Weir Assessments
Hi all,
I was one of about 20 people whom attended a talk entitled "Tuesday Briefing: How dangerous is that local weir?" at the Leicester Outdoor Pursuit Centre, give by Andy Oughton on assessing the risk of weirs.
It was intersting both on my own guestimates about how risky a weir is (beware the quiet ones!), as well as a perspective of a 'cub view' needed when officially 'leading' a group, as opposed to the more SOTP angle of solo or peer/friend group paddles.
We spent a fair bit of time in small groups 'assessing' a local weir for risk, using a system/form developed by an organisation called rescue3europe - the freely available Weir Risk Assessment form is online in a number of languages.
I was just wondering whether anyone else has come across this form/assessment process and if so what their thoughts are?
Part of me thinks there must be enough capable paddlers/coaches out there to have had a sort of national database of assessments for all weirs, and at varying water volumes, but another part of me recognises that even from our small gathering of 20 peeps, when 2 or more sub-groups assessed the same weir, the results varied significantly.
So maybe what would be needed would be at least 10 assessments at a low/medium/high volume to be averaged out before an overall risk assessment could be provided?
It's also true to say that any one given weir can be at multiple risk levels at different places along it, so a single risk assessment per water-level/volume could be very misleading.
Ultimatlely, the choice as to whether to run a weir or not is down to the individual/group on the day (based on prevailing weather, composition of the group, ability to rescue etc) - and deffo nothing wrong with leaning well to the cautious side.
The evenings talk has given me cause to ponder and the linked assessment form has some useful information, so worth a look just for that.
Ta for readin' and any thoughts/comments 'preciated.
I was one of about 20 people whom attended a talk entitled "Tuesday Briefing: How dangerous is that local weir?" at the Leicester Outdoor Pursuit Centre, give by Andy Oughton on assessing the risk of weirs.
It was intersting both on my own guestimates about how risky a weir is (beware the quiet ones!), as well as a perspective of a 'cub view' needed when officially 'leading' a group, as opposed to the more SOTP angle of solo or peer/friend group paddles.
We spent a fair bit of time in small groups 'assessing' a local weir for risk, using a system/form developed by an organisation called rescue3europe - the freely available Weir Risk Assessment form is online in a number of languages.
I was just wondering whether anyone else has come across this form/assessment process and if so what their thoughts are?
Part of me thinks there must be enough capable paddlers/coaches out there to have had a sort of national database of assessments for all weirs, and at varying water volumes, but another part of me recognises that even from our small gathering of 20 peeps, when 2 or more sub-groups assessed the same weir, the results varied significantly.
So maybe what would be needed would be at least 10 assessments at a low/medium/high volume to be averaged out before an overall risk assessment could be provided?
It's also true to say that any one given weir can be at multiple risk levels at different places along it, so a single risk assessment per water-level/volume could be very misleading.
Ultimatlely, the choice as to whether to run a weir or not is down to the individual/group on the day (based on prevailing weather, composition of the group, ability to rescue etc) - and deffo nothing wrong with leaning well to the cautious side.
The evenings talk has given me cause to ponder and the linked assessment form has some useful information, so worth a look just for that.
Ta for readin' and any thoughts/comments 'preciated.