Sea kayak award

The Sea Kayak Award

The British Canoeing Sea Kayak Award is designed to develop your skills and ability to apply appropriate decision making for an enjoyable and safe day out on the sea.

The award is hence perfect for those who want to start independant sea paddling, as well as those who want to progress to intermediate level led trips. Award holders are confident planning and undertaking journeys in:

Wind up to force 3
Tidal streams up to 1 knot

The award syllabus is available online at the British Canoeing Awarding Body website and summarised here. It’s important to note that, whilst the syllabus does contain some paddling skills, the majority of it covers the knowledge required to safely plan and undertake a day’s paddling on the sea. In particular, it’s hard to over-state the importance of being able to synthesize information from maps, guidebooks, tide tables and weather forecasts to come up with a good plan for the day.

My Handout for the course is freely avialiable online here.

Prerequisites

Although the course has no formal prerequisites, we suggest that before the course:

You are happy padlling independantly on sheltered water, underaking journeys of around 6 miles
You have some experience paddling on the sea, perhaps as part of a led group
You have begun to take an interest in the planning and safety aspects of sea paddling - perhaps discussing the trip plan with the leader and learning to do deep water rescues

All participants must be over 18 years of age.

Course program

There is no fixed program for the Sea Kayak Award, and we are able to sign off anyone who meets the requirments regardless of what training has been undertaken. If you have relevant experience and skills, we can work with you to set up an abbreviated course.

We typically run a comprehensive course, consistent with the course’s aim to equip paddlers with the skills required to paddle independently on the sea. The course involves:

A series of 7 or 8 evening sessions, around half of which are classroom based, with the rest looking at skills that we can practise on still water. A typical program might involve the following sessions

(Classroom) Introduction, weather and (non-tidal) planning
(River) Personal kit, forward paddling, turning, towing
(Classroom) Buoyage, charts, tides and planning
(River, wet session) Navigation, turning, rescues
(River, wet session) Boat handling skills, braces, self-rescues
(Classroom) Planning exercise, safety kit, dealing with mishaps
(River, wet session) Boat handling skills, more complex rescues

Two weekend trips to different paddling venues (in the past we have used Dorset and Anglesey). What we cover on each trip depends on weather conditions, but ideally we’d look at:

First trip: planning a trip, navigation, working around other water users, paddling in wind
Second trip: planning a trip, rockhopping, paddling in more demanding conditions, dealing with mishaps

To attain the award, participants need to meet the requirements outlined in the award syllabus. Given the comprehensive nature of the course outlined above, our experience is that almost everyone who engages proactively with the content will meet the required standards.

Equipment

You will need the following equipment for the weekend trips:

Sea kayak - Please check that your boat is in good repair and has a working skeg.
Paddles - find a set that’s a good length for you.
Towline: around 15min length. If possible, you should have a knife in you buoyancy aid in case the line gets tangled.
Spraydeck: Neoprene
Helmet
Buoyancy aid: You may find a pocket useful.
Wallet, phone + charger, keys etc.
Guidebook, maps - we can supply these for the areas that we normally run the course in, but you are welcome to bring your own.
Paper and pen/pencil - you’ll find it helpful to make notes of forecasts, tides and the trip plans that you come up with. Thin tipped permanent marker (OHP pen) for marking up maps.
Wind+waterproof outer shell: top and bottom: The club has cagoules and a pair of walker’s waterproof trousers will suffice for bottoms to keep the wind off
Warm layers: Plenty of warm layers to wear on the water and to carry as spare layers in the boat. Avoid cotton. We tend to wear close fitting tops (e.g. rash vest) and bottoms (leggings), with fleecy warm layers if it’s colder. Take a complete change of clothes in the boat, unless you’re wearing a drysuit.
Towel: for changing, drying if you get wet
Good paddling shoes: Trainers can work if they fit in the boat. Neoprene boots are great - Lomo sells cheap and durable ones.
Water bottle + thermos flask.
Sunglasses and sunblock
Warm hat + sunhat
Drybags: At least one for lunch+snacks and one for spare clothing. Also dry bags for phones / car keys / inhalers if you need these on the water. Fairly inexpensive from Decathlon or (better) Lomo. 10 liters is a good size.
Food: Lunches, snacks and anything special you want to eat at other times
Linen & towels: if not supplied in the accommodation that we are using

If you are joining the course as part of Cambridge Canoe Club, you may be able to borrow some of this equipment. For evening sessions on flat water, you will need only a subset of this equipment (e.g. kayak, paddle, paddling clothes, spraydeck, helmet, towline, buoyancy aid).There is more information on equipment in the course handout.

Relevant policies/terms

This course will be run under our policies (including the cancellation policy), laid out here and the Paddles Up Training policies which can be found here. The Paddles up training policies include information on how they’ll use the data that we share with them for certification, equality and diversity, special considerations and reasonable adjustments among other things.

Contacting us

Our contact details are on the home page of this site - please do get in touch if you have any questions.

We’re always keen to get feedback from those who we coach. Feel free to provide feedback in person or by email. I have an online feedback form here.