Safety and Rescue

From Wikipaddle

Safety is an important feature of any sport. If you're not safe, you're not going to be having fun for long.

We can not, as a community run project, provide professional level safety assessment, training or literature. This is why we recommended that paddlers should:

Read professionally written Books

Books such as White Water Safety and Rescue II are written at a high level of detail and by professional paddlers with years of experience in their field. Their advice can rarely be matched on a Wiki.

Attend an appropriate Safety Course

The best way to learn skills is by physically putting them into practice.

These courses are irreplaceable in the experience they give you. These courses teach you skills such as how to swim in a stopper, how to throw and receive a throw line correctly (yes, this is a skill!), and how to assess risks, analyse rapids, plan your route down a drop and set up safety cover where it will be useful.

Have suitable equipment

We have compiled a collection of safety and rescue equipment articles which describe the basics and give general guidance on their use, however these are not intended as a basis for use or a replacement for training, only a reference. Paddlers should seek professional training and instruction in the use of equipment and in rescue techniques, there are some things you can only learn by doing.