Sunday Times reporter chartered from Sailing Holidays with no experience. Mad?

[ronsurf]

Bit of a rubbish list with Horseriding more dangerous than Basejumping!

Credibility zero!

I don't think that list is in order - you have to vote for which you think is most dangerous.

I have seen a survey that said badminton was more dangerous than surfing. Admittedly the risk of getting whacked around the head or twisting an ankle is rare in surfing, but there's no risk of drowning in badminton! I think any sport on the water is instantly more dangerous if only for the difficulties in getting help. Even cramp in the water is a bit of a deal, whereas on land you can sit down and sort it out.

 

[capnsensible]

http://www.sailingholidays.com/holidays/rya-courses/day-skipper

(Although I note that they run RYA courses in partnership with Corfu Sea School)

Exactly. The courses are run by an RYA recognised training centre. Not by a chat on the dock with Sailing Holidays. The link is quite clear in their advertising and must be to conform with RYA rules.

http://www.sailingholidays.com/holidays/rya-courses

 

[prv]

I disagree. Sailing is safe if you know what you are doing. If you don't, there's all kinds of room for

ropes around props,

So call the lead boat and they'll jump in and free it for you.

booms in faces,
rope burned hands,
hands in winches,

It's possible, but bear in mind that in the areas they recommend for beginners there's bugger-all wind much of the time to power such mayhem. The rigs are simple, fairly low-powered and mostly idiot-proof, the booms generally above head-height. If things start to get scary, newbie charterers will generally roll up the sails and start the engine.

gas explosions,

Only if you cook on board, rather than the more usual cold lunch and dinner in a taverna. And they do explain gas safety in the boat handover briefs. Plenty of very experienced sailors leave the gas supply to the cooker turned on most of the time too, so the proportion of charterers who ignore the brief are no different.

feet in windlasses,

Fair point, there's a lot of anchoring, always with electric windlasses, and some people probably aren't as careful as they should be. But I haven't noticed a steady stream of amputees coming back through Gatwick.

people in water,

People are in and out of the water all day. It's the Med in high summer, not the west coast of Scotland in March. I've known someone hurl himself overboard in the middle of a friendly race because he was embarrassed by his dad's overcompetitive behaviour; he just trod water until one of the other boats picked him up, nobody thought anything of it.

port/stbd collisions,
driving on the wrong side of the road,

Par for the course in that part of the world (Colregs ignorance, not actual collisions). Only raises the blood-pressure of pink-trousered types

hitting the bricks,

You'd have to be a special kind of numpty to drive into an island. With the steep-to geography of the Ionion, by and large if you can't see it then you can't hit it. The rare exceptions will be called out in that morning's briefing, probably described as such a major hazard that the newbie skippers will worry about it all day and avoid it by miles!

damage to your boat and everyone else's.

Minor damage to the charter boats is par for the course. Given the way they crowd into a harbour in a bunch, most of the bumps and scrapes will be amongst each other. Risk to non-charter boats is a fair point and explains the cruiser's disdain for them!

Pete

 

[mjcoon]

Fatality rate is one in sixty participants, I doubt if horseriding approaches that.

Perhaps because horses can actually be malevolent. You only have to watch video of how they manage to throw their riders into water jumps...

Mike.

 

[capnsensible]

But years ago...
.

:encouragement:

 

[JumbleDuck]

Fatality rate is one in sixty participants, I doubt if horseriding approaches that.

http://www.blincmagazine.com/forum/wiki/Fatality_Statistics

Nothing like - about two fatalities per year in the UK if google is to be believed. However, fatalities are not the only measure of danger, and and awful lot of horse riders seem to break or bend something.

I used to share an office with a cave diver. I assumed it must be horrendously dangerous, but he assured me that in the UK at any rate the statistics were pretty good. He said that was because it's so obviously dangerous that people take safety very seriously.

 

[ronsurf]

Thinking about my work and social circle - injuries have been caused by: rugby, cricket, football, horseriding and 'tree surfing'. These are broken bone injuries rather than bumps or grazes. So I would say horseriding is probably more dangerous than is perceived. One of the safest sports is of course: boxing. Very few deaths when compared to something like mountain climbing.

Back to the OP though. When I was looking for my first charter I considered the Ionian. A charter rep advised me to look elsewhere - 'If you mainly sail in the English Channel you are going to be bored stiff in the South Ionian..."
One man's boredom is another mans safety.

 

[jimi]

Nothing like - about two fatalities per year in the UK if google is to be believed. However, fatalities are not the only measure of danger, and and awful lot of horse riders seem to break or bend something.

I used to share an office with a cave diver. I assumed it must be horrendously dangerous, but he assured me that in the UK at any rate the statistics were pretty good. He said that was because it's so obviously dangerous that people take safety very seriously.

You've obviously got superior knowledge of dangerous sports and measurement of their relative danger, I've got better things to do than argue with you particularly since this is incidental to the point I was making.


To the other poster who said the list was not in order, I suggest you address that point to Dylan as his original point was that horseriding was #1 on the list and yachting #77.

My point was that the list was meaningless.

We , as a young family, chartered a yacht in the med on flottila after 2 days instruction in the UK. We had a great time and at no point was anyone in any danger.

Crossing the Channel mid winter at night in a F8/9 with an experienced crew on a 34 ft boat was in a different realm of risk.

 

[JumbleDuck]

You've obviously got superior knowledge of dangerous sports and measurement of their relative danger, I've got better things to do than argue with you particularly since this is incidental to the point I was making.

The point you were making was that, in your opinion, base jumping is more dangerous than horse riding. It doesn't seem wholly incidental to ask if you have any evidence to back up that claim, or how you are defining "dangerous".

 

[JumbleDuck]

Thinking about my work and social circle - injuries have been caused by: rugby, cricket, football, horseriding and 'tree surfing'. These are broken bone injuries rather than bumps or grazes. So I would say horseriding is probably more dangerous than is perceived. One of the safest sports is of course: boxing. Very few deaths when compared to something like mountain climbing.

There is an interesting article on the dangers of horseriding here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8339097.stm, including

In his paper Hazards of Horse-riding as a Popular Sport, Dr Silver cited a study from 1985 that suggested motorcyclists suffered a serious accident once every 7,000 hours but a horse rider could expect a serious incident once in every 350 hours.​

That paper is available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1478823/

 

[Tranona]

So call the lead boat and they'll jump in and free it for you.



It's possible, but bear in mind that in the areas they recommend for beginners there's bugger-all wind much of the time to power such mayhem. The rigs are simple, fairly low-powered and mostly idiot-proof, the booms generally above head-height. If things start to get scary, newbie charterers will generally roll up the sails and start the engine.



Only if you cook on board, rather than the more usual cold lunch and dinner in a taverna. And they do explain gas safety in the boat handover briefs. Plenty of very experienced sailors leave the gas supply to the cooker turned on most of the time too, so the proportion of charterers who ignore the brief are no different.



Fair point, there's a lot of anchoring, always with electric windlasses, and some people probably aren't as careful as they should be. But I haven't noticed a steady stream of amputees coming back through Gatwick.



People are in and out of the water all day. It's the Med in high summer, not the west coast of Scotland in March. I've known someone hurl himself overboard in the middle of a friendly race because he was embarrassed by his dad's overcompetitive behaviour; he just trod water until one of the other boats picked him up, nobody thought anything of it.



Par for the course in that part of the world (Colregs ignorance, not actual collisions). Only raises the blood-pressure of pink-trousered types



You'd have to be a special kind of numpty to drive into an island. With the steep-to geography of the Ionion, by and large if you can't see it then you can't hit it. The rare exceptions will be called out in that morning's briefing, probably described as such a major hazard that the newbie skippers will worry about it all day and avoid it by miles!



Minor damage to the charter boats is par for the course. Given the way they crowd into a harbour in a bunch, most of the bumps and scrapes will be amongst each other. Risk to non-charter boats is a fair point and explains the cruiser's disdain for them!

Pete

Brilliant response to one of dylans drama queens. Spent over 12 years in the Ionian and would say that Sailing Holidays punters did better than some bare boaters. Even then my boat survived 7 seasons of bare boat charter with only one crunch requiring repair work and a couple of toe rail dings. More than 500 people had use of the boat over that period, having a great time.

 

[jimi]

The point you were making was that, in your opinion, base jumping is more dangerous than horse riding. It doesn't seem wholly incidental to ask if you have any evidence to back up that claim, or how you are defining "dangerous".

You seem determined to pick a fight, if so:

1) Its not my opinion
2) Measurement of danger in terms of fatalaties / participant is more relevant than counting grazed shins or the odd fracture.
3) I have been actively involved with rockclimbing for 40 years now and I know personally basejumpers
4)My daughter is an active horserider and has been for 12 years

The stats indicate fatality/participant glabally of 1/60 for basejumping (1/10 for those involved in Himalayan Expedion climbing!!)
In 1992 there was 12 equestrian-related fatalities from 2.87 million participants, if that had been base jumping there would probably have been 47,800 related fatalities

 

[JumbleDuck]

You seem determined to pick a fight

Not in the least, my dear fellow. It's an interesting topic and I am very sorry if you are taking the discussion personally.

1) Its not my opinion
2) Measurement of danger in terms of fatalaties / participant is more relevant than counting grazed shins or the odd fracture.

That is your opinion.

3) I have been actively involved with rockclimbing for 40 years now and I know personally basejumpers
4)My daughter is an active horserider and has been for 12 years

Well, that's all lovely but your personal circumstances aren't really relevant. Perhaps you have misunderstood: the statistic which says that horseriders have serious accidents every 350 hours doesn't mean that your daughter can expect to have an accident after 350 hours and if she doesn't then the statistics aren't invalidated. One of my favourite Viz letters went "Napoleon said the English are a nation of shopkeepers. What nonsense! My father is a plumber, and has been for 35 years."

The stats indicate fatality/participant glabally of 1/60 for basejumping (1/10 for those involved in Himalayan Expedion climbing!!)
In 1992 there was 12 equestrian-related fatalities from 2.87 million participants, if that had been base jumping there would probably have been 47,800 related fatalities

If afraid it's still just your opinion, because you have chosen one particular measure of danger. If you were to choose to measure per participant-hour then things would look very different: the average base jump last, what, about ten seconds and the average horse ride around an hour so that's a 360x multiplier right away. And, of course, if you were to include serious injuries things would look different again. You'll see that 3% of all spinal injuries admissions at Stoke Mandeville are related to horse riding ... I wonder how many are caused by base jumping.

The same problems arise when trying to assess the dangers of different modes of transport: do you do it per passenger, per passenger-hour or per passenger-mile? That's why it is not possible to dismiss the list given simply on the basis of one arbitrary definition of danger. It may be nonsense, of course, but without knowing the statistics behind it we just can't say.

 

[Fantasie 19]

I disagree. Sailing is safe if you know what you are doing. If you don't, there's all kinds of room for ropes around props, booms in faces, rope burned hands, hands in winches, gas explosions, feet in windlasses, people in water, port/stbd collisions, hitting the bricks, driving on the wrong side of the road, damage to your boat and everyone else's.

Yea, pretty much anyone can get from A2B but they won't be "safe" without experience.

You can replace "sailing" in that statement with any one of a number of other activities requiring no formal training ("life", "cycling", "cooking a roast dinner" etcetc) and it would still read right...

 

[dylanwinter]

Brilliant response to one of dylans drama queens. Spent over 12 years in the Ionian and would say that Sailing Holidays punters did better than some bare boaters. Even then my boat survived 7 seasons of bare boat charter with only one crunch requiring repair work and a couple of toe rail dings. More than 500 people had use of the boat over that period, having a great time.

oi oi - they are not my drama queens

I just observe what I see

D

 

[Fantasie 19]

a horse rider could expect a serious incident once in every 350 hours.

Blimey - do you think he's taken up flow arranging yet??

 

[ImSteve]

You know nothing of fear and danger till you have been in a French sports hall observing a group of 12yr olds being taught archery.. I now know how General Custer felt as he met his fate .. That was a couple a years ago, and I'm pleased to say that the waking up in a cold sweat and screaming seems to have stopped

 

[Matelot Joe]

Bit of a rubbish list with Horseriding more dangerous than Basejumping!

Credibility zero!

Wow. I did thirty years and only came off twice and lived to tell the tale.
Mind, there was that time I came round, on my back and concussed in a field of sprouts with the master slapping my face ! ;-)

 

[jimi]

Not in the least, my dear fellow. It's an interesting topic and I am very sorry if you are taking the discussion personally.



That is your opinion.



Well, that's all lovely but your personal circumstances aren't really relevant. Perhaps you have misunderstood: the statistic which says that horseriders have serious accidents every 350 hours doesn't mean that your daughter can expect to have an accident after 350 hours and if she doesn't then the statistics aren't invalidated. One of my favourite Viz letters went "Napoleon said the English are a nation of shopkeepers. What nonsense! My father is a plumber, and has been for 35 years."



If afraid it's still just your opinion, because you have chosen one particular measure of danger. If you were to choose to measure per participant-hour then things would look very different: the average base jump last, what, about ten seconds and the average horse ride around an hour so that's a 360x multiplier right away. And, of course, if you were to include serious injuries things would look different again. You'll see that 3% of all spinal injuries admissions at Stoke Mandeville are related to horse riding ... I wonder how many are caused by base jumping.

The same problems arise when trying to assess the dangers of different modes of transport: do you do it per passenger, per passenger-hour or per passenger-mile? That's why it is not possible to dismiss the list given simply on the basis of one arbitrary definition of danger. It may be nonsense, of course, but without knowing the statistics behind it we just can't say.

If you say so. No apology intended or deserved.


However I know what I'd consider it less dangerous for my daughter to do between going Horseriding or jumping off the top of Coronation St At Cheddar.

Pick a fight elsewhere , I'm wasting no more time replying to you.

Ultimately death is terminal whether the event lasts 0.5 seconds or 350 hours either way you're dead. If your a bas jumper you stand a 1:60 chance of dying through participation in your sport .. if youre a hore rider it is quite a bit less. If you interpret that as meaning horseriding is more dangerous then that is your prerogative but it certainly ain't the view in the land of the sane.

 

[JumbleDuck]

If you say so.

Apology accepted.

However I know what I'd consider it less dangerous for my daughter to do between going Horseriding or jumping off the top of Coronation St At Cheddar.

If all you worry about is her death then the statistics support you. If you are also worried about injury, they don't, as far as I can see.

Pick a fight elsewhere , I'm wasting no more time replying to you.

As I said, I am certainly not trying to pick a fight, and I think it's rather a shame that you react so aggressively to disagreement or even being asked for a little more supporting information on claims you make.

Ultimately death is terminal whether the event lasts 0.5 seconds or 350 hours either way you're dead. If your a bas jumper you stand a 1:60 chance of dying through participation in your sport .. if youre a hore rider it is quite a bit less. If you interpret that as meaning horseriding is more dangerous then that is your prerogative but it certainly ain't the view in the land of the sane.

What proportion of horseriders do you think suffer a serious injury in a lifetime of participation? If we accept the published figure of 1 serious injury every 350 hours and assume that a modest level of participation would be one hour per week, that's a serious injury for every seven years of participation. Over what period of time does your 1 in 60 for base jumpers apply? Is that per year, or over a (potentially abbreviated) lifetime? What level of participation does it assume in jumps per year?