Bandit paddlers

There is a safety situation that often occurs but was particularly concerning at a recent canoe race. This situation likely occurs with many sports, but is particularly pertinent when it involves ocean sports because the possibility of someone to get into a life-threatening situation. The problem happens when paddlers decide to follow along on a race course when a race is happening, often in rough or potentially dangerous conditions, but they do not want to bother to pay the race entry fee or pay for their own safety crew. The people that do pay the race entry fee are also paying for the safety crews to be out there watching out for them. If something happens to one of the non-paying paddlers, the safety crews will of course go out of their way to assist them. This then means that the safety crew is not available to help the entry-paying paddler. And why are the bandit paddlers doing this? Because they want the benefit of the social aspect, or feel safer knowing all these people are out there racing, but don’t want to sign up for the race and help pay for or plan for the safety crews?

I heard that this occurred at the recent Olamau race, when several OC1 paddlers decided to follow along the race course in conditions that would be non-sensible for them to paddle in without a safety escort boat: pouring rain that caused minimal visibility, high winds, possible lightning storms, large ocean waves, and a huge northwest swell creating rough conditions along the coastline. The race-hired safety boats then put efforts into ensuring the safety of these OC1 paddlers, thus not having full attention on the people racing. The visibility was poor enough that if they were staying close to the OC1 paddlers, they would not be in visual contact with racing OC6 crews. Also, if one of the crew escort boats got into trouble, one of the safety boats would have been necessary to help out, making the attention of the safety boats all the more important. This was in no way a reflection on the race organizers safety efforts – they knew the number of crews that had registered for the race and had planned accordingly – but of course would not have been able to plan ahead for other paddlers to be tagging along.

To me to follow a race course in these type of conditions is completely irresponsible, not only to paddle in questionable conditions, but to put other people at risk who have paid money to have these safety boats watch out for them. I hope that in the future people will consider the potential risk to others before they go "bandit" along a race course, not only in canoe paddling but in other venues as well. Sure it’s a big ocean and anyone can go paddle when and where they want. But why should you get someone to watch over your safety for free and take it away from someone who has paid for it? Either pay for the race, pay for your own safety vessel, or go paddle somewhere else or some other day… for the safety of all.

Submitted by kanu337 on Wed, 03/21/2012 - 4:23pm