That could be said of every case of gross negligence manslaughter. Your argument is one of the considerations the judge has to weight up, but on the otherside of the scales - if criminal recklessness with paying clients resulting in multiple deaths doesn’t result in a significant penalty will others continue to take unnecessary chances with the lives of those trusting them to guide them (not just paddle boarding).
There is a niche part of the sport who paddle on reasonably fast moving water. I’ve never heard anyone shooting a weir although they probably weren’t the first. I’m certain though that those who have done it before them have been specifically seeking the adrenaline, would have been better prepared and still done it in much more benign conditions.
If you read the report (see post #75 for the link) on page 29-30 it discusses what CCTV footage of the weir showed as the tragedy unfolded. There seems to be indications that at least one of the casualties was being held back by the ankle tether while the board was being pinned against the face of the weir by the recirculation. The fact that three people did float clear with their boards suggests that had the others been able to escape their tethers immediately then they, also, might have floated clear but only if they had adequate bouyancy in the aerated water.
I would completely agree with that.
You may.....but....was motorcycle riding doing stunts like Eval Knievel envisage when motorcycles were introduced?
I don't think Google was known about when motorcycle stunt riding was in its infancy, of course SUP extreme usage has hardly any hits, it's also in its infancy...
It does however imply that the leader who died removed his leash before re-entering the river (though it's not explicit - they note he removed it on the bank but don't affirm he either left it off or reattached it).
I think this is the problem, your fun and others fun are possibly two different things, the fun for some turns into boredom or the desire to push the limits/experiment.
They are far from the default option but it’s they aren’t for use in disturbed water they are for use in moving water where there’s some sort of entrapment hazard - it seems unlikely that people surf in areas where their board or leash is likely to get trapped in solid objects.
If you see “paddleboarding” as a whole they are not common, but following previous tragedies they are very common on river paddle boarding. It would be astonishing if the owner of a paddleboard company (which sold paddleboard equipment) had never heard of them.
As did I - and the advantage of springy, static and quick release were discussed. Of course in a 2h (?) course it was about 90s of discussion which seemed relatively low importance as we were about to paddle on flat water.
Assuming you can get back on the thing and haven’t become (or intentionally) detached from it.
Well the lack of clarity of who “owns” the governance means there is no single official line.
Are using it in circumstances where your life might depend on abandoning the board? Life all PFDs treating every situation the same is probably not optimal - it might be the easiest option for a school, guide etc though. Otherwise you really need to actively risk assess each trip to ensure your thinking is appropriate.
Prison won’t bring back the dead. It *might* make other guides across a wide range of activities review their procedures - although I suspect most would believe they would never be as stupid as this.
Mark - I had similar thoughts when the report came out. The fact the MAIB didn’t declare it ridiculous even in the benign conditions it was initially recced in made me infer that that it was passable with care when conditions were right. But since the report explained the kayak clubs approach, I assume if they were able to find others who do this in SUPs it would at least have got a sentence.
Merits at the time?ok