Year: 2010

I did some training with Chris Dickinson of Spean Bridge. I don’t get enough opportunities to get onto higher grade white water rivers and it was great fun to try some new rivers with people who are enthusiasic about the sport. Unlike with low level coaching courses which are often populated with people who work for councils, the leadership awards are generally for people who are strongly into canoeing. 5 Star Leader is pretty similar to 4 Star Leader but on heavier water.

We started out on the River Roy and ended up doing the entire length of it. The rain was on much of the day and the water was rising throughout. While at 4 star level you have four or so hand signals, at 5 star water grades (3-4 with some 5) the chances of needing to communicate complex commands at distance is much higher and we were given a list of about 20 commands to find signals for. We did some skills which I found very easy, maybe the slalom that I’ve done means I can put my boat on a desired wave on demand without having to think about it. We also did some foward paddling tuition which most of the other paddlers had never done but is the sort of thing I do every day in a racing boat. So crossing over disciplines does help a lot. Curious that my skills were marked as being very high when on my 4 star assessment they were considered my weak point, maybe I’ve improved a lot with more hours on the water recently or maybe there’s just a high degree of chance. On an especially large wave in a gorge section I was folling a paddler who capsized and swam which put me off at just the wrong time that I was soon in the water too, although I tried a roll a few times the water was too airated for it to work and I came out, most disappointing. By the end of the day the river was in spate and we had to paddle fast to get to the egress before it became too dangerous. The get out involved using microeddies behind trees and a steep climb up banks with roaps, quite an impressive team effort.

The evening was spent discussing interesting topics like catchment areas and flow rates and finding rivers.

Spean gorge was our paddle on day two and was a large river in lovely surroundings. We did some rescue scenarios which are always worth practicing. At the grade 5 rapid I had another capsize but made the roll which kept me happy. My leadership wasn’t as good as I had hoped, it’s hard to find the balance between instructing people and giving them free rein within boundaries, on coaching and leadership courses such as this people are usual feel the need to follow orders rather than use their own experience, on real paddles the opposite is true with experienced paddlers. We learned an interesting double roll, if you feel your first roll is failing you can swap the paddle blade round quickly and use the momentum to help you roll up on the other side. I’ve tried this in a pool since and you have to be very quick and preferably have nose and ear clips to stop your head filling with water. We also did a draw stroke on the move which is something I should practice more. We learnt why hanging draws are a bad idea, there’s a risk of objects in the water hitting the paddle, I’m glad of this since I never saw the point of a hanging draw anyway. We covered an eddy spin move which is using eddies to spin your boat quicky and gracefully so you can get a view of the complete river without losing too much forward momentum. Finally we stopped and listened to the sound of nature and considered ourselves lucky for being canoeists who can see it close up from a view few others can.

All good fun and very interesting. I highly recommend Chris as a coach. Now I just need to find 30 paddling days on high grade white water to be able to pass the 5 star assessment.

Today I received my certificate for BCU UKCC Level 2 Coach. This means I am now qualified (according to the BCU) to coach canoeing in sheltered water. Of course I’ve been doing this for the last couple of years anyway but I do feel a lot more capable now I’ve gone through the courses. It is a lot of hassle though and a lot of time (I did my Level 2 training over a year ago).

The Training

I don’t remember much about this, it was over a year ago and it was very cold, possibly not best done at the end of November. There were four days of training, some classroom based, one pool based session and plenty of outdoor sessions. There’s some new teaching styles, a breakdown of practice styles and an emphasis on observation and improvement rather than following a pre-set plan.

The Other Bits

Between training and assessment there are a load of pre-assessment tasks. Managing the paperwork, finding courses and people to help with these is a significant undertaking. The BCU’s paperwork is full of mistakes and inconsistencies as usual which doesn’t help.

The first task is a supporting module which means three hours of computer slides, in this case about coaching children and young people. Not terribly interesting, would have been more useful if there actually were some young people to coach rather than just slides explaining what menarche is.

You have to do a course in safeguarding children. Just finding where this course is being held is a struggle, I was pointed at a web page that listed dates from previous years but no future dates. Hidden in SportScotland’s website under a link for 2009 was the dates for 2010. Another three hours of not very interesting computer slides and exercises. Only interesting thing was noting that the British people there were far more paranoid about paedophilia than the continental Europeans in the room.

Then there was the Long Term Paddler Development web module. This website was full of so many inconsistencies, typos, missing text and repeated text that I sent a complaint to the chair of the SCA coaching committee (no reply), the SCA coaching coordinator (who told me I could find the answers in a book, despite everything saying the answers are on the website) and the BCU (who said they incorporated my long list of corrections and will review the site, we’ll see). The quiz to pass the module can only be attempted once every 24 hours and because it asks questions that don’t have answers on the website I had to fill it in about a dozen times before I passed. The content is minimal too, I can see the point of being aware that top athletes start as children and vary their training with age until they become elite but that could be covered in one diagram. Adding on recreation to the mix is an obvious late attempt to make it relevant to the majority of canoeists (non competitors) which doesn’t work at all. Very frustrating and a complete waste of time.

First aid training was interesting and fun. Having an outdoors course is important.

The most important bit is the six progressive sessions. Finding punters to follow the sessions is difficult and finding a mentor who is suitably qualified and has the time to watch and review the sessions plus go over all the paperwork is tricky too. After a couple of false starts I did get a group going (the trick is to get them to pay in advance, else they won’t commit). Writing lesson plans is surprisingly time consuming but a useful exercise in getting good sessions.

On top of that there is another 10 hours of kayak and 10 hours of Canadian coaching to do. Easy enough since I’ve been running club nights this year and doing various trips.

The Assessment

The assessment at Glenmore Lodge starts the day before with a session collecting the multitude of paperwork together. After going through it all I discover I’m missing my supporting module certificate, instant fail. You have two sessions with real students. Although the paperwork says you will be contacted before to work out what students you have and what sessions to plan for, this isn’t true. We were told the night before and I spent a late night planning. You are meant to show a good range of teaching styles, observation and all the other necessities of running a good session. In the end I pitched some stuff too high for the students and didn’t show good observation. Then on my personal skills I ended up not being able to control a Canadian on a windy loch, turns out I’m not a very experienced Canadian canoeist, shame I had to find out on the assessment.

So a few months later I did another assessment in Wales. They also didn’t tell us what to expect beforehand so I planned a couple of sessions which didn’t get used. Instead we met the students on the morning and did the sessions after 20 minutes planning time. Strangely they went much better, I was able to put my knowledge of slalom to good use. One student was notably cheeky (“I’m a three star paddler”, “I’m warmed up now”) which helped because I could show her what she didn’t know.

However I didn’t do the warm up before moving boats. I also didn’t bother with helmets for anyone since it was flat water. Doing warm up before moving boats is logical (moving boats is the most strenuous part of these sessions) but I’ve never seen any professional or amateur coach do it. Likewise helmets for flat water seem excessively hassleful but I guess you have to cover your back and there might be hidden objects in the water. After arguing the points the assessor took pity and passed me.

After several weeks of asking I got a replacement from the SCA for the supporting module certificate I had lost on my first assessment. This was then sent back to the SCA along with all the rest of my certificates so they could sign me off as having enough certificates. What a messy system. It then took 3 months for the BCU to send me the final coaching certificate. I wonder what they spend three months doing.

Conclusion

I’ve definitely become a better coach from doing the courses. The mess of paperwork is horrible. The amount of bits that need done is a hassle, but I’m not sure what one I’d remove. Oh yes, Long Term Paddler Development, get rid of that for sure.

The latest revelations sent to RiddellLeaks have revealed the inner discussions of the High Commission in Sierra Leone. Having not resolved their incorrect e-mail address after the previous shocking leak new e-mails keeps coming into our leakers address, riddell@gmail.

Today’s leaked e-mail shows how the High Commission is trying to influence the democratic process of Sierra Leone by seeking a meeting with officials regarding their road widening scheme. Not only is the British High Commission involved in this foreign interfearence in a soverign state but the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs is involved too and an unspecified wing of the EU. Western corruption at it’s worst!

(OK, nothing very interesting really in this e-mail except 1) FCO continue to send e-mails to the wrong e-mail addresses even once I’ve already informed them 2) Interesting confirmation at the extent China is investing in Africa, “China Railway Seventh Group” are doing the road widening, I wonder what they want in return. 3) Impressive how putting “URGENT” in the subject of an e-mail means I automatically ignore it, checking my inbox I’ve been getting these for the last couple of months.)

The UK parliament has voted to increase tuition fees for students in England. I feel very sorry for England’s future students.

As an English matter this affects the affairs of Scottish MPs in two ways, firstly the massive reduction for teaching in English unis will get passed on to the Scottish budget. Secondly Scottish MPs have constituents who are English students who will pay these fees. There is no way this vote could be seen as in any way beneficial to Scotland so any Scottish MP should either abstain or vote no. Unless they were voting as directed by their whip rather than for the good of their constituents.

Here’s the voting record. Naturally the SNP members present all voted against. So did Labour. My own MP, Ian Murray made a spectacularly bad political point which he claimed was a Point of Order. I shall now slag him off on Twitter because that’s how modern politics works. Tory boy Mundell voted for the rise.

Lib Dems, as is their style, couldn’t make up their mind. For English tuition fees: Michael Moore, Jo Swinson, Mike Crockart, Malcolm Bruce, Danny Alexander, Alistair Carmichael. Against English tuition fees: Alan Reid, Menzies Campbell, Charles Kennedy. Interesting to see the former party leaders, presumably with nothing to lose, voting for the sensible thing. Those wanting promotion and junior government posts voting against their election promises. Shame.

Strange e-mail du jour, the Foreign Office’s “Regional Overseas Security Manager & Post Aviation Security Officer” in Freetown inviting me to a meeting to discuss security issues in Sierra Leone. I’ve had quite a few e-mails intended for other people to my riddell@gmail address but I would have expected security officers to actually use secure communications like PGP encryption.

From: Tim.Parkinson@fco.gov.uk [mailto:Tim.Parkinson@fco.gov.uk] 
Sent: 22 November 2010 08:07
To: riddell@googlemail.com; franz.brandl@ec.europa.eu; v@free.auswaertiges-amt.de; Miller Karen FREETOWN EM
Subject: EU Security Meeting

Dear All,
 
I am keen to commence quarterly meetings between us to discuss security issues within SL.
I know I have met each of you individually over the past months, but a collective meeting would be useful.
 
I am hoping to have a meeting prior to Dec 6th if this is possible?
I was thinking Tuesday November 30th if this suits all parties?
 
I look forward to hearing from you, 
 
Tim Parkinson
Regional Overseas Security Manager &
Post Aviation Security Officer
Freetown,
Sierra Leone
(FTN: (8380) Ext 2241)
(Mobile: (+232) 076601001)
(e Mail: Tim.Parkinson@fco.gov.uk)

You know how sit-coms always have really forced sounding laughter over the soundtrack? That really is from an audience watching it being acted live and being forced to laugh on pain of being shouted at by a Glaswegian woman.

I went to see The Old Guys being recorded. I was very impressed by the BBC’s new studios in Glasgow, large room, lots of large high-definition digital video cameras. 100 rails on the ceiling to move lights, cameras and sound booms up and down. Must have cost a fortune to build (£118 million says the internet). The set is about 40 metres long and features ground floor inside of a house and a deli. The audience must have been about 200 people. The loud Glaswegian woman who gets sent on to do the warm up act is mostly annoying and unamusing but we laugh because that’s our role in the process. Next come on the crew, camera people, sound people, director and the bloke whose job is to carry cable reels around the place. Then the three actors come out and take a bow. They shoot some scenes and when we don’t laugh hard enough they have to re-take them. Every second scene is pre-recorded outside the studio and shown to us on large TV screens, when we don’t laugh hard enough they’re shown twice.

Most pleased to see Stoats porridge bars being used as a prop in one of the outside scenes. Some extras are used in the scenes in the cafe set, Ken Latham of Quaker Summer School organising is one of them, he joined an amateur dramatics society a while ago and I presume this is a way for them to earn some money for the society. They chat away silently while the actors say their lines and we try to laugh.

I can see why these programmes get made, they provide regular employment to the crew and make use of the shiny new recording studio, but the constraints are obvious. It need to have every other scene recorded in the set otherwise its not worth the time to bring in the cast, crew and audience which explains why so many sit-coms are based around a house and a pub/cafe. It’s limited to which actors you have on the day in the set, the outdoor scenes can have more actors but they can’t suddenly appear in the house or pub/cafe because they’re not at the studio recording. The script is dire and nothing about it is creatively original, I can’t help feeling it would be much improved by not having the restrictions of being recorded in a studio and having a laughter track. Probably why I don’t own a TV.

Ken Latham with Trigger. I knew him before he was famous.

Stoats Porridge Bars, free publicity when you send your product to BBC producers.

I voted for the SNP this election. I wasn’t terribly impressed by their “we don’t want any cuts” idea, it seems to me if you’re in massive debt you should get rid of that debt as soon as possible. But they remain the party that I find myself in agreement with most often and I was very annoyed at them being left out of the leaders debates, the London establishment really doesn’t understand that the party of government should have a say in the main election event.

Voting over I decided to tick off another of the items on my list of things to do before I die and attend the election count for Edinburgh. Kindly the SNP invited me to attend to keep an eye on the counters and make sure they were treating everyone fairly. Turn out an election count is mostly boring. Even the political speaches at the results announement are nothing more than a poor-man’s Oscar thanks.

It’s a busy event, there are at least 65 staff for each constituency on the night and Edinburgh has 5 constituencies. Then there are all the party hangers on who are tasked with keeping an eye on the counter or keeping up spirits for their tired out candidate. There are also press and tele cameras around the place.

As a couning agent my job was to look over the shoulder of the counters as they unfolded the votes and take a rough count to get a feel for which wards are popular and which unpopular with the party I happen to be helping. I’m not sure why they can’t just get the counts listed for each ward officially but seems this low tech low reliabiliity approach is the preferred way.

First unfolding done and suddently everybody stops for lunch. In the middle of the night. Hungry work all this unfolding paper.

The second round of counting starts sometime after midnight when the papers are actually sorted into piles for each party. The occational “none of the above” or even full essay written on the voting paper provide occational humour.

Around one in the morning the higher profile candidates arrive. Colin Fox has been around all night making sure every one of his meagre Scottish Socialist Party votes gets counted properly while Alistair Darling can wander in (followed by a large number of press photographers) much later happily assured he’ll manage to win without any effort.

Around three in the morning the results start getting announced. Alistair Darling was entirely right to assume he’d win without bother. His Labour supporters all look like they would fit much better into the Tory party, polished shoes and all. He didn’t bother giving any more than one sentence for a speach before rushing off to try and pretend he was still in government. Best speaches for the night came from the various socialist parties who seem to have spintered into multiple factions again following Tommy Sheridan imploding. One of them had the microphone turned off while talking all because he wanted to make a serious political point rather than thanking his election agent and dog for helping during the election, shame.

No loony politicians in Edinburgh (a shame, they often make the best ones) but Leith constituency did sport the curious Liberal Party (unrelated to Lib Dems), various socialists and some bloke who claimed to be campaiging for the “great British pound”.

Four sets of results in and Edinburgh remains strongly Labour, infact even stronger than the start of the night. Quite mystifying, presumably people want to keep the Tories out. Only my own Edinburgh South is unfinished. SNP man Sandy Howat turns out to be good crack and quite perceptive but the early count showed he was in poor fouth. Tory bloke failed to make much progress, so there is some sense in the world. The piles of votes in the centre of the counting hall show Lib Dems and Labour to be exactly even. The candidates are called into the centre to be shown the results. The Labour man hugs his agent. Lib Dem Fred Macintosh seems to be talking to the returning officer and before long a bundle recount is in order. An hour later that finishes with more talking and muttering in the centre and a full recount follows soon after. By 5 in the morning most people have gone home but eventually the cheer goes around the hall from the polished show crowd with the Labour rosettes.

Edinburgh South results. Poor old Fred Macintosh who put so many leflets through our door every day lost by 300 votes. Mystifying indeed. Sandy Howat of the SNP moaned about how the country had rejecting the Conservaties but it seems by that logic they wanted Labour. Trouble is the English had a different idea and now David Cameron is Prime Minister. Fooey.

I did the BCU Advanced Whitewater Safety and Rescue course with Steve MacKinnon (H2O Outdoors) and Dave Rossetter (Standing Waves, RCO, SCA, BCU, most everything). The course follows on from the basic Whitewater Safety and Rescue with more jumping in rivers, pulling people off rocks and running after boats. Here are my notes for my own benefit and anyone else who cares to read them.

We talked about safe paddling, how preparations for a safe trip have to be made from the start. The most useful bit of kit for a river leader/rescuer seems to be the 5 metre length of climbers webbing tape, often tied together to make a sling.

Creating an anchor is important for attaching ropes to boats or people. You can create one by tying the length of webbing strapping carried by all river leaders around a rock or tree. Tie it with an overhand knot or an overhand rethread water knot (stronger but harder to undo).

Climbers webbing/tape sling tied with an overhand knot.

Tied with a rethreaded water knot

You can wrap the webbing around the anchor three times using the two untied loops as the anchor point, this is wrap 2 tie 1 and is usually more than is necessary for a kayak.

Using a chair as an anchor with wrap 2 tie 1 (trees are more common than chairs when paddling though)

attaching your throwline to an anchor will create a pulley system for pulling a heavy object such as a person or boat.

This is a basic 1:1 pulley, it offers no paticular advantage compared to just holding the rope except a change of direction may be useful depending on the terrain

Here we’ve added a loop in the pulley, it means the holder does not have to hold full tension to keep the rope in place, however it can get tangled

Here we’ve added an italian hitch a much better way to create a belay to allow the holder to lose tension without slipping (but it does allow to move the rope backwards if needed).

A prussic is a ~1metre length of rope which is tied in a loop (with a double fishermans knot), the rope’s diameter should be smaller than that of your throwline rope. You use a prussic to tie a prusik knot with your throwline rope to act as a ratchet to allow the rope to be reset in position without slipping back under load. (I’m unclear why the BCU mispells the length of rope compared to the name of the knot but they seem to do it consistently).

A prussic

To pull a heavy load (e.g. pulling a full boat off a rock) you can create a pulley system. A 3:1 pulley system is made with an anchor, a throwline’s rope, pulleys, karabinas and prussics.

a 3:1 pulley system attached to an anchor (the chair) and tied with a clove hitch at the bottom. When pulling from the rope at the top the rope at the bottom (attached to your heavy canoe) will move with 1/3rd the effort compared to a straight pull and will move only 1/3rd the distance (if the boat is stuck on a rock this is often enough to get it off). Once the pulley has been pulled through the bottom karabina will have moved up to the top one and it can not be reset.

This pulley system has a prusik knot attached instead of a clove hitch at the bottom. Once the pulley has been pulled through the bottom karabina can be slid back down the rope to continue pulling more.

Here we have added a second prissic tied with a one way prusik knot called a Klemheist, this will stop the pulley being pulled back if you stop your load, however the knot is likely to get tangled in the pulley and a second person is needed to stop this happening.

Instead of a prussic you can use webbing tape to create a criss cross knot that does the same job

When helping a person down a slope you can attach the rope to their harness on their lifejacket. When raising you can put a rope around their body and hold with karabiner and clove hitch. Ropes used by canoeists aren’t suitable for a vertical lowering, only an aid on a slope.

When climbing down a bank you could lower a person down as described above or you could just attach a rope at the top (not to the person) and use that to help stabalise. Can lower boats using the 1:1 pulley system shown above. You can use alternate ends of the rope for each boat, lower on one end then next boat on the other end which is now raised.

When rescuing a person stuck in the middle of a river usually the first task is to create a stabalising line. Throw or row a rope across the river upstream of the victim (attach two together if on a wide river) and walk down to the victim. You can get it under his arms by pulling tight which will push it under the water briefly (you could also just push down with a paddle blade from the bank). In most cases a stabalising line is enough to allow the victim to save himself.

if you have to send in a person to help the victim use a V or Y lower rescue. Two throwlines are attached to the rescuer’s harness, lose end of one throwline is taken across to the other river bank. The rescuer swims in upstream of the victim and is lowered down the river current by those holding the ropes on the bank. In a Y rescue only one rope is attached to the rescuer and the second rope is attached with a karabina to the first, giving more of a vector to pull the rescuer over.

If you only have access to a single bank you can tie two throwlines together with a sling and have two people throw it over the victim to loop him.

A synch is a rescue system using four throwbags and four people, two on each bank. Two throwlines get stretched across the river from opposite sides on either side of the victim and attached to each other on the opposite bank. The attachment points then each get another throwline which acts as the reset/delay lines. The main lines get pulled tight to create a loop around the victim, the delay lines can be pulled to withdraw the loop or adjust its position.

A person trapped in a river being rescued by a synch. 1 & 3 are main lines, 2 & 4 are delay lines. This is only useful if you have people on both banks who know how to do this method of rescue.

When chasing a boat down a river which has been separated from its paddler you usually want at least two people, one can scout ahead for danger or opportunities. First thing is to turn the boat upright making it easier to move. Can use a sling to move it.

When rescuing a swimmer from the bank with a throwline (or sling) it is important to shout instructions at the person, often to the point of being aggressive and bossy (you can appologise for being rude once they are safe). You need a good stance. A second person can hold you if you have poor footing, or can hold the rope if poor grip or load is too heavy (and a swimmer in a rapid is a very heavy load). Always hold the rope with thumbs upwards (fingers and wrists turned down). A second rope can be added to the first one to act as a vector pull.

holding a rope in a z-grip with thumbs up

throwline with vector line, the vector line makes it much easier to pull the victim to the bank

Live bait means jumping in the river to grab hold of a swimmer in a current. The rescuer has a throwline attached to their life jacket harness. Jumping in too late is better than too soon, the victim can get tangled in the rope if you jump in downstream of them.

Once the victim is at the bank he may need some first aid or comfort. You can use spraydecks or life jackets to provide padding and insulation from the ground. Airbags make for good pillows. Your ever handy tape/webbing sling can be used as a tie for a leg splint or an arm sling. Airbags can help pad out the splint or sling too. A victim who can’t walk can be carried with slings.

Went to the anti Trident demo today run by Scotland’s for peace. Quite a quiet affair walking up the high street, could have benefited from some drums. Alex Salmond spoke first, made me happy to live in a country where the first minister still goes on peace marches.

Oor Alex.

Quakers