OCA Tripping Skills

Over the last two years a number of members have been involved in a pilot Tripping Skills syllabus. Or rather, they’ve been guinea pigs for Steve White who is developing this training package on behalf of OCA.

The idea is that the existing training packages under BCU don’t integrate the great variety of skills often necessary for tripping. We all know some of them, more or less and many of us have tried to deploy what we know on trips, but what we’ve found is that there is no means of getting it right except through trial & error, often self taught and there has to be a better way. This is it.



The syllabus is structured in parallel to the existing BCU open canoe Star awards, but deliberately positioned at a level between each grade. So there will be a 3 Star + award, a 4 Star + award and structured courses leading up to each. An advantage of this is that it provides an intermediate step bridging the large gap between BCU’s 3 Star & 4 Star award and the huge gap between 4 Star & 5 Star. There will also be the ultimate challenge of a 5 Star + award. But helping us to skip and play our way up through the BCU awards isn’t its primary purpose: its to develop these skills which at another time,and even these days in another place, would make the difference between life and death. Perhaps more so now, it’s the difference between frustration & satisfaction in ones chosen recreation.

The intention is to roll the syllabus out formally next year. The final pilot section is being tried out on some of us this December but ask around and you’ll find those who have already been involved. There was a famous trip down the Rivers Eamon & Eden, another on the Ure. Others where we learned to snub a laden boat downstream through a rapid (or didn’t). And others where we learned to light fires in the wet, cook bannock, dry food and plan for an expedition. The pilot scheme has been a rich experience for some and we’re absolutely certain that it will be the same for many more.