BCAB Paddlesport Safety and Rescue

Overview

This award is all about keeping safe on your craft in sheltered water venues, this includes canoes, kayaks and stand-up paddleboards. This practical course is packed with safe practical solutions to common paddling problems which happen in a sheltered water environment. It doesn’t matter if you have limited paddling experience, this course supports your knowledge and raises your awareness of your personal safety.

Who is this aimed at

If you want to be able to deal with common problems on flat water, this one-day course is for you. This course is a pre-requisite for the Paddlesport Instructor Award.

Objectives

This one-day course aims to provide paddlers with key safety and rescue skills needed to stay safe whilst paddling on flat water. The course is designed for all paddlers irrespective of craft. The course content focuses on rescuing from your preferred craft and covers equipment, safety frameworks, as well as a range of rescues including contact and towing rescues, self-rescues, and deep-water rescues.

Itinerary

This is a practical course where we’ll be on and in the water for the day so be prepared for a hands-on immersive experience! We’ll look at the clothing and equipment we use and how to apply a framework to structure our sessions keeping us and our peers safe. We’ll explore a variety of rescue techniques including towing, self-rescues, and deep-water rescues.

Experience Required

You’ll need to be a confident flat-water paddler in order to fully participate in this course. You should also be happy swimming in a flat-water environment.

How should I prepare?

Make sure you have competency paddling on flat water in your chosen craft.

Familiarise yourself with the British Canoeing course content here

Note: Our instructors will assess any safety equipment you bring with you. If they consider it to be below the required standard, you will be asked to use equipment provided free of charge by Plas y Brenin.