This past Monday AW Executive Director Risa Shimoda and long-time Safety Committee member Charlie Walbridge met with Pam Dillon, the new executive director of the American Canoe Association (ACA). Dave Jenkins, ACA’s legal expert, Virgil Chambers, executive director of the National Safe Boating Council, and Ruth Wood, Executive Director of BOAT US also participated. ACA and AW were asking Ms. Wood’s advice on preparing a joint Coast Guard Grant application to be coordinated by Risa. In addition to support from ACA and AW, The application will be endorsed by the Professional Paddlesports Association (Canoe Liveries), America Outdoors (Professional Outfitters), the US Canoe and Kayak Team (runs slalom and olympic sprint events), The U.S. Canoe Association (runs marathon races), and TAPS (Trade Association of Paddle Sports, a dealer organization). We expect great things from this unprecedented cooperation. Ms. Wood’s organization, Boat US, has an outstanding record of innovation and success in designing Coast Guard grants. Later, after Ms. Wood left, there was a long discussion of upcoming initiatives by officials at the State and Federal Level that could affect canoe, kayak, and rafting enthusiasts everywhere.
For those of you who haven’t heard of Pam Dillon, she has a unique background. In the late 70’s she coordinated the River Rescue program developed by the Ohio Division of Watercraft. This successfully bought firefighters, paddlers, and watercraft officers together for the first time and produced the first River Rescue course ever designed for non-paddlers. Also contributing to those early gatherings were Virgil Chambers, a water safety educator with the Pennsylvania Fish Commission, and Charlie Walbridge, who at that time was the ACA Safety Chair. Several promotions later Pam became deputy director of the Division of Watercraft. She later married Mr. Chambers, and accepted the job with ACA. She and her husband are both skilled whitewater kayak and canoe paddlers. Pam brings an unprecedented level of knowledge and experience to the challenging job of facilitating paddler – government relations.
Dillon noted that paddlesports has been singled out by regulators as being unusually dangerous, a fact that both the ACA and AW dispute. She also expressed her concern that because of this, two ideas – mandatory education for non-powered boaters and boat registration – are gaining increased support at the State and Federal Levels. These would, in the opinion of ACA and AW, place real burdens on paddlesports participants without improving the overall safety picture. Risa had previously shared with AW’s ground-breaking safety studies by Laura Whitman and Jennifer Plyler. Both attempt to quantify the actual risks of whitewater sport. This prompted an invitation to Charlie Walbridge to present these studies formally at the International Boating and Water Safety Summit to be held next April in Las Vegas.
Both organizations have agreed that the AW Safety Code represents the best summary of whitewater safety precautions currently available. ACA, in fact, distributes tens of thousands of copies. They plan to work together closely on government relations issues, and will explore other ways that the ACA and AW can cooperate for the benefit of all their members.