Haverfordwest tragic SUP accident.

Yes, of course. But this could be rolled into some sort of directory like it is for surfing. If I want to go surfing I can find beaches that say ‘good for beginners’ or ‘expert only’ or something, and it will list the possible hazards under what conditions. If there are hazards listed then I, as a beginner, will steer clear.

The problem is that ‘possible hazards under different conditions’, and that’s the dynamic risk assessment that’s hard to quantify and write down. UK Rivers Guidebook is good for splitting stuff down, they separate by river grade and have fairly comprehensive descriptions of rivers and sections, but other than the Touring sections, they’re mainly aimed at whitewater paddling, not necessarily stuff you’d want to be doing in an inflatable.

It’s nigh-on impossible to quantify what hazards under what conditions because they can vary so much and they’re subjective: there’s loose gauge definitions of low/medium/high etc but the calibration is often variable – “Local’s low” might feel like medium or high to everyone else – I know locally runs that are still good fun and perfectly nice when they’re listed at ‘scrape’ on the gauges.

I didn’t find any such sites for paddling.

Ukriversguideb9ok was an excellent site set up by Mark many years ago to provide info about river paddling in the UK.

Since the production of multiple half decent guidebooks in the last decades it has become less noteworthy, but at the time it was world beating.

I have a normal sit in kayak that I take on the canal, but I’m often eyeing up the local river. Unfortunately there are regular weirs. I understand the main danger of them regarding the boil point and being unable to escape. But what other dangers are there. Are they doable in good conditions, or is it always best to go round them. How close can you get before you have to commit? What about fish passes? They look about kayak width…

@jambourgie

I would suggest joining a local club, go out for some paddles and you can learn in reasonable safety.

A good club Sat/Sun paddle will be led, you will get out and look at features, hazards identified and line to aim for, somebody will normally demonstrate. There will be people on the bank with throw lines to rescue at specific points. Local knowledge is invaluable. UKRGB has information on popular rivers which can be useful.

If they do any training days go along, even just volunteering to be rescued you will learn a lot!

Running rivers without stopping is an amazing feeling, but even with experienced paddlers accidents happen.

I have often wandered what the purpose of many of these weirs is? Sure, a hundred years ago many were built to provide water to local industry, however much of this has long gone. So, do these weirs serve any purpose?
Our local river has a small weir that was to supply water to a mill, which closed 50 years ago, yet the weir is still there.
I have watched some interesting clips on t’internet about the removal of redundant hydro electric dams in USA in order to allow wildlife to prosper.
Would this be a sensible thing to do to some redundant weirs here?
(Not meaning that to be a knee jerk reaction to last weeks events, just a general observation from an environmental point of view, and remembering my parents going nuts at me when we used to play down by the old weir…)

MCTD:

Faux-by-four?

🙂 thats much better…

I have often wandered what the purpose of many of these weirs is?

You’re quite right to question many of them.

There’s quite a movement elsewhere in the world to open up rivers again without these artificial barriers. Particularly when the justification for them was many decades ago, and may not be needed or stand up these days.

Sad but very interesting thread. Seems like there is a need for some kind of sports x physics x geography lesson to be taught at schools. Would be more interesting than the standard river bend geography forced on kids right now.

I have often wandered what the purpose of many of these weirs is

The Haverfordwest weir conveys a gas main across the river but aside from that, doesn’t serve a hydrological purpose apart from maintaining upstream levels for an aesthetic reason.

Truly awful tragedy.

Those videos have given me the fear.

Having watched people sup all summer long at Prestwick and Shewlaton woods, I was desperate to give it a go. It took a while to be able to get on an instructor led introduction session. It was cancelled twice due to weather conditions. The occasion we did actually get to do it, they moved us from Maidens to the River Doon in Ayr that morning, again because of the weather outlook.
Haven’t actually splurged on any equipment, we all agreed we’d rather take a few more lessons and hire decent boards, wetsuits, buoyancy aids etc. It’s definitely ‘good’ to have a reminder of the dangers though.

People seem to like them as some kind of industrial heritage thing. They restored one in Ludlow a while back.

Would this be a sensible thing to do to some redundant weirs here?

It would, and in some cases is being done. There’s a project on the Dee (N Wales) to fully or partially remove some weirs, and on the Ribble near Preston.

The Ribble weir was built in the 1970s to measure the flow in the river and is now redundant. They could calculate, from the depth of water on the lip, how much was flowing. I’m guessing there’s another way to do it now.

In fact, if you Google ‘weir removal uk’ there’s lots of info. It seems it’s often driven by helping fish migration, not avoiding people drowning.

@thegeneralist

2 metre waves? I don’t believe you…

What don’t you believe? I’ve been there and seen it for myself – waves taller than I am (I’m 1.83m tall if you want to be pedantic) on more than one occasion too.

When the wind conditions align with the shape of the valley in the top half of the loch you can get 10 mile fetch, and its really deep there so no restriction to the formation of waves so with sustained 50 mph winds you will get significant wave heights of >2m.

Now its probably more likely that on any particular day the fetch is 3-5 miles because of the shape of the loch, the islands and the prevailing wind. To get significant wave heights of 2m with a 5 mi fetch you need a sustained 60mph wind (over deep water) which is probably about the worst it gets except in truly exceptional conditions. BUT that’s only for the significant wave height – which is a statistical average of the biggest 1/3rd of waves – like all averages there are many waves which are bigger. The stats mean you can expect waves double that height occasionally and 1:100 waves that are 1.67x it. So same situation only needs about a 40mph ish wind to generate a 2m about every 6 minutes. And even a 3mile fetch over shallower water (so south of the islands), 45mph will get you very occasional 2m waves. Thats all without considering any of the weird stuff that goes on as waves get forced round headlands or between islands.

I’m not saying people would go supping or kayaking in a F8 but the loch is very much not a flat pond.

Hi Poly.
I didn’t believe you can get 2m waves on a piece of water that big. 2m is immense IMHO.
BTW, I’m totally in agreement that the Loch can be choppy and very dangerous. I’m just in awe of the notion that you can get overhead waves on LL.

Having said all of which, you’ve put some interesting, detailed numbers there to show it is something you clearly know a lot about, so I’ve now moved my position to slightly sceptical amazement 🙂

So, do these weirs serve any purpose?

Sad to say, but I think the biggest purpose they serve nowadays is to discourage kayakers and other tiny craft. The fact is there are stacks of rivers in the UK that are just pancake flat slogs interspersed with weir portage. If they removed the weirs then the number of amazing grade 2 classics in the UK would increase a hundredfold.
Which of course the landowners and fishermen deeply don’t want, so they will generally fight it tooth and nail.

but there were extensive and active rain and flood warnings in place. the comment about an ‘out of the blue’ downpour doesn’t make any sense.

I’m in Swansea, about 60 miles along the coast, but here it had been very heavily raining for most of the previous week – my waterproof boots had been dried out twice, and our extremely regular night ride was called off. There had been plenty of flooding all around here. Saturday morning was extremely windy, as it had been for most of the week, and I got soaked through up at Afan that morning even though it was mainly blue sky. (I joked with one of my daughters that it was a perfect day for a paddle that morning. Even with her level of inexperience she could see what I meant.)

There was most definitely NOT an ‘out of the blue’ downpour, unless he meant the storm which had blown through for the previous week.

Late to this one, like others i’ve got a bit of experience both teaching kayaking and getting into bad situations through my own fault. I stopped WW paddling in 204 after being pinned and having to cut myself out my boat, as close as I could have come to dying and entirely my own fault. I’m quite qualified as well !

Weirs are evil things and the hydraulics and issues with them are myriad and not easy to explain or indeed see on first look. Most of it has been explained here. Open water is also interesting – I surfski a lot and have had some tremendous downwind runs on lochs – one on Loch Tay in 2019 when it was easily 1.5m trough to crest. Not unusual and also not predictable in some cases. It’s a terrible tragedy frankly but moving water requires the utmost respect.

Firstly, the SUP incident at the weekend sounds horrendous for all involved and for the families. Let’s hope that there are some sensible learning points that come out of any inquest into it.

With regard to comments above around finding “safe” places to paddle water craft, what many new people fail to fully appreciate is the amount of variables involved. If you go for a walk or a basic mountain bike ride you can see if the ground is dry and loose or perhaps wet and muddy, or whether it’s flat, uphill or downhill. But this is all visible stuff and is “on the surface”. With moving water, it’s important to understand what might also be underneath or on the edges of the waterway you’re using. We do not inherently have this knowledge and it takes time to build it up. Add in wind, cooler than expected water temperatures, other floating objects and there a lot more things to consider.

Humans are pretty well adapted to basic land activities, but we’re not as natural in water. As a few have pointed out above, our usual mental image of messing about in the sea or on rivers or lakes is a sunny, still day with sunshine and relatively warm water. In the UK it may not be like that. Water is more of an alien environment and if you combine cold water shock with not knowing how certain water features occur (e.g. a riptide at a beach) then normal thinking around how to swimming to safety may not be the ideal solution.

For rivers there is a grading system that is reasonably clear as a “guide”. However that is all it is, and you still have to be acutely aware that it may be different on the day you paddle. High river flows will often re-shape a rapid or bank, branches and other detritus can be trapped and become lethal. The grading system is based on the river being “bank full” so not in flood but not low. Depending on whether a river is higher or lower, that could make certain features more or less tricky and change grades considerably.

For beginners getting involved with paddle sports, I’d really recommend getting involved with a local club to learn the basics, particularly if they operate on the stretches of water you want to use in your leisure time. Even the basic knowledge about wearing bouyancy aids, what to check for when getting on/off the water would be useful.

The weir videos above just show how something relatively innocous looking can be lethal, whereas something big may be okay in the right circumstances.

There’s a weir on the River Inn in Austria which has a truly evil and terrifying weir on it. It’s only about 10 feet high, but the river is canalised in the run in to it, it’s a highly uniform structure and the pool and banks below offer little chance to get close to a swimmer with a line. Still gives me the heebie-jeebies every time I see it.

Weir on River Inn

Weirs have been used to maintain and control river levels for agriculture and to support flood prevention – the Thames weirs are there for flood management.

If that’s the one on the lower Oetz, the (possibly apocryphal) story goes that it was specifically designed to kill people.

It’s an anti-scour design, which puts an upright lip or set of blocks on the concrete river bed about 8-10 metres downstream that makes the recirculation much nastier, but helps reduce the damage the current after the weir does to the riverbed. If it’s the one I think it is, it can (and has) swallowed a whitewater raft full of people.

@Pyro, yep, that’s the one I was thinking of although I thought it was the Inn and not the Oetz (I haven’t paddled over there for 15+ years so you’re probably right). I have also heard the story about the raft and wouldn’t be surprised.

Pyro, Straightener ( and indeed anyone else who paddled serious WW in the past)

Do you still?
If so, how long have you been doing so?

If not, why did you stop?

Sadly no longer although still have the kit for the odd paddle at the coast or a gentle river somewhere.

To some extent I drifted away from it a little, taking up biking as an alternative and doing things that were more easy to do from home and at the drop of a hat.

Biggest problem for me was living in the south-east with wife/family and the increasing challenge of getting away at weekends AND having water to paddle on. Without the flexibility/spontaneity to go and make the most of heavy rain, it becomes much less enjoyable. I carried on paddling the Thames weirs for a bit but then moved further from them.

Now I notice how non-paddle fit I am and how much I would have to train different muscles to get back to a half decent level, and then add in a load of practice to sharpen up the skills.

Hi @thegeneralist

I still paddle, very much so. I’ve been boating 30-something years, started as a very small child in the 1980s. I’m not paddling whitewater to quite the same level as I have in the past, the pandemic limited activities with our club and I’m a bit out of practice, but I never pushed massively high grades anyway. I’ve run the odd grade 5 when I was at my peak and on form (and if it felt right on the day) but they were few and far between. I never got much enjoyment out of scaring the crap out of myself, I prefer to run good G3-4 in decent control than feel out of control on anything higher. Yes, I’m a wimp.

Pyro, Straightener ( and indeed anyone else who paddled serious WW in the past)

Do you still?
If so, how long have you been doing so?

If not, why did you stop?

there are old paddlers, and there are bold paddlers…

one on Loch Tay in 2019 when it was easily 1.5m trough to crest.

Whoop! Having worked on Loch Tay for 5 years, I could believe that in places,

I often sailed in 1m waves on there.

Interesting. Can totally relate to that reasoning, and it’s not what I was expecting in relation to the thread.

I’ve never paddled to a high standard, but have been on what I would class as scary rivers. Likewise a lot of my climbing mates did dabble in kayaking as it seemed like a good companion activity to climbing.

Almost to a man they’ve all given up as it was too dangerous. These are people who would solo ice climbs, or 100 routes in a day, climbed a fair bit in the Andes and all over the world, happily run it out on dodgy rock/ice above non existent belays, and yet they deemed paddling as an unjustifiable risk.

I can’t recall the exact timing, but I think it was just before Knees’ accident that I gave up as I just didn’t have enough spare time to get and stay good, and always being the weakest person on a river is not a good place to be.

I’ve got an inflatable kayak and keep wanting to take the kids out, but then always end up asking myself what I’d do if he enjoyed it and took it up seriously.

Still got my kit, and would love to take it up again if we retire to the Lakes and my time/fitness pendulum swings in the other direction….

Do you still?
If so, how long have you been doing so?

Started on the sea in 1980, done slalom K1 & C1, polo, river running, surf. It was kids which stopped most of it until they got big enough to paddle too. Still paddle rivers, but most of my miles are now at sea again.

Pyro, Straightener ( and indeed anyone else who paddled serious WW in the past)

Do you still?
If so, how long have you been doing so?

If not, why did you stop?

I paddled a lot on rivers until hoppy jr was born. I was doing the big N Wales runs and pushing grades, then when hoppy jr was 3 months old I had 2 friends drowned in the space of 2 days and I’ve barely paddled a river boat since. As a time served boater I’d lost a number of friends before but this was different because of the situation I was in and I couldn’t be so selfish any more. They weren’t on hard rivers and they were well inside their comfort zones. Made me realise that I was getting to a point where a small mistake might stop me coming home.

I played polo and sea boated for a while after but stopped as I did more MTB because it is far more time efficient and less reliant on good conditions.

Hoppy jr is 10 now and is starting to get interested in paddling, we’ve done his 1st proper moving water trip on gd 2 river and he wants to do more. I have a playboat but am thinking I might need something more sensible in the future if he’s really keen.

Hoppy jr is 10 now and is starting to get interested in paddling, we’ve done his 1st proper moving water trip on gd 2 river and he wants to do more.

Interesting. Do you feel conflicted about potentially getting him hooked on something so risky?

anyone else who paddled serious WW in the past

Do you count Gr 4 in a C1 as serious? I did a couple of 4’s in high water (eg, Middle Guil, Ogwen) and remember feeling nervous about them, about the same as I did climbing. Never did a 5 unless too low to count for the grade, I always felt a 5 in proper condition was too dangerous. Haven’t done a 4 in the last 15 years, I didn’t really decide to stop, just ended up doing something else. I now mostly paddle sea kayak and open canoe, I’d happily paddle a Gr 3.

As a middle class T5 owner who’s planning to buy a SUP, am I going to survive the summer. It’s intend for the kids (all good swimmers) to jump off in small lakes in France and Spain with BAs (think max Grasmere sized rather than Windermere) and maybe for me to go on the canals around home. No intention of using it at sea or on a river. I had an incident when I was younger were I was left to drift out to sea by a dodgy windsurf school and was put off water sports for 2O years. I’m now a decent open water swimmer and swim outside through the winter. I don’t see this having the same risks discussed in this thread other than those you associate swimming and playing in open water or am I missing something.

Interesting. Do you feel conflicted about potentially getting him hooked on something so risky?

I don’t think it’s that risky at the level he’d be at for a good while and if he’s playboating or doing slalom or WWR (god help us) then it isn’t risky anyway. If not then it’s a really good way of understanding how to identify and manage risk. Its useful in real life. I’d rather he’s doing that than going out bazzing round in cars or doing the lads, lads, lads booze and drugs thang.

I would consider myself a proficient paddler, but my god this thread has opened my eyes.

I’m a placid water paddler/racer so I’ve never really had to consider the dangers, to the people considering paddling but worried about the dangers, I find paddling fun even on the canal and would recommend it to anyone.

I’ve always fancied doing more whitewater, but living in Cannock it’s a decent trek to anything other than Jackfields, I’ve been down Nottingham WW course and JJ Canoeing in Llangollen but both of them are an hour+ away.
I certainly wouldn’t be going somewhere local without an expert though.

I have a paddleboard and use it in lakes, the med and my local river the Tarn , southern france . Always in the summer and we come off the water just before the weir at the bottom of my garden . All the weirs have a canoe ramp .
Looking at the pictures of the accident , there is no way I would have gone in the water with a river like that ;

doing slalom or WWR (god help us) then it isn’t risky anyway.

Slalom I’d agree is low risk, there are people all round on the bank. WWR, there’s nobody on the bank and the next paddler is 1 minute away, won’t have a throwline and probably won’t be able stop until well past you, so a bit more risky, but there shouldn’t be unknown hazards.

But apart from the fact that almost nobody does WWR any more, why ‘god help us’?

But apart from the fact that almost nobody does WWR any more, why ‘god help us’?

Apart from it being fairly dead, and dull, a lad I used to paddle with used to race for GB, even then his dad spent a decent amount of time patching his boat up. You may be away from a throw line but it’s generally not that hard water on the courses. We took said lad out on a chilled but big water day in N Wales and he spent it with his eyes on stalks.

Pyro, Straightener (and indeed anyone else who paddled serious WW in the past)

I was super keen in my Youth –  I think we were possibly the second or third group of Brits to run the Otztal after the late Mike Jones and Birmingham Uni. If I’ve got my rivers right there is (or was) a massive killer weir on that river, that Mike Jones shot. When we got to the weir there was a fully grown tree just rolling over and over trapped in the stopper. We portaged, but found out later how he did it.

I’ve had few visits to the ‘green room’* (as we used to call it) in my time. I still paddle occasionally, but my right shoulder is shagged/worn out, so I’m limited to short river trips.

As others have said you need to take care, get some coaching and join a club.

AKA ‘Gods waiting room’. Happens when you’re out of the boat stuck in a stopper, disorientated and panicking. Not recommended.

Do you feel conflicted about potentially getting him hooked on something so risky?

I would argue the risk of injury is greater in MTB.

Paddlesports, with some training and experience, are safe. That’s why we don’t have tragedies like this one regularly. And we don’t have that many serious accidents compared to other adventure sports. There’s a strong safety culture, much like climbing.

What is more common is people with a lack of knowledge and experience to make judgements, or accidents leading too, people finding themselves in scary water.

FWIW, even as young children mine floated down grade 1&2 water on the Tay, Spey and Dee in thier own kayaks, or paired up in old town 119 canoes.

It was, without doubt, a tragic incident and, but for this thread I would have been pretty oblivious to the hidden dangers in weirs and rivers. Living in a valley, with the temperamental River Calder at it’s base, this knowledge is what should be imparted at schools. The lure of water in summer is strong for kids.

And excuse my morbid curiosity for googling, but it does appear that our local river has claimed a poor soul.

https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/canoe-accident-death-5038293

All my kids have had a stern talking to tonight about this.

Great thread everyone.
I’ve been paddling WW kayaks for about 30 years on and off. Got a good skills and safety basis through BCU based training programmes then went to Uni and paddled loads for 4 years.
On and off after that, then bought an open boat when the sprogs came along and loved learning to paddle that and move it onto WW.

See 3.10 for an interesting example of a local weir. I’ve heard some kayakers do not run it as there is an undercut ledge which they can get caught in – the big boat ploughs right through!

It’s good to chat about the dangers of water sports and the only good thing about tragedies like this is they stimulate conversations for us all to learn from.
Lots of random thoughts (some controversial) about this situation, I also bought an iSUP last summer!
The media express it as surprising that they were out in heavy rain/weather warning – this is what most WW paddlers look for to make many rivers possible therefore not a danger in itself.
Brought back thoughts of 2 other significant tragedies in the water sport world – Lyme Bay and Gairloch.
Lyme Bay led to AALA, which has had a major impact on the way that outdoor activities have been delivered to children in the UK ever since.
As a discussion point, I would like to see data (doubt it exists) as to how many lives have been saved versus how much less “fun/life enhancing experience” has been had due to this legislation. Many smaller organisations could no longer deliver adventure experiences due to the limits set by AALA. I realise this is a value based judgement but Covid has made many of us think about risk and acceptable levels of mortality within society.
Gairloch led to many interesting discussion within my family about how to stay safe when out in the canoe – some very interesting discussion here – https://www.songofthepaddle.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=433177#p433177
I vividly remember Garry Mackay coming onto that forum and trying to persuade the community that all kids should wear Life Jackets as opposed to Buoyancy Aids when canoeing. Folks had to gently tell him that this was not always appropriate and that we would not fully support his campaign to make this happen.
So I hope that we all learn from this sad tragedy but we don’t get put off getting out there and enjoying the water in a safe and fun way. Life is a risk/benefit analysis!

Absolutely agree that it shouldn’t put people (and offspring) off doing paddlesports, but you have to learn (perhaps slowly) about how different the environment can be.

When I were a lad (~15 or 16 years old) and started paddling through school and the local club, there was no internet and teaching was from the older guys in the club. Through regular pool sessions the youngsters picked up the ability to roll quite quickly and also understood the support strokes well enough, but their river skills were poor. The older contingent knew more about rivers but couldn’t roll so river trips could be quite entertaining. The group of youngsters also pushed each other on to learn and improve, and skills were added quickly.

As we all got driving licences and cars, we were able to explore more (north Wales, mid Wales, some south Wales trips plus HPP) and push the grades more. Rodeo/freestyle was new, Shaun Baker was making a name for himself jumping off waterfalls and steeper rivers were being explored and paddled in shorter boats.

We went on training courses, but a lot of skills were picked up trying things out and testing stuff in relatively safe spots. Practicing swimming, throw line rescue, getting boats out from pinned positions was stuff we did to get better in case we ever needed it.

For me it gave me a much better ability to assess risk and provide that balance between normal day to day life and excitement through being challenged. For me, that’s the best thing you can provide to youngsters and to do it through sport or another controlled environment is hugely important.