@Tina Giangrande no way

As you know, our club uses the same commands as the lesson, but I've heard more things in my paddle adventures. Lock it in: get your hips on the gunnel and get your body in position Set it up: same as paddles up As you were/Easy: belay that command Also, our team follows the paddler behind when back paddling, but every other team I've paddled with follows the one ahead, which doesn't feel very intuitive to me.

Earlier this week we talked about capsizing and did a tippy boat drill where the gunnel did extremely briefly go underwater, dumping water in my lap, but I have never been in a swamp or capsize situation. I think a drill where we actually would capsize would take a prohibitive amount of time getting to shore and bailing out the entire boat even in a short boat. But if we were to actually do this, here is what I would do: Make sure as always to go over the safety protocols before launching. Make sure everyone has a working PFD that is worn properly. Lay out everything about keeping track of your benchmate, steer and drummer. Make sure everyone knows to stay near but do not touch the boat until everyone is accounted for. Once launched, find a safe spot to capsize. In our area, a sandy spot that isn't too shallow but close to shore would be easy to manage. I imagine actually capsizing would be a little tough, as even in a tippy boat, it doesn't seem easy to capsize, so you may have to work at the flipping, but pulling on the side does seem like a good way to swamp if that is enough. So just do your best, darling! Count everyone off. Do you have everyone? Is anyone under the boat in the bubble? Give them a moment to get out from under there. If they do not emerge quickly, assign a calm person who is a good swimmer to go under and retrieve them. Once everyone is accounted for, get to righting the boat. Rows 3 and 7 are good to work on the flipping if they can reach over to the gunnel and get it flipped together. Everyone else can be helping with the flip and also secure bailers as we will need those to get it bailed. If you are close to shore and can stand within a reasonable distance, you may be able to pull the boat closer to shore for bailing. Get to bailing. Once everyone and the boat is secure, someone can be assigned to gather up all of the paddles and accoutrement. Count off again once you reload the boat. Really just keep counting off periodically because people could get tired and we want to keep everyone safe.

@Liisa Reimann Ah yeah. Super important. Thanks!

I think it is good to create a team culture where people are looking out for one another, and paddlers are paying attention to what is going on around them and are empowered to call a hard stop in case of someone going overboard. Hopefully the drummer or the steer would notice if one fell and could call a hard stop, but if there is no drummer, the paddlers in the front or back should notice, and the overboard person ideally could shout or whistle. If all else fails, the paddlers should eventually notice the boat going off course and lack of commands. A hard stop should always be called as soon as it is noticed that someone is over.

I'm going to take the Vermont Boater Safety course online to get more familiar with the rules. It is interesting that if you were born before 1974 this isn't required, so maybe this is why sometimes it feels so disorganized out there when there are a lot of boats. Other boaters do seem really interested in the dragon boats, but some people are oblivious, so it is really important to pay attention to your surroundings to be able to get out of the way or not get in the way of others.