As you can see, Brian is a very straight-
talking man with a young at heart
passion for watersports. Let’s leave this
article on a high by celebrating all that
he and his business have to offer. As an
individual, I am lucky to have found
this club to teach me about SUP and am
delighted to be part of the Blue Chip
team of British Canoeing and ASI
Instructors. We will be celebrating the
ten-year anniversary of SUP at Blue
Chip over the coming months with some
away-day paddles and social fun (and
maybe a few beers along the way). Next
year celebrates the tenth Battle of the
Thames and I for one will be there on
the start line (be it on the water or off)
to cheer everyone who has been such a
big part of this adventure.
You are one of the founders of
SUP and SUP racing - how do
you feel about that?
I don’t really think of it like that, I’m just
doing what I like doing which is organising
events that paddlers want to be involved in
and then tweaking them to involve as many
skill levels that would like to take part.
Do you have any thoughts on
the future of the sport and
concerns over safety within it?
Our sport has a ‘double edged sword’ – on
the one hand it is really easy to learn with
instant gratification, which is a benefit in
our times. Someone who has never had any
interaction with any water sports can look at
SUP and decide to have a go. They can now
buy a complete SUP kit for less than £200,
pump it up and go on to a river or to the
coast, get used to standing on it and start to
paddle (in a fashion), or rent one on holiday
and they are now stand up paddlers.
However, such easy access to SUP boards
often bypasses the acquisition of the most
basic paddling competence and water
safety skills to the purchaser. The key to
enjoying our sport is having the skill to
paddle correctly and knowing how to
remain safe on the water.
At TSC, we are seeing more and more paddlers
on the Thames without any paddling
competence or water safety skills, safety
equipment, no leashes, no PFD, the paddle the
wrong way around on an under-inflated board
and not knowing the rules of the river.
We are also hearing of more tragic
incidents reported, where paddlers have got
into serious problems by either wearing the
wrong style of leash attachment or no
leash at all. Using the correct leash and
leash attachment is the major component
for SUP safety. It’s only a question of time
to a preventable major incident in the areas
we paddle. These ultra-cheap SUP kits
remind me of when the inflatable dinghies
first came on sale at the coast and the
amount of kids and adults that got blown
out to sea for the RNLI to rescue. This gives
me cause for concern. We need to ensure
all paddlers acquire basic safety knowledge
before they take to the water.
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Thank you Brian, for your time and for
giving us such a thorough insight into
your world and as they say in the
business, “Happy paddling.”
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