Words: Paul Hyman

Photos: Active360 & Robin Boot Photography

Paul Hyman

Bio

Paul is a lifelong environmentalist and has been invloved in watersports and outdoor adventure activities since the age of 18. For many years he was a keen scuba diver, kayaker and underwater hockey player. Paul is a long standing BCU Level 3 coach. Between 1999 and 2009 he set up three London Canoe Clubs all of which are still active and continue to grow.

Paul set up Active360 in 2011 to establish SUP in London and bring together his love for water sports and passion for protection of marine environments. Through paddleboarding, Paul has instroduced many people first hand to the threats facing marine environments and encouraged many to become engaged in protecting rivers and oceans. Paul promotes environmental engagement in everything he does.

Paul has paddled in India, Greenland, Iceland, Myanmar, Scotland, Thailand, Slovenia and Sardinia but always loves to return home to the Thames where he feels most at home and on which he has spent much of his life.

In 2017 Paul set up Plastice Ocean Festival and in 2018 he became a co-founder of In The Drink – a scheme to replace single use plastic cups (a major and growing source of plastic pollution) in Thames waterside bars with re-usable alternatives.

Safety device or a death trap?

What could possibly go wrong?
A few thoughts on leashes for rivers…

We rarely consider risks until something bad happens. It’s a nice day. The river looks lovely. I’m just going out for a paddle. I’ve done it before. What can possibly go wrong?

Why would you question using a leg leash? It’s a safety device that came with your board. As many individuals and organisations have said for years, ‘leashes save lives’. Surfers use them all the time. And SUP, in its modern form, grew from surfing. You see people paddling with leg leashes everywhere, and the one in your SUP board bag was free and kindly provided by the manufacturer to keep you safe.

Has anyone ever suggested that you practise fastening and unfastening the leash so you can remove it in a hurry? Why would you need to? And after all, it’s just a piece of Velcro – everyone knows it’s simple to fasten and unfasten it. But has anyone ever mentioned that you could get into a tricky situation where you may not be able to reach your velcro strap? No. This information doesn’t come with your SUP package. Nobody talks about risks and dangers.

Now imagine you are being dragged underwater by your leg. Your leash has got wrapped around a buoy or a moored boat or a pontoon. You are attached to your board with water piling against it. The pressure is building up, and your leg is dragging you. You can’t breathe. Your head is underwater, and panic is setting in. You can’t reach your leg, and you have lost orientation in the murky water, so you are not quite sure what’s happening to you. You feel you are being dragged down, but everything is happening so quickly. You are not physically strong enough to pull yourself to reach your leg. This is serious – you may die here.

It seems improbable, but precisely that has happened numerous times. Some have been rescued and survived, and others have not. Whitewater kayakers know the feeling of being underwater, trapped and dragged – they have a bit more experience dealing with it – they know the feeling of panic setting in. And sadly, most long experienced whitewater kayakers knew someone who has died doing what they loved.

Many would say now that whitewater kayaking and river SUP are not comparable in terms of risks. It’s whitewater – whitewater can be dangerous. What’s dangerous about rivers? That’s true in a sense, but with the increase in popularity of SUP and SUP paddlers getting out more exploring all bodies of water, accidents with leg leashes are getting more frequent and in places not considered dangerous in any way.

Sam Foyle

Sam Foyle first contacted me in early 2021. We were in lockdown then and not paddling. Sam told me how his best friend Simon Flynn had drowned on the Camel Estuary in Cornwall in August 2020. He had borrowed Sam’s board and gone paddling on a perfect summers day in ideal conditions. The current didn’t look particularly strong and certainly not dangerous. Simon was on a narrow part of the estuary and lost his balance. He ended up in the water on the side of a moored boat with his board on the other side. He was attached by the leg and fighting to reach his leash. By the time help came, Simon was unconscious and unresponsive to CPR and subsequent defibrillation.

Sam has lost his friend and made it his mission to send a safety message to prevent further leash accidents by making sure people understand the risks of leg leashes on moving water. Sam’s mission is very close to my heart as at Active360; we made a conscious decision not to use leashes on the river with novice paddlers. If we use leashes, they are always quick release (QR) leashes. Active360 has been called ‘cowboys’ and in the past been criticised for being ‘anti leash’. That was never true, and our leash policy (published eight years ago on our website) clarifies that we support the appropriate use of leashes.

Tidal Thames

This recommendation was based on 30+ years of experience on the Tidal Thames, understanding the river well and its risks. We always use buoyancy aids with our customers as they are the only safety devices that will prevent drowning and will not present a risk of entanglement. We inform our customers and, whenever possible, explain to everyone why we don’t use leg leashes. The main coaches and directors in Active360 all have backgrounds in whitewater and tidal kayaking, so we understand rivers well, and we are clear about the risks.

Sam has a chance to take his message further, having a powerful justification for his demand – his friend lost his life due to a leg leash. Sam wants SUP manufacturers to supply only QR (quick release) leashes, allowing the wearer to jettison their board in an entanglement situation. Sam asked if we could help raise awareness through our connections in the industry and a long-standing history of teaching SUP on the Tidal Thames. It’s worrying how many SUP paddlers are going out on the Thames using leg leashes, unaware of the risks they may present.

Sam commented, “When a novice buys a £350 SUP board without the correct advice and the proper leash for use on rivers, they may think that by putting on the ankle leash, when they go on the River Thames, it is for their safety, and they may not be informed of the dangers that an ankle leash may present in that environment. They need to be informed about the dangers. In my view the manufacturers need to take action – now – without delay! I watched my best friend drown. He thought by attaching his ankle leash, he was set up safely.”

When Sam first contacted me, I thought of the paddlers I see daily going out on the Thames Tideway in leg leashes. They mostly look self-taught and do their best to navigate a stretch of river with powerful but often deceiving as not necessarily fast-moving currents if you set off at specific tide stages. The volume of water on a big river can create the risk – not the speed of the current.

Port of London Authority

It’s great to see more people out there being active and enjoying the river. But I do have concerns about their safety, and the Port of London Authority (PLA) share those concerns. They see rapid growth in paddlesports and see the potential for a rise in incidents and potential drownings. Last year, at least one reported local near-miss incident when two SUP paddlers, clearly beginners, were nearly dragged under a pontoon after strong currents pulled their boards under while they struggled to release leg ankle leashes.

Inexpensive extra option

We are contacting SUP brands/distributors to ask them to only supply quick release (QR) leashes with the board or make this an inexpensive extra option at the time of purchase.

British Canoeing (BC) – the only NGB for paddlesports in the UK seems to have a growing influence over SUP. We would like BC to clarify their current advice on leg leashes, currently only recommending QR leashes on ‘moving/flowing water including rivers, tidal rivers and estuaries, tidal races, white water rivers’ and still recommending calf or ankle leash, i.e. leg leashes on ‘slow-moving deepwater rivers’.

This advice can be confusing for novice SUP paddlers. How can a novice paddler – let alone a reasonably experienced paddler assess the level of flow to decide whether it presents a risk? It takes years of river experience to do this accurately. The flow in our local river – the Thames, varies from hour to hour on the tidal section and the non-tidal section; a few weeks of intermittent but heavy rain can significantly affect flow rates and, subsequently, the levels of risk.

With climate change, we see more extreme rainfall events, leading to the rain we might expect in a week to fall in less than a day.
The advice on leg leashes needs to be simple and unambiguous – leg leashes are not suitable for use on rivers.

Sam has had some initial success with McConks paddleboards immediately providing QR leashes with all SUP sales. Soon after, Gladiator SUP and FatStick became the following brands to agree to switch. I called my old friend Alex Tobutt, STX and Naish distributor, and he was straight away positive about only supplying QR next year and is taking the message forward. The other big brands are a work in progress. We are in discussion with a number of the major brands, but most have been slow to respond and providing unclear instructions on leash selection, which novices will find confusing.

We still hope more will follow, and by the 2023 season, all significant brands will be supplying only QR leashes.

Types of QR leash

There are two types of QR…

1. A QR waist belt to which you can attach your standard leg leash – this QR waist belt has a toggle that you can pull to release the whole belt with your leash attached to it
2. A QR designed to attach to a buoyancy aid – this is a karabiner with a QR toggle mechanism – this can be attached directly to your buoyancy aid or a waist belt

In our experience, both can work well for different situations. As we always use buoyancy aids on the Tideway, I prefer type 2 on this stretch of river, but we understand that not everyone wants to wear a buoyancy aid (although the PLA strongly advises it). Also, in some situations, e.g. intensive training in mild/warm conditions (race training), they can increase the risk of overheating and potentially fainting, so a waistbelt QR can be more suitable.

If you already have a SUP board and it came with a leg leash – it’s very easy to turn a leg leash into a QR leash by buying an inexpensive QR waist belt. QR waist belts are now widely available online for around £15- £20.

If you have not tried a QR leash, you may want to try one soon. They are, if anything, more convenient than leg leashes and certainly not difficult to get used to. Perhaps a leg leash is best for surfing, but SUP surfing probably accounts for less than 1% of SUP participation, and I’m not a SUP surfer, so I wouldn’t want to comment.