"riverman" wrote in message
...

I agree wholeheartedly. I would even guess that the majority of 'lifetime
boaters' are primarily self-taught. Maybe they used something formal to
get
started, but probably not. I think the type of person who needs the
external
structure of a formal training situation is not the type of person to have
the self-motivation to keep at it. (The river slang for those folks is
'Boy
Scout' g) OTOH, the type of person who is willing to get in a boat and
'figger it out' will be the type of person who continues getting into a
boat, imnsho.

Virtually all of the people I paddle with have gone through some kind of
class. I highly recommend classes, even though I didn't have one to start. I
learned very much when I started assisting classes that I should have
learned 10 years earlier. Students in our club classes learn all these
things in several weeks.

These people learn how to be safe, and if they get through the class, they
tend to stick around.

Bob