Speaker 1: This is the best day ever! Hailey, Hailey lets go paddling right now!
Speaker 2: Are you sure that’s a good idea?
Speaker 1: Right now!
Salty Jefferson: I learned that lesson the hard way!
Speaker 1 & 2: Paddling legend Salty Jefferson!
Salty Jefferson: One night, I thought it would be a good idea to take out this gal I was seeing, Tonya. I loaded up the canoe with everything we needed: roses, candles, even some of that fine canned champagne. She leaned in for the kiss, but we flipped. Tonya didn’t make it. But from that day forward I never paddled impaired again.
As a United Stated Coast Guard nonprofit grant recipient, the Water Sports Sports Foundation produces paddling safety outreach materials and distributes them through boating and paddling media providers.
Paddle sports currently has an inordinately high rate of accidents and deaths that for the past five years has been increasing, while power boating stats have been decreasing during the same period.
The goal is to create heightened public awareness of safer paddling making paddle sports safer and to ultimately reduce the total number of paddle sports-related deaths annually.
