By Richard Harpham
Photos: Richard Harpham,
Ashley Kenlock
and the RNLI
Richard Harpham bio
Richard has become a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society.
Richard is a human powered adventurer and inspirational speaker who has completed over 10,000 miles of expeditions by kayak, canoe, bike and on foot including exploring the Yukon, cycling the Sahara and Canada’s Inside Passage.
At home he runs www.canoetrail.co.uk, a watersports and adventure business with his wife Ashley in Bedfordshire providing qualifications, canoe camping, coaching and paddling trips to some of the UK’s and world’s best locations. He is the former editor of Bushcraft and Survival Magazine and writes for Outdoor Adventure Guide, MoD’s Resettlement magazine and the Paddler magazine.
His adventures are supported by: Flint Group, Paramo Clothing, Olympus Cameras, Valley Sea Kayaks, Silverbirch Canoes, Bamboo Clothing, MSR, Canadian Affair, Osprey Rucksacks, Extreme Adventure Foods, Air North, Reed Chillcheater and Exposure Lights. You can follow his adventures through social media & @ www.richadventure.com
Beginners guide to… water safety
Water is a unique resource. It can give life and take it away. As an island nation, our heritage is built on using rivers, canals and the high seas to trade and explore the planet we call home. In many faith models, it is the cleansing of the body that leaves us pure.
For me, I was born a ‘water baby’, and most of my life have embraced a deep connection to water. As a kid I learned to sail, canoe and kayak, windsurf by joining Viking Kayak Club or saying yes to opportunities. Now years later, with over 11,000 miles of expeditions, a qualified commercial diver, a qualified coach and leader, I want to share some of my safety and survival tips for white water, the sea and general water immersion.
Living in a town with Britain’s fourth longest river, there are tragic drowning accidents from time to time resulting in local media coverage suggesting strange currents and undertows concluding everyone should avoid the river and water sports. Whilst these are undoubtedly sad and tragic accidents, they are often from people under the influence or who are weak swimmers or misadventure.
It’s a grim stat, that water-related accidents claim over 400 lives a year in the UK and accounts for over 100,000 rescues and incidents according to RoSPA. (Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents) many of which are paddling incidents.
Rescue techniques
There is a useful hierarchy of water rescue techniques published by RoSPA, which are developed into rescue strategies as part of the FSRT (Foundation Safety Rescue Training).
If you are reading this article and thinking I can’t swim or lack water confidence, then book some lessons! In terms of rescue techniques, the golden rule for this is to assess the situation, self, team and then victim before taking action. Seeing the hazards and completing a dynamic risk assessment allows ‘would be’ rescuers to assist without exacerbating the situation.
Top tips
- Learn to swim
- Practice rescues, sign up for a course and feel confident in your skills.
Outdoor swimming
Outdoor swimming is a growing movement and reconnects us with wild open spaces, tranquil pools and reed bed streams, the same places our ancestors learnt to swim. It has significant benefits for fitness, endurance and mental health. Many paddlers use it for cross-training and an opportunity to mess about in the water. We love it and spend many lunch hours and our off-season swimming in rivers, lochs and the sea throughout the year. It takes time to acclimatise to the autumn and winter months, usually resulting in shrieks and gasps. Outdoor swimming websites identify safe swimming spots and guidelines on best practice and remember in winter; there are no lifeguards on most beaches.
Top tips
- Learn to swim in a pool and then take those skills to the great outdoors with wild swimming, using a buoyancy aid until you are confident.
- Build endurance with swimming outdoors, treading water and general confidence.
- Develop your breathing rhythm for swimming particularly in choppy water
- Join a local group (many on FaceBook) to swim with others, and they will always know in-depth local knowledge.
Coldwater immersion
Hypothermia is a hazard that is well publicised and creates a sense of realism and fear when discussing watersports or on first aid refresher courses. However, many people confuse feeling cold and wet with Hyperthermia. Coldwater immersion can create a real sense of panic. Whilst skiing in Norway I fell through the ice crossing a lake and getting out was pretty tricky. While achieving this, my language deteriorated in raw shades of blue as I fell back in. I was then faced with an 8-9km ski with the frozen kit. I am happy to report that my Paramo Clothing passed that test with flying colours and probably saved my life.
Coldwater immersion survival training identifies critical actions in terms of time with the 1:10:1 rule as follows:
One minute of gasping, shock and hyperventilation. Stay calm.
Ten minutes of useful action before fingers and limbs are less useful.
One hour before unconsciousness due to hypothermia in cold water.
Hitting cold water takes your breath away, and the first task is to get over the desire to panic caused by our fight/flight response. Try and control your breathing and assess what your next move is, such as getting back into your craft.
Coldwater robs body temperate 32 times faster than in air so be aware in lower temperatures if you move around you will reduce your survival time. Learn the first aid symptoms of hypothermia, including extreme shivering, reduction in the conscious state and cyanotic (blue skin and lips).
Top tips
- Learn to recognise signs of hypothermia if you are tackling watersports outside of warm summer temperatures. Wear appropriate winter paddling kit such as drysuits.
- Get a first aid qualification at least a one day course.
- Carry a DS (deep sh*t bag), even in the summer, with plenty of warm clothes (including woolly hat, thick socks etc., first aid kit etc.
Defensive swimming
Defensive swimming is an important survival technique for swimmers in swift water or white water. Training as a professional paddling instructor has involved various courses with exciting titles like white water rescue and advanced white water rescue. A core skill of the courses is learning defensive swimming in bigger rapids and white water. The idea of launching yourself into a raging torrent may seem alien to most people, but it is essential to learn the appropriate skills in a real and testing environment.
Defensive swimming involves;
- Swim on your back with feet facing downstream.
- Knees slightly bent and lower than your bum.
- Do not put your feet down or they will slow down, and you will end up head first.
- Set angle to 45 degrees and use backstroke to ‘ferry glide’ or traverse across the river.
- Try and enter slow-moving water called eddies (usually at the edges).
- It is Ok to flip onto your front and use front crawl to reach an eddy or safe water.
- Be aware of foot entrapment hence keeping your feet up.
Paddling safely
Post lockdown and with the prospect of international travel reduced, more people are investing in UK staycations including paddling craft, canoes, kayaks and SUP’s galore. The explosion onto our waterways is marked, and the SUP revolution is leading the way.
Part of this is an increase in inexperienced paddlers heading out onto rivers, lakes and the sea. Recognising the hazards in the conditions is vital to paddle safely. The rise in inflatable kayaks and SUPs provide easy access but can be tricky in tides and windy conditions. Weirs, sluices and human-made structures can be fatal forming stoppers (recirculating water) with a tow back that holds the victim. Green buoys guard many on navigable rivers but not always!
Fallen or overhanging trees equally can present a serious risk in moving water where they act like a sieve called a strainer allowing the water to pass through and holding the paddler and or the craft. Other hazards to avoid in more significant white water are undercuts (where the bank erodes and causes a gap which can trap a paddler), siphons (the flow sucked under a large rock), and bridges which can cause a pinning obstacle.
White water paddling is fantastic, pitting you against the mysterious drops, waves and flow of the river but can go wrong. Over the years, I have been pinned on rocks with my legs trapped on several occasions which is scary and has required my teammates to rescue me.
Simple tips for safe paddling include staying close to shore on open water, paddling in calm conditions and wearing a leash and BA when SUP’ing on open water. Wearing the right kit is an obvious fix as well as carrying spare equipment, a means of contacting emergency services and perhaps some simple rescue kit(pin kit).
Top tips
- Get some professional instruction, join a local club and learn paddling and self-rescue skills.
- Paddle within your abilities for the conditions.
- Carry a saw in your buoyancy aid for cutting canoe thwarts and ‘pin kits’ (pulleys, prussiks, carabiners) and throw lines on white water.
- Download useful apps for location and positioning (What Three Words, OS Locate and GB Postcode Finder) and register your phone with the emergency services.
- Download Weather apps such as Windfinder and Magic Seaweed for better forecasting.
Sea survival
The sea is an altogether different beast with a range of hazards to be aware of. For all of us as kids, and bigger kids going to the beach conjures up fond memories of sunny days, ice creams and playing in the sea. My journeys by sea kayak have seen me cross the channel on three occasions, Scotland to Ireland and the Isle of Man as well as 1,000 miles of the Inside Passage from Vancouver to Alaska. There are plenty of occasions where we have been well outside our comfort zone on big open sea crossings, in deteriorating conditions and generally holding on, terrified!
Some of the critical things that have made a difference when facing these kinds of risks include being fit and with the right skills. Beyond this, we carry a range of safety equipment, and like insurance, we hope we never have to use. Kit includes EPIRB beacons (Emergency Positioning International Rescue beacons), marine flares and VHF Radios. However, when facing big seas in a small sea, kayak complacency is not the answer. The other kit we have also helped increase our survival chances if things go badly wrong. Good drysuits, buoyancy aid, and good kit help reduce the risk.
On big crossings, we also have to contend with other marine craft, hydration, energy levels and making good plans. You can see some of our bigger sea kayaking and SUP exploits on our new Canoe Trail YouTube Channel with some pretty raw footage. As novices treat the sea with respect, stay close to shore, particularly if faced with offshore winds. Find out about tides, undertows and local rip currents rather than becoming another statistic.
Top tips
- Support the RNLI as you never know when they might save your life.
- Ask the locals, from fishermen or women to the lifeboat crew they know the local waters well.
- Get the forecast including tide times, flows and weather.
- Stay close and only tackle activities within your ability. If you aim to ‘Go Big’ then hire a professional instructor to de-risk it for you.
Access rights
We currently have limited access rights to our inland waters, rivers and lakes (except in Scotland with its right to roam). Current legislation prohibits paddling, swimming or other activities unless there is a statutory right of navigation or local access. British Canoeing is lobbying for a change to allow river access for swimming, dogs and paddling with http://www.riveraccessforall.co.uk.
Top Tip
- Be informed about access rights and sign up for the river access campaign.
Signing off
Paddlesports including SUP, canoeing and kayaking, sea kayaking and wild swimming are all ways to boost mental health, fitness and feeling good. They come with an assumed risk that water can be dangerous if we don’t know what we are doing or paddle in conditions outside our skill level. Don’t forget it might be someone else in trouble, so having good first aid knowledge and skills to help might save their life. As a paddler I have rescued other paddlers, countless inflatable dinghies getting blown out to sea, and even a sailing dinghy on my London to Marrakech trip.
Make sure you tell others where you are heading and wear the right kit for the conditions. Learning new skills is fun, so find out what is on offer near you (some elements won’t be possible with social distancing restrictions).
Please stay safe and enjoy our magnificent rivers, lakes and seas.
RNLI safety advice for paddlers
Cold water shock makes you gasp uncontrollably and inhale water. These symptoms can last around 90 seconds, during which even the fittest person is unable to swim or focus on breathing.
- Wear a well fitted and maintained lifejacket or personal flotation device – it could save your life.
If you unexpectedly fall into the water FLOAT TO LIVE:
- Fight your instinct to thrash around.
- Lean back, extend your arms and legs.
- Float until you can control your breathing.
- Only then call for help or swim to safety.
- Avoid paddling alone, if possible, but tell someone where you are going, and when you will be back.
- Always carry a means of calling for help which is easily accessible, and consider the RYA SafeTrx app.
- Label equipment so if it is lost the Coastguard can check you are safe.
- Hone your paddling skills.
RNLI Head of Water Safety Gareth Morrison said: “No one heads out on the water with the mindset of needing to be rescued, yet we undertake thousands of rescues each year, including hundreds to paddlers. It’s clear that one of the impacts of Covid-19 is more people are participating in canoeing, kayaking and stand-up paddle boarding and the RNLI is asking everyone to act with additional care, and look after themselves and their friends.
“Our volunteer lifeboat crews have continued to operate throughout the pandemic and remain on call 24/7 to respond to emergencies. But anyone going on the water must understand the risks and take the necessary steps to keep themselves as safe as possible.
“During the pandemic, we must all take reasonable precautions to reduce the demands on RNLI and independent lifeboat crews, the Coastguard, and other emergency services. In an emergency though, please do not hesitate to call 999 and ask for the Coastguard.”
Further safety advice can be found at https://rnli.org/safety or by emailing: Water_Safety@rnli.org.uk
