

Gaffa tape, Duck tape, Jesus tape say no more!

Spare paddle / Breakdown paddle

I am amazed to see the amount of kayakers with all of the latest bling kit and eventually loose their paddle I have carried a spare paddle for years. Luckily I have never had to use it myself. I have loaned it out to kayakers who have broken or lost their paddles multiple times. A split paddle can also be used as an improvised splint.

  

Water bottle

Its important to keep hydrated on a trip. I carry puritabs in my first aid kit. Nalgine water bottles are also water tight which means water cannot enter them so a perfect container for your first aid kit!

If you feel this is too much to carry on one person the kit could be split within a group of boaters. A good pre-trip plan & communication between team members will ensure that most eventualities can be catered for. All up my kit weighs less than 2kg.

Most of all practice,  practice, practice the following as one day you may need them:

- First aid skills and knowledge

- Fire making skills (in a controlled environment please)

- Navigation and electronic navigation skills

- Pre-trip planning and communication skills

Happy safe paddling! 
See you on the water,

Mark

Raising the bar in the Himalayas

As many of us witnessed the disaster caused by the 2015 earthquake in Nepal, my thoughts turned to how I could personally help towards the long term rebuilding process. 
I have had the honor of travelling to Nepal for kayaking and rafting based trips since 1998. Since 2013 I have also run a series if IRF guide training programs and workshops for Nepali raft guides and kayakers.

Marshyangdi was an excellent venue. 

Nepal has the largest representation of IRF qualified guides on the current IRF guide register.

A large portion of Nepali raft guides now work overseas during the monsoon season in Nepal. I have personally worked with Nepali raft guides in countries as far away as Iceland. Nepali guides have a worldwide reputation for been hardworking professional guides. 

I wanted to arrange an IRF instructor workshop and create some new Nepali IRF instructors to ensure that the IRF standards are kept for years to come. I approached the IRF to see if there was anyway they could help with the funding of the course. The IRF kindly decided to waive the administration fees for the Nepali candidates on the course making it easier on the pockets of the guides who wanted to attend the course. 

From my previous experience of operating IRF workshops in Nepal I knew to expect big attendance numbers. I needed to recruit an IRF assessor to help me operate the course. I also needed a Nepali raft company to help me organize the logistics and hosting the trip. Paddle Nepal kindly provided us with bus and the equipment for the course free of charge which was great. 

I also recruited Canadian river legend Jim Coffey from Esprit rafting to be my co instructor on the course. I remember I was really impressed with Jim's series of river rescue videos called rescue for river runners. Jim kindly agreed to help with the project which was great. 

Jim explaining the finer points of the safety talk.

Over the following months I noticed that the course was attracting interest from around the globe. We now had bookings confirmed by guides coming from Ecuador, USA, Australia,UK & India  The course was taking shape fast. 

I had taken the time to select an appropriate river the workshop. I needed a testing class 4-5 river that would keep us on our toes for the duration of the workshop. I decided to re use the Marshyangdhi river which flows from the Annapurna region of Nepal, situated in the Lamjung area between Kathmandu & Pokhara. I have used the Marshyangdhi for previous courses and found it to be a truly testing piece of water. The top section compromises of around 18km of continuous class 4 & 4+ rapids. The lower section of the river below the dam has a 15km section of slightly easier class 3 & 4 rapids for those on the course who were looking for their class 3 skills to be developed.  

Any 5 day rafting based course is going to be physically demanding. So I decided that the group would need a good base for the duration of the workshop. Again I selected the Mango Tree eco resort on the banks of the Marshyangdhi to be our base for the week. The Mango Tree provided us with 2 really good meals per day and some comfortable tents to rest our heads at night. 

Going to the river, Mango Tree resort behind us. 

The week prior to travelling to Nepal I had been running an IRF workshop in Morocco. This was my first workshop of the season which meant I was primed and ready for the Nepal course. 

After arriving in Nepal I met up with Jim. We both spent a day kayaking the Marshyangdhi as a check out run to identify some potential teaching & trip leader scenario sites. Both myself and Jim both agreed that the Marshyangdhi was going to be the ideal choice of river for the workshop. 

The evening before the workshop started we held a pre workshop meeting. This was a chance for us to meet the students for the week and collect all of the relevant paper work: logbooks, first aid certs etc. 

The rest of the workshop looked like this:

Day 1 0600
Bus departure to the river  was at 0600 hrs. We jumped straight into course by holding  2 brief sessions on knot tying and river signals. This was the ideal wake call for the group. 
Once we arrived at the river and inflated the rafts we had a PPE (personal protective equipment) check along with a PRE (Personal rescue equipment check).
As we were 2 instructors on the course this gave us the opportunity to be able to assess 2 safety talks at a time. This is where we identified a few key points.

Safety talk key learning points (as previously discussed in other blog posts:)

• Actions speak louder than words. 
• Avoid using complicated English (keep it simple).
• Arrange your customers into a place where you are the sole focus with no distractions. 
• Summarize your safety talk into 3 key learning points at the end of the talk. 
• Your safety talk continues during the trip, you should be constantly recapping your talk as you approach the rapids. 

We took to the water for a 3 hour paddle down the continuous class 4 & 4+ section of the upper Marshyangdhi. This gave myself & Jim the chance to observe and assess the raft guiding and customer communication skills of the guides as they guided their boats down the river. 

Day 2 0600

We decided that early morning starts were the order of the day. This gave us chance to take advantage of the cooler mornings. For our instructor candidates I gave an example of instructor standard theory session on safety kayaking tactics. This session had 2 main aims. 

1. The students got to see the required standard needed for instructor candidates who needed to give their own presentation later in the week.

2. The IRF is the only body to give structured safety kayak teaching. The session was a spring board into a discussion on the role of a professional safety kayaker on a commercial rafting trip. The key learning points were.

• Safety kayakers who can also guide a raft and have rafting abilities are a big bonus on a commercial trip.
• Safety kayakers need to be thinking 2 or 3 steps ahead of the raft guides on the trip. 
• Forward thinking safety kayakers are able to put themselves in the right place at the right time in order to play a key role in a rescue if needed.

We took to the water and stepped up the tempo by looking further into the rafting capabilities of the students. We did this by observing the students making challenging maneuvers on class 4 rapids. These maneuvers included forward and reverse ferry glides along with some challenging breakouts. Each of the candidates came off the water tired and tested. We spent the evening looking into some of the rope work components needed for the following days rope work test 

Day 3 
Today was called wobbly Wednesday. The intense sun and heat was taking its toll on all involved with the course. We both agreed that today was going to be a park and swim day. We parked the bus at a convenient roadside rapid and spent the day finishing off the guide assessments. It was a pleasure to spend the day swimming in the river to escape the heat. All of the students were today put through their paces and tested on the following skills:

• A challenging swim
• Throw bag test making 2 throws with a packed and unpacked throwbag 
• IRF flip drill 
• Ropework test. The students had 5 minutes to construct a functioning  mechanical advantage system using their own equipment. 

During the day we also looked at the use of the integrated chest harness on our rescue PFD´s by practicing some live bait rescues. 

Days 4 & 5 

The next 2 days were spent running trip leader scenarios. We had started to notice that all of the students were starting to gel as a team of guides which was going to make the trip leader scenarios not only a test but a true learning experience. If you ask any guide who has already completed a trip leader scenario they will always comment that the scenarios are a true test of experience, judgment & skill and most of all the scenarios are fun. 

The first set of scenarios for the class 3 candidates were set on the lower section of the river. Both the trip leader and instructor candidates soon learnt the benefit of having well trained and focused safety kayakers assisting them on their scenarios. Between us Jim & myself were setting some challenging realistic scenarios. 

The second set of scenarios were help back on the challenging top section of the river for the class 4-5 trip leader and instructor candidates. We witnessed some true professionals at work here. The scenarios attracted lots of attention from the locals to the point where I had to tell one of the Nepali students to inform the locals that we were training and the man stuck in the river under the flipped raft was only pretending. Although we did see a concerned family cut a piece of bamboo to use as a reaching pole for one of our guides who was pretending to be a casualty of the scenario.  

Day 6 

Each of the scenarios was passed with flying colors along with all of the instructor candidates presentations. We put on the water on the morning of day 6 with one class 4-5 TL scenario to run. During this scenario we dealt with an unconscious victim. The scenario brought up the topic of carrying AED devices on a river trip. Hopefully in time to come we will start to see more and more AEDs been carried on commercial rafting trips. 

Ian acting as the unconscious victim during the scenario. 

The last section of the workshop was to spend the rest of the day testing the safety kayak skills for those who wanted to be assessed for the safety craft awards. We dealt with multiple & panicked swimmers along with unconscious swimmers. We also looked at way to control a raft from a kayak. 

As the course closed to an end each student received a detailed feedback session. The students all agreed that the workshop was a demanding but rewarding workshop with high standards in a fun safe learning environment. New friendships were made and the rafting world is now better off having some more IRF qualified instructors, trip leaders and guides from all corners of the world.   

Many thanks to Jim Coffey from Esprit and Paddle Nepal for helping to organize the course! 

Congratulations Nim, Josh, Grim, Ian, Chris, Daniel, Franco, Bharat, Dinesh, Bidur, Maila, Suraj, Arjun, Diraj and Manju! 

Happy paddling, Mark 

Top tips about Prusik knots

On my travels working and teaching raft guides & safety kayakers around the world I have noticed a reoccurring issue. When under pressure most people struggle to correctly tie a Prusik knot.

I have devoted this post to providing some hints on how to tie the Prusik first time every time. I am going to divide the post into a few key areas. 

1. What is a Prusik & what is it used for?

2. Prusik choice

3. Prusik knots  (3 wrap, French, Klemheist)

4. Summary

1. What is a Prusik & what is it used for? 

Prusiks allegedly first appeared  in an Austrian climbing manual in 1931 as a way to ascend a rope on a climbing route. The Prusik hitch was first used by Karl Prusik.

In a whitewater & rope  rescue background the Prusik is mainly used as a rope grab to attain progress capture in a rope system, normally a Mechanical advantage system.

A Prusik is simply a thin piece of chord or webbing tied into a loop normally with a double fisherman's knot. The Prusik is then tied onto the thicker rope in such a way that it will not slide down the rope when loaded by pressure.

2 Prusik loops both tied with a double fisherman's knot.

2.Prusik choice 

A selection of different Prusik loops 

Prusik loops can come in all shapes and sizes. Some are joined with a knot, some can be pre-sewn.

The thickness of the chord you use to make you Prusik loop is quite important though.

The chord you use to tie your Prusik loop with needs to be thinner than the rope that you are tying the Prusik to. So its a good idea to know the thickness of your throwbag rope or other ropes that you normally  carry on the river. An ideal thickness for a standard Prusik is between 6-8mm.

A good way to test this is by using the Pinch test. Simply pinch a section of your Prusik into a loop. The diameter of the loop should not be thicker than the line in which you would like to attach the Prusik too.

8mm chord for thicker ropes greater than 8mm.

7mm chord ideal for all ropes greater than 7mm (most throw ropes).

Sterling ropes 6mm flat sewn sling. Ideal for thin ropes. The sterling Prusik also has a massive 22kn breaking strain.

3.Prusik knots 

There are many different way to tie a Prusik knot. I have chosen the 3 most popular methods. A working knowledge of these 3 methods will help you in most situations.

A: The 3 wrap Prusik

The 3 wrap is probably the most widely used Prusik knot. It is simple to tie and can be used in most applications.

Simply hold the rope with the double fisherman's knot close to the rope.

You then need to make a girth hitch with the Prusik making 3 turns on the main line.

2 turns

3 turns. Be sure to dress the knot to make it work first time every time.

B: The French Prusik 

Perhaps the most simplest of Prusiks to tie. Simply wrap the Prusik 3 times around your main line and clip the ends together.

1 turn

2 turns

3 turns & clip into your carabinner.

C: The Klemheist Knot

The Klemheist is a variation of the French Prusik and can be tied with webbing too. The Klemheist is best located at the load end of your system closer to your load (pinned kayak or raft) as it is hard to work with a Prusik minding pulley.

Keep your webbing as flat as possible and make 3 wraps around your mainline.

Leave a shorter loop at the end closer to your load (pinned raft or kayak).

Pass the longer end of your loop through your shorter loop and clip in.

 4. Summary

1. Check the diameter of your throwbag. Your Prusik chord needs to be thinner in order for it to grip the rope.

2. Make sure that your Prusik knot is dressed properly and tightened before you use it.

3. Don't make your Prusik loop to long as you will lose any progress capture during a system re-set.

Having your Prusik too long will result in a loss of progress capture.

A snug fitting Prusik will prevent you losing progress capture during a re-set.

5. Practice, Practice,Practice

See you on the river
Mark

Further reading can be found at Animated Knots.