Thursday, May 26, 2011

Crack down

Looks like the MOE is getting serious about uncertified coaches conducting 1 Star kayaking courses. I have already conducted 2 courses where the students are retaking the course because the instructor was not certified the previous time they had taken it.
I was told that one of the operators was Camelot running out of HomeTeam NS and another was SAFYC Sembawang.

To all certified coaches out there, I'd be wary about coaching for SAFYC. They only have 10 single slaloms, 8 dancers and some doubles. You are expected to conduct the 1 Star course using a mix of doubles and singles and swap around so everyone gets a chance to use a single.
I was told it was not possible to have 22 singles for a class of 20 students and 2 instructors as they did not have enough boats. Fortunately only 12 students turned up and I was able to convince them to allow the use of the dancers which are reserved for 2 star.
All of them had no knee braces installed and some were broken at the middle where the deck is screwed down to the seat.
In addition, the PFDs they provided had missing straps and were torn with the foam exposed.

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