Restructuring the divisions

[jjayes]

Sorry JJ but I totally disagree with 'sanitising' natural rivers just to make them 'safe' for slalom. The vast majority of the people that run the Dee and Town Falls are recreational river runners during the course of a year and part of the experience of running Town Falls is avoiding the slot or working out how to deal with it if you can't. Why should recreational paddlers suffer a 'sanitised' version of the Falls to accommodate a once a year slalom?

If slalomers are not prepared to accept the risk, then they shouldn't be using the site.

Hi James,

from a personal point of view I totally agree with you that there should not be a sanitisation of natural rivers by anybody. The problem is that in this crazy health and safety culture that has somehow developed in the UK people are running scared of the legal system and it implications. What is our sport without danger? I for one would never had taken it up as a kid.

The pot on the town falls is easily avoided as a river runner with just a slight amount on skill, the problem is if a slalom course designer is not fully aware of the issue then problems can arise if gates are put in place leading directly to it. Having said that I have only seen one entrapment in over forty years of slalom events there and this lasted a total of thirty seconds. I knew the girl involved very well and I am sure she would not condone the cancellation of the race due to her mistake on the course.

People are always talking about how to get more publicity for our sport in all its forms, well one answer is to actually make it more dangerous, eventful and controversial. How many people watch sports like F1 to actually see the drivers go around safely lap after lap without event. Who is not wanting to see a crash? If we had real gladiator fight on tv would many people watch it, would it get talked about, would it get reported?

The problem is if we start messing with rivers to make them safer where do we stop. I once had a letter from a SOLICITOR who's client claimed he serioulsly damaged his knee while swimming from a raft. The SOLICITOR said we were negligent and that we should have painted the rocks a bright colour so the people could avoid hitting them. I wrote back and ask what colour and could he help us do it? Fortunately we had video of his client jumping from the raft mid rapid despite being told not to do so, we never heard any more about it.

I have done quite a bit of work on various natural rivers around the world to try and make better features on them. Some people have said this is wrong, all I know is that man has played with the natural environment for his own benefit ever since we have been on earth.

[Debs]

I am assuming by this you are meaning to split the sport into adults and juniors?
After all you can't possibly mean making the sport more dangerous for kids? Surely???

[JimW]

That might be true if, as you imply, the paddlers who come up to Div 1 are not as good as the paddlers who are already there.

I'm asking rather than implying - I am still learning what makes a good slalom paddler.

You make a good point that paddle ups have to beat 40% of the higher division, on the harder course, the comparison of course is that achieving 3 wins in the lower division can be a much easier thing to do - as I will prove shortly by being far too slow in div 2 C1.

There are some good points being raised in this thread but there seems to still be disagreement about what the problem is or if there is a problem.

Everything is so complicated, I started comparing numbers earlier but then I got to wondering why when div 3 has 438 paddlers (before this weekends results are in), the startlist for Aberfeldy 3/4 today only needed 37 minutes worth of start slots? The reason seems to be that div 3's generally race locally, div 2's race regionally, and div 1's race nationally (obviously there are exceptions) - which makes it fiendishly difficult to compare demand and availability across divisions. Races for the lower divisions appear to be under-subscribed, but the reality is that a much greater spread of races is needed to attract paddlers at all, whilst by div 1 you probably have all paddlers prepared to travel to almost all races.

So, if extra races were possible, would it spread the load for div 1, or are the paddlers so enthusiastic that they would all apply for all the extra races???

Or, if the numbers were reduced by demotion, would it really ease the pressure, or would everyone that is left still apply for all the races?

[jjayes]

I am assuming by this you are meaning to split the sport into adults and juniors?
After all you can't possibly mean making the sport more dangerous for kids? Surely???

Hi Debs,

slalom is already dangerous, if there was no danger there would be no thrill for many. I think there is a limit to how much you can wrap a kid in cotton wool and expect them to learn the life lessons within sports.

I am sure most parents know it is dangerous to some degree and obviously accept the risks to and on behalf of their their children. Is it better for children to do something like slalom or spend even more time playing video games and surfing the net while getting fat, all of which also have grave dangers.

Obviously its always a question as to the degree of danger and what parents and their children find acceptable. A lot of the argument on this topic is about both adult and children getting on bigger and better water to race. What needs to be remembered is that a certain river that is not overly dangerous to one is dangerous to a less skilled paddler therefore the level or progression within the sport needs to be carefully monitored by all concerned.

At the top levels of the sport nationally and internationally I do think that often the courses set are fairly un exciting for larger numbers of the general public to take a keen interest in. The sport needs incidents and drama to be entertaining and capture the publics imagination if this means more danger then adults, children and their parent can make assessment as to whether top compete or not in the same way as they do now.

Many courses are already dumbed down on the technical side in order to allow all classes to have a greater chance to make the gates, this in turn makes almost all courses relatively easy for some of the best paddlers in other classes. It is amazing the skill level of some paddlers in training but they never get the opportunity to show it in events for the above reason. This is another reason to keep standards relatively equal within a division.

The biggest danger to our sport is for it to become boring by letting the health and safety brigade take over it. I have lost a few friends in canoeing over the years but I know they went doing something they loved. Unfortunately I have also lost a larger number of canoeing friends while they were driving to and from events and trainings sessions, these are the real tragedies. It is probably good to remember that driving to and from events also has its dangers and people should take care especially after a tiring race weekend or training sessions.

[djberriman]

Don't forget Div 3 is artificially large, at the end of the year the ranking compilers list all promotes from Div 4 as Div3 paddlers even though they have never applied for a bib (and many won't, particularly random C2 crews). So the start of year list for Div 3 does not reflect the true state of the sport.

[djberriman]

I had not included Sheppy in my note about full events as it was a 1/2 and is more like to be over subscribed. As for Div 1's you have missed my point which is that many are declared full early but then due to cancellations they are not and paddle ups manage to get a place. We had a bubble of paddlers in Div 2 over a couple of years which made those events full, last year Div 1 was full, Nick Penfold rightly suggested some realignment of divisions (and to be honest I fully expected to be demoted) and that appears to be helping this year. What as probably missed was predicting that would happen accurately in advance rather than taking measures after the event.

The problem with suggestions I have seen so far is people don't actually know how large the issue is as no record is kept of people who wanted to enter and couldn't. I realise that may be impossible but without that data we do not know what target we have to achieve.

As for Tully and Llandysul being a long way away I don't think that has a great effect, Tully is used for training for the week before so actually attracts a lot more paddlers despite the distance and despite the distance many paddlers seem happy to make the trip to Llandysul. Similar entry numbers to what I would expect at any event, Tully had more but a lot were paddle ups which reflects the fact that lower division paddlers had been training there.

The problem with some venues is the limits now being imposed which are outside of the organisers control. At Washburn for instance the water is now turned on 2 hours later than it used to be.

[Dee]

The problem with suggestions I have seen so far is people don't actually know how large the issue is as no record is kept of people who wanted to enter and couldn't. I realise that may be impossible but without that data we do not know what target we have to achieve.

The problem is that we can't really tell.

By the time of the event at Shepperton my waiting list was small and half of what was there were div 2s (see https://www.canoeslalomentries.co.uk/ye ... perton-1-2). That doesn't tell the whole picture however, as I had deleted a fair few who had made other arrangements thinking that the wouldn't get a place and there will have been a fair number that didn't even bother because they could see how long the waiting list was.

If we hadn't had the div 2s, we would have probably still been full, but as I say we only have a 150 entry limit. Admittedly we are one of the extreme edge locations (a lot in the North just won't travel to us), but most events run at higher capacity so should be able to take up the slack.

I'm in agreement that the problem is not as great as it looks, as I believe that a lot of Div 1s are booking in then cancelling out. The only ways of slowing this down (that I can think of), are:
- real time visibility of number of places remaining (so that paddlers do not feel it's now or never)
- enforcement of the "no refund" rules across the board at all events with no exceptions (other than promoted out of class)
- entry open dates (before which no entries are accepted)

[James Hastings]

Hi JJ,

Talking about problems that are probably not as big as they look, I think that this also applies to the health & safety issue and the possibility of litigation. My impression has been that generally speaking judges in the UK have not gone down the American route and have thrown out obviously spurious and malicious cases. Your example re the rafter is an interesting one in that I suspect that the solicitor was trying it on. What they are often trying to do is frighten people/organisations into making an out of court settlement, but a robust defence of one's position in a letter back to them can often be the end of the matter. Most of these cases are taken up on a no win no fee basis and solicitors are not going to take to court cases they have little chance of winning - it would be expensive for them and their clients.

Thus coming to a slalom at Town Falls, as long as the course is set in such as way as to avoid the slot - and surely any organiser of a slalom there will be/can be made aware of the issue, and it can be demonstrated that a proper risk assessment has been undertaken then I would see little chance of successful litigation in the event of an injury. For many river running novices, Serpents Tail and Town Falls are their first taste of Grade 4 - admittedly at the easier end of the grade. It was certainly mine, many years ago. Hence the carnage that was often seen at both rapids during the days of the Mike Jones Rallies. In the case of a slalom at Town Falls, it would hardly be novices running it but Prem & Div 1 paddlers, who should be able to cope with the water conditions there unless exceptional. Kayaking and canoeing is an assumed risk sport and as such it is impossible to edit all the risk out of it. Absolutely agree with you that the element of risk was one of the reasons I got into paddling in the first place.

[jjayes]

Hi JJ,

Talking about problems that are probably not as big as they look, I think that this also applies to the health & safety issue and the possibility of litigation. My impression has been that generally speaking judges in the UK have not gone down the American route and have thrown out obviously spurious and malicious cases. Your example re the rafter is an interesting one in that I suspect that the solicitor was trying it on. What they are often trying to do is frighten people/organisations into making an out of court settlement, but a robust defence of one's position in a letter back to them can often be the end of the matter. Most of these cases are taken up on a no win no fee basis and solicitors are not going to take to court cases they have little chance of winning - it would be expensive for them and their clients.

Thus coming to a slalom at Town Falls, as long as the course is set in such as way as to avoid the slot - and surely any organiser of a slalom there will be/can be made aware of the issue, and it can be demonstrated that a proper risk assessment has been undertaken then I would see little chance of successful litigation in the event of an injury. For many river running novices, Serpents Tail and Town Falls are their first taste of Grade 4 - admittedly at the easier end of the grade. It was certainly mine, many years ago. Hence the carnage that was often seen at both rapids during the days of the Mike Jones Rallies. In the case of a slalom at Town Falls, it would hardly be novices running it but Prem & Div 1 paddlers, who should be able to cope with the water conditions there unless exceptional. Kayaking and canoeing is an assumed risk sport and as such it is impossible to edit all the risk out of it. Absolutely agree with you that the element of risk was one of the reasons I got into paddling in the first place.

James,

I am guessing you have a legal background?

I hope what you say is correct as it could be good for the sport and would put many peoples minds at rest.

It would be good for the slalom committee to take some firm legal advice on behalf of the sport on this matter to establish its true legal position with regards to liability. I would hope this has already happened, does any body know if it has?

[James Hastings]

I'm afraid that I'm not a solicitor, otherwise I would have been more than happy to offer some free advice to the Slalom Committee should they want it. However I have worked with and for solicitors in the past, thus have some knowledge of how the system works.

I would agree strongly that if the Slalom Committee have not yet sought professional advice on this issue then they should do. If Towns Falls can be effectively removed from the race calendar because one incident in 40 years has made clubs fearful of running a slalom there, is any race safe?