In our latest excerpt from the series of SUP SAFETY books written by Bill Dawes,  National Safety Officer for stand up paddleboarding in New Zealand, we’re going to look at another paddleboarding emergency scenario and how to deal with it, utilising and building upon the processes covered in the previous blog articles in this series.

Dealing with an injury

The previous articles in this series can be accessed here  The article finished with a challenge - have a go at thinking through how the process would work in the event of a physical problem.  Something has gone wrong with you.  How would you deal with it? 

So here goes…

In our latest excerpt from the series of SUP SAFETY books written by Bill Dawes,  National Safety Officer for stand up paddleboarding in New Zealand, we’re going to put everything covered in the previous blogs into practice, in the context of a very typical paddleboarding problem scenario. Over to Bill…

Dealing with an equipment problem

In the earlier blogs in this series I’ve talked about the importance of considering what you’d do in a problem scenario before it actually happens, along with having a process for actually dealing with  problems  - the ‘GAGA’ acronym discussed in the previous blog. These two things (or the lack of) will very much determine how the problem plays out - which could be anywhere on a spectrum from minor inconvenience through to full blown emergency.  

What to do when things go wrong

In previous articles we looked at the three main categories of unexpected occurrences which you might encounter while out on your paddleboard. Namely; issues with your equipment, your environment, or your wellness. Other than a few really extreme situations (such as a cardiac arrest or being run over by a speedboat), the vast majority of unexpected occurrences are not in themselves life-threatening. It is how you deal with them that will determine how they play out - which could be anywhere on a spectrum from minor inconvenience through to full blown emergency. 

This is our third set of excerpts from the series of SUP SAFETY books written by Bill Dawes, National Safety Officer for stand up paddleboarding in New Zealand.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

You’ve done your planning as we discussed in the previous blog, you’ve carefully checked the conditions and you’ve invested in the best safety equipment. Yet things still can - and do - go wrong.  This is where the third cornerstone of paddleboarding safety comes into play: knowing how to deal with a situation when things don’t go according to plan. 

There are two quite distinct aspects to dealing with problems:

• Knowing what to do.

• Doing it.

This is our second set of excerpts from the series of SUP SAFETY books written by Bill Dawes,  National Safety Officer for stand up paddleboarding in New Zealand.