White Water Safety and Rescue

Book excerpt: White water safety and rescue for canoeists, kayakers and rafters. A completely revised new edition now in full colour throughout. You can find presentation resources of the photos and illustrations below. The writing of this book started when I tried to put some notes together as course notes for the safety and rescue courses I was running at Plas y Brenin. It soon became clear what a huge topic it is and in sheer frustration I explained to a friend that I would have to write a book to cover it properly. His answer was, "Why don't you?" This is the result. I hope you find it enjoyable and informative. What's new in the 2nd Edition? Full colour and new photos throughout. The text has been completely revised and numerous small but significant improvements have been made. The principles of safety and rescue have been unified and the mneumonic CLAP adopted. This is to make it easier to remember them and fall in line with current practice in the teaching of white water safety. The rescue section has been reorganized to fit in more closely with the TRTTG 'low to high risk' model. The rafting sections have been completely rewritten by Geraint Rowlands. The chapter 'Planning a Descent' has been extended to cover factors to be considered when travelling abroad. One-handed signals as used by Paul O'Sullivan in his chapter in the BCU Canoe and Kayak Handbook have been adopted.