Hardy 2012 Outdoor Show/ Races- 9-9 &10 (TRIP REPORT)

[Cowper]

Anybody available to help with Safety either day at this event?

Here's what I know:

1) "The Hardy Volunteer Firemen present the 2012 Outdoor Sportsmen’s Show
and Canoe Races- June 9th- 10th Loberg Park will be filled from Daylight to Dusk on this Saturday & Sunday with Sporting Equipment featuring outdoor sports and canoe races."

2) Jan (Wildwood) has been talking some to the organizers - they would love to have an ACC presence to help set safety at one or more of the ledges during the Canoe races.

I realize there are multiple of conflicts that weekend, including some folks headed out of state, but is there anyone out there that can help with this? If so, I'll try to get you in contact with the right folks for more information.

[Donald]

How do I get more info, I don't have a race for that weekend yet.

[Cowper]

Here's all I could find on the web:

Description:
The Hardy Volunteer Fire Department will put on this event with sponsorship from local entities. Loberg Park will be filled from Daylight to Dusk on this Saturday with Sporting Equipment featuring outdoor sports such as fishing, hunting, camping, boating, gunning, archery etc..... Music, Food,Competitions, Demonstrations, and Hot July Deals are all in the plan. The Army National Guard will be there with their biggest climbing wall and the sports trailer. The Game and Fish Commission will bring the large fish tank trailer.

Additional Features:
Commercial Vendors, Designated Parking, Entertainment Children's

Location:
Loberg Park Spring Street Hardy, AR US 72542

Phone Number: (870) 856-2136

[Wildwood]

Race is SUNDAY, June 10 ONLY

CONTACT INFO:

hardysportsmen2012@gmail.com

mightheritagemedia@gmail.com

870-847-2296 message

Facebook: HardySportsshowspringrivercanoerace

FB: Latisha Russell
Crowbar Russell
Tommy Garner

Thank you!

[Wildwood]

I have free T-shirts for the first 5 volunteers who wear L or XL.

C'mon guys! We need to help these folks be aware of our presence on the river. We don't have a lot of floating options now. There are many more people on Spring River because of no water, and that means more accidents.

I have a river bank lot at Hardy that is available for free camping for volunteers. It has water, and bath houses are available. Some may want to come float Saturday, then go to the canoe race on Sunday. I can help with Saturday shuttles.

Please let us know soon if you can help out!
Thank you.

[Cowper]

Since the race is Sunday only, I may be able to help after all - but with the Cossatot clean-up and the Hometown throwdown on Saturday, it will be a lot of driving that weekend.

Check your PM's so we can talk over details, like what time I would need to be there. If it is mid morning or later, I should be able to make it. If it is 7 AM; then that may be outside the range of what I can make on top of Saturday's activities.

This may impact other potential voluteers, too; maybe some carpooling is in order.

[Wildwood]

I met the Hardy Chief of Police at WalMart today when they were picking up the canoe & 3 kayaks they are giving as prizes. The organizers are meeting again Thursday night. They really need to know by then how many can show up for Sundays race. They will have to call in volunteer firemen to take up the slack & need time to notify them.

The race is pretty early but I'm not sure what time. They want to do it early so folks can get home sooner. I will find out Thursday night & post info.

Thank you.

[Wildwood]

UPDATE:
Race starts at 10:00 Sunday morning. They need to know BY WEDNESDAY how many safety boaters can be there. I met with police/fire chief, Game & Fish officer, water search & rescue officer, and many others last night. Good bunch of folks just needing a few hours of our time.

I hope to see some familiar faces there . . .

You can let Cowper or me know if you can make it.
5o1 58 nine two O 5 five
Thank you.

Jan

[Wildwood]

UPDATE:
Race starts at 10:00 Sunday morning. They need to know BY WEDNESDAY how many safety boaters can be there. I met with police/fire chief, Game & Fish officer, water search & rescue officer, and many others last night. Good bunch of folks just needing a few hours of our time.

I hope to see some familiar faces there . . .

You can let Cowper or me know if you can make it.
5o1 58 nine two O 5 five
Thank you.

Jan

[Cowper]

Looks like Woody (from Lonoke) and I will be making the trek up for Sunday.

We were offered the chance to set up an ACC information booth, but I haven't found anyone in Central Arkansas that has a supply of safety posters, ACC tri-folds, or ACA or AW safety hand-outs. So we'll just be looking for an opportunity to set safety at one of the ledges, or run a sweep operation, whatever they need from us.

How about any others? Car pooling will be occurring...

[Cowper]

TRIP REPORT:

Woody (from Lonoke) and I joined Jan Sunday morning to help with Safety for the event. It was .... interesting.... but still very fun after we got over the initial “where do we go, what do we do?” stage. It has been several years since Hardy put on this particular summer festival, or at least since they included a Canoe Race, so we got a lot of notes on how things could potentially be done differently next year.

Rio Vista Falls was "flagged off" with police tape to direct folks to a safer route that doesn't have the high foot entrapment potential, so that left High Falls as the place someone was most likely to need assistance. We put in on Jan’s property and paddled a little over a mile to the Falls and set up shop. About 2 hours after race start time and several cell phone calls later, we came to the realization that Don Walls and Dale Burris were NOT here today, because we had yet to see the first racer come by.

Many of the racers were bypassing High Falls via another channel. Another hour or two went by, and we settled into a routine. Paddle upstream until we met with someone coming downstream towards the falls. Turn around and follow them to the falls. Run the falls and push their swamped boat to a place where it could be emptied. Paddle upstream and repeat.

The “big winner” in my book was a lady who came from somewhere in Southern Mississippi. She and her young girl had entered the race in a canoe, her first time to paddle a canoe. They were a couple of hours behind the race leaders. A husband/boyfriend was also “racing” in a kayak, but he was really just pacing them to stand by and help if needed. As we approached the falls, she transferred the child to the husbands kayak for a safe portage of High Falls, and I revealed the “secret handshake” of WW canoeing: KNEEL! She was one of a limited number of boats to make a completely clean run; scooted down the falls, never got a drop of water in her boat. She was ecstatic! We learned later that as the only female contestant, she also WON in her division and took home a new boat and an ice chest as prizes.

On the list of things to do differently next year, we want to explain to all the racers that if you enter the race, you have to actually paddle down the river. Two contestants apparently decided they had other priorities and had not shown up yet at 4 PM. Down at Hardy, the booths had been taken down, while Woody and I searched the river by paddling upstream from High Falls trying to find someone who had seen our missing paddlers. Since we had come here for the purpose of being “river safety patrol”, I was ready to fire up a search party and send sweep boats down the river, taking a “no man/woman left behind!” approach. Then we learned that the husband of one of the missing paddlers was also a member of the local volunteer fire department / rescue squad, and was unconcerned. We also had reports that there was at least one other raft with the two women, so we finally decided that if the husband wasn’t going to go out looking with his firemen-friends, then we should accept the “release from duty” that he had verbally given us. So we went and ate barbeque. (Thanks Jan!)

All in all, I figured out that with all the upriver/downriver and back again trips, Woody and I paddled something on the order of 8 miles, even though we took out at the same place we put in.

In thinking how to make next year bigger and better, and better attended by ACC members; I think we came up with an answer: RAMP OF DEATH! We could have some of our younger members with strong backs putting on a show all day. I’d also like to do some test runs with snow discs, to see if there is a way to let the local kids get in on the fun without anybody getting hurt. While there is some danger in everything we do, if we can teach a bunch of kids that when you go out for adventure sports, you should wear protective gear like PFD's and helmets, then overall it should be a positive for safety.

[Deuce]

Cowper, thanks for the report. I'll be glad to help next year (not qualified to set safety, but I can sit under an ACC sign and glad hand/talk up the club/answer questions, etc. like a prefessional). Would have gone up this year, but I have church responsibilities and had already missed the previous Sunday for Rec School.

[Cowper]

I completely understand Luke. Life has many demands, and nobody can be everywhere every time.

Someone to help with an Info Booth would be GREAT, and, you already have enough safety skills to help with the race, too. We didn't have to do anything fancy, just stand by in PFD's, wore our helmets to give that "person in charge" look, and bulldozed overturned boats toward the nearest shallow water. Next year I'd like to experiment with adding "live bait" rescues and/or using the throw rope more.

Jan tried to stir me up about this more than two months ago, but I was so focused on finalizing an unrelated decision that I didn't really start thinking about this event until the last week.

They've already set the date for next year; Second weekend in June. (June 8, 9, 2013). It's such a far drive for so many of our ACC folks that I think maybe we can be a bigger part of it if we make it more of a "weekend" event with an ACC Float Trip on Saturday, camp out Saturday night, and those who can staying to set safety for the Sunday race and take turns manning a booth so that nobody has to do it for more than an hour or two. When there were four drownings last year on the Spring, a lot of us talked about what we could do to spread some WW safety messages; this would be a great opportunity to do that, while having a fun weekend at the same time.

[fryingsquirrel]

I agree with just about all the points made by Cowper, and think that this could be a great future opportunity to teach river safety and good paddling techniques to a whole bunch of weekend boaters. Maybe our actions could even save someone from a bad experience or injury or worse. I onlly wish I could have made the trip, Cowper had me talked into it but work got in the way. Maybe next time we could even have a rescue rodeo with whatever volunteers come floating by...
Jon Ellwood

[Wildwood]

Cowper & Woody, THANK YOU so very much for helping out. Just getting someone knowledgeable here to look at the potential for ACC to help make this a safer river to paddle means a lot.

I'm excited about the possibilities for next year. It will help tremendously to have the race on Saturday. The Ramp of Death sounds great. There were lots of young people at the sports show on Saturday who stayed most of the day.

ACC folks are welcome to camp on my lot. It has water & a fire ring. (Woody, the nicer bath houses are up the hill from the little one you saw.)

Thanks again.

Jan