Re: UK -- Liverpool Uni boat club- swamping/sinking


"Peter Ford" <p3t3r.f0rd@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ea00b4a9-c846-46eb-a5af->

University boat clubs are presumably run by the students yes, without
qualified coaches; but that is almost certainly the case in many
other, intrinsically more dangerous sports/activities. But with some
good faith in the intelligence and humanity of such organisors, there
should be no reason why this should not take place. Other sports rely
vitally on the ability of its practitioners to make sensible,
competent risk assessments, often on a continuous basis; this works
well, but usually with the benefit of a well thought-out advisory
structure and training system. The two sports I have most knowledge of
in this respect are dinghy racing and orienteering, both of which I
consider to be more inherently dangerous than rowing; while both
watersports obviously include the risk of drowning, only sailing
includes so many ways to be incapacitated and therefore unable to self-
rescue. Orienteering has a much lower risk of death, but a massively
higher risk of minor/major injuries from falls/collisions with trees
in woodland at speed. With both sports, participants must make
continuous risk assessments of whether their actions will cause an
overly high risk of adverse consequences, and in orienteering in
particular, young children are expected to be able to do this as part
of participation in the sport.

The particular problem with rowing is that historically "safety" has been
seen as slightly irrelevant and largely the domain of the boring wimps who
only want to spoil the fun. Other sports put safety first, and learning
about it is part of the enjoyment of the sport right from the very start,
rather than being an apologetic post script. In some sports wearing safety
gear has a very positive connotation - and is seen as demonstrating how
exciting the sport is. Unfortunately, when we first met with the ARA
National Hon Water Safety Advisor in April 2002 he advised us that "we don't
want to scare people by telling them about risks" and that "you can make a
sport TOO safe". Things are changing, but there are still too many people
in clubs saying - "you don't want to be bothered with all that safety
stuff - rowing never did me any harm". Even the media present the sinking
of rowing boats in the (Oxford/Cambridge) Boat Race as being a bit of a
laugh, clips to be shown every year to keep the television audiences amused.


Why then, is it such a revolutionary idea that intelligent young
adults with no taught training should be able to make risk assessments
about the safety of their decisions in rowing? My answer is mostly
that it shouldn't be, and it is simply down to everyone involved to
ensure that those making the decisions are competent to do so, at
least in the eyes of their peers. However, the primary reasons that
they might not be are that well thought-out and correct information is
not readily enough available for the intelligent but inexperienced
coach/rower to learn from, that the equipment is far too commonly not
fit for purpose, and that situations away from the normal training
environment are very hard to deal with, even for experienced people.

You are absolutely right. Everybody should be able to risk assess. All
safety choices should be 'informed' choices. All safety information should
be expert and evidence based. Inherently safe equipment should be the
default option whenever possible. BUT even with all that in place,
individual risk assessment has some severe limitations:

1) It can't work in a team setting, when the most influential member's view
will tend to prevail.
2) Everybody's personal judgement is heavily influenced by a multitude of
internal and external factors which can often lead to faulty decisions. Why
else do seemingly sensible and normal people smoke their first cigarette
(curiosity, peer pressure, want to look grown up?) or overtake on blind
bends (late for work, showing off to friends?) - when everybody knows those
things are potentially harmful, even fatal?

Individual risk assessment has to be accompanied by an enveloping culture of
safety in the sport and underpinned by a set of simple basic no-nonsense
enforced rules which are the backstop for everyone. It is not rocket
science.

Jane

PS I have only just got around to asking my physicist husband if rocket
science is hard - and disappointingly he says it isn't. He asked me in
return if being a brain surgeon means you are super human - no it doesn't -
it is nowhere near as difficult as General Practice! In our present state
of house renovation the most difficult thing at the moment for us is
plastering. So, instead of 'it is not rocket science' please read 'its not
plastering'.


.

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