Case Studies

Incident: Ron almost sank a kayak (the origin of the Kapsize King)

1. The weather was windy and the waves were choppy, water was leaking in from the top part of the kayak. There was also a crack on the top of the kayak so a decent amount of water went in. (Aaron knew about the crack, but delayed the patch work)
   Lesson learnt: Report all cracks and leaks to the driver or Aaron, so we can patch it up on the same day.

2. Ron broke his outrigger when he collided with the guests.
   Lesson learnt: Outrigger will break out on the water, we should always bring a spare

3. When too much water got into the kayak, the kayak lost balance and capsized
   Lesson learnt: If water is getting into the kayak, pump it out fast before too much gets in

4. Ron got back onto the kayak and tried to pump out the rest of the water. Instead of pumping from the middle hatch first, he pumped out from the front hatch, causing all the water to slush forward and tilt the kayak nose down. Water flooded into the hull and the kayak sank.
   Lesson learnt: Pump out water from the middle hatch first, then tilt the kayak forward to pump out water little remains inside the kayak.

5. Ron decided to swim back to shore to call for assistance instead of staying with the kayak and get the group to help pull the kayak back to shore.

   Lesson learnt: There is foam in the kayak that will keep it afloat no matter what. Stay with the kayak and stay with the group.
   

1. During launching at low tide at Big Boat, a guest stepped onto a discarded hook in the mud. The hook and barb was embedded deeply inside their foot and the guest had to be rushed to A&E.
   Lesson Learnt: Ask the Guest to keep their footwear on until they get on the kayak

1. Problem: During landing, a trainee (Jake) decided not to wear shoes and stepped onto a sea urchin.

2. Solution: Wear your shoes at all times

Trainee guide stuck in a thunderstorm

1. Ron, Barak, Jeremy and (Trainee) went out for a guiding trip. The trip was cut short because of a Storm. 4 Guides went out but only 3 guides came back. The trainee guide was eventually found 10 minutes later, on a beach nearby. The trainee guide kept his wheels in the water the whole time, so he was very slow. He also did not dare to jump into the water. (this trainee was eliminated from the program after this incident)
   Lesson Learnt: Don’t make any mistakes at launch. Remember the 3 check points: Drive, Rudder , Wheels. If a mistake is made, turn back to the shore and rectify the mistake immediately.

   Lesson Learnt: The lead guide must know the location of the guests and trainee guides at all times. Do not abandon any teammates on the water, especially during a storm. If radios are not working, make sure everyone is within sight until everyone gets back to shore.
   

Strong waves and currents near ONE degree 15

1. A guest capsized and lost their brand new iPhone into the ocean. The guest was also morbidly obese.
   Lesson Learnt: ALL kayaks taking the island hopper tour must have outrigger (both single and double kayak)

   
   Lesson Learnt: Discourage the guests from bringing out their phones. If they insist on bringing their phone out, provide them with a waterproof phone pouch (from the truck) and ask them to secure it to their life jacket.

   
   Lesson Learnt: If there’s a fat guy or girl, put on outriggers!

Incident: Ron was stuck by a venomous catfish barb that broke off under his skin

1. In the process of taking a picture of a catfish for a guest, the guest accidentally let go of the sinker and swung the catfish barb into Ron's right knee.

Lesson learnt: Be extra careful around more dangerous fish

2. Despite Ron reminding the guest twice to hold on to the sinker tight, the guest still released the sinker.

Lesson learnt: Do not trust the guest to be able to follow your instructions clearly. You should take necessary safety precautions such as using the net or boga to handle the fish

3. The rod had tension in the fever pose, which caused the fish to swing out

Lesson learnt: Avoid fever pose for more dangerous creatures, such as catfish and stingrays. If you do choose to take a fever pose, pull out some line to decrease the tension on the rod.

4. When trying to pull the barb out of his skin, the barb broke off and the tip was lodged under Ron's skin

Lesson learnt: Do not attempt to brute force a barbed object out of the body. Cut off a bigger section of the barb so that the barb can be easily detected and extracted at the hospital.

5. Ron managed to ask for a tow back to shore from a nearby boat. On the way back, a large wake and the fast speed of the towboat capsized the kayak with Ron in it.

Lesson learnt: If you are getting towed, ensure your outriggers are securely attached to the kayak. Ideally, request to sit on the towboat itself to lower the load and center of gravity on the kayak.

1. Incident 1
   The rod was placed in the rod holders moulded into the kayaks and angled about 45 degrees to the side. The hook accidentally hooked a random passerby. (when pulling the kayak back from the beach)

2. Incident 2
   The rod and hook got caught up on a tree/signage and snapped. (when pulling the kayak back from the beach)

• Solution: All put the kayak into safety position (to and from the beach)
  - Hook is in the largest rod guide
  - Rod placed into the rod holder of the beer crate.
  - Remove the sinkers from the rods (less chance of a tangle)
  - Drives at the back seat (lighter kayak)

Incident 1
1. While attending to the guest, the guide and the guests on a tandem kayak drifted into the Red Zone where the currents are strong due to a funnelling effect at the bridge from the rising currents, they ended up getting stuck in a 90 degree position on the pillars of the bridge and was unable to push free due to the fast currents.

Lesson Learnt: When preparing the guest for the crossing, make sure that it is done in the GREEN zone so that there’s no chance that anyone kayak would drift close to the bridge.

How to prep for crossing?
1) Lower the sail and tie down
2) take the drive out from the front person (more steering control) the person at the back will still have the leg drive. they will crossing using the leg paddle and finger steering, most guests are unable to have good control with hand paddles
3) Remove all outriggers, if there is enough overhead clearance at the bridge, can put the outrigger at the beer crate’s rod holder; if not enough, the person at the front will hold on to the outriggers.

Incident 2
1. When they are stuck at the bridge, the guests and Mark tilted the kayak towards the incoming currents causing the water to flood in, the water flooded too fast and caused both kayaks to flip.

Lesson Learnt: When stuck at the bridge, Don’t panic! Keep the kayak stable, if water is getting in on the current side, tilt a little in the opposite direction. Prep the kayak for crossing, if the sail is not down, bring the sail down, if the outriggers are still attached, take it out.

In order to help your guests you must first get out of this predicament too, one way to get out of the current would be to position your kayak so that the back of the kayak goes into the tunnel, wait till you are about parallel with the tunnel, then start to paddle out.

How to get you guest unstuck?

Ask the person at the back to grab a hand paddle and you grab the other end, reverse- paddle and pull the back of the kayak away from the pillar, the kayak will eventually straighten out and would slide right through the tunnel.

Incident 3
When crossing the bridge, the guide choose the wrong lane. Lane 3 & 4 & 5 do not have enough headroom for crossing. And when an incident happens in middle, it is difficult to resolved.

Lesson Learnt:
Only cross at the left most lane, Lane 1, if anyone gets stuck, it’s also easy to resolve the issue from Lane 1. Lane 1 has the highest head clearance and bottom clearance for the mirage drive.

Incident 4
Going toward the tunnel at an angle, causing the current to flip the kayak 90 degrees to the tunnel and getting stuck on the pillar.

Lesson Learnt:
Move towards Lane 1 as straight as you possibly can, steer with the kayak steering and not the hand paddles. This gives you better control of your direction with you enter Lane 1, the chance of missing Lane 1 would be low.

• Current can be as fast as 10knots over in the Sentosa Cover danger zone

• Your max speed on the kayak is only 3 knots, there is no chance to fight the current when its super strong

How did we almost killed a kid?

On 11 march, we had a dangerous life threatening capsize situation at Sentosa. Involving lead guide ‘Ron’ and support ‘David’. With their permission, I’ll post their detailed summary of what happened here.

The objective is to know what happened so that an incident like that never ever happens again.

Everything posted here is Private as confidential (do not share with anyone outside of Fever)

Here’s David story:

“Occurrence and series of Events (Capsize at Sandy Shores, 11th March AM):

1 big group consisting of:

Group 1: A young adults couple, 20ish

Group 2: Young father 36, young boy 6 (less than 1m tall)

Group 3: Big group of German (8 pax adults, uninterested in fishing)

On 10th March night, main guide discussed with admin for myself to be split up from the main guide to be in charge of the fishing guests while main guide would bring 8 guests to do a sightseeing tour. I was hence assigned to Group 1 and 2 that day.

After launch from cove at Tanjong Beach, my first overlook on my end was to turn left instead of right. Reason for doing so was that my past 4-5 trips at Sandy were all turn left route (consecutive), Red beacon cove area.

On hindsight, as I was brining 4 guests on my own, I should have turn right and go along a route I was a 110% confident with (OG Sandy route, Wings of time etc.) rather than to turn left and go onto a route whereby I only had 3 to 4x of experience with.

For that, I had breached protocol by firstly taking a group on my own when I’m still a support and should have at least sticked close to the main guide on duty that day, in case of an event anything had happened I could get assistance.

My initial plan was to fish at Tanjong reef first, once turning out on the left hand side, but it was low tide that day and water depth was about 2+m and drift was 0.4 knots. I then decided to move further down to find deeper waters but with the same drift speed. Hence my group proceeded to the cove within the cordoned off blue barrels (after pass red beacon on the left, cove area).

After having drifted 2-3x, I could be certain the drift in that area was 0.4knts so I asked the guests to prepare their fishing gear.

The 6yr old boy had difficulty in setting up so I went over to assist him. Once I had put on the sinker and bait for the boy, I realised the drift speed was starting to pick up so I got the guests to stop whatever they were doing and pedal out with me to a safer place. The couple was able to do so with no problem but the dad and son pair faced some difficulty in doing so. The boy was too short to pedal efficiently, with his feet barely touch the pedals. The dad was then unable to pedal fast enough to counter the current coming against him and was eventually sucked into the current and the tandem eventually was banging into the blue barrels within seconds. (The current pool there was at 6-7 knots according to mpa that rescued us.) I then asked the young couple to pedal towards another tandem, within the cove fishing casually (stranger), for safety first. I then went over to the stuck father and son to try to get them out of the current pool. The young boy leaned towards the front of the kayak, wanting to grab mine out of instinct (grab onto whatever he can hold onto). His tandem then started dipping and water started to enter the tandem. The tandem within seconds, started sinking and the father also came over to my kayak, grabbing the front. My kayak then also dipped and I capsized as well. All 3 of us (capsized) immediately grabbed onto the blue barrel chains, hanging for dear life. The yellow kayak, half submerged, was pressing onto the dad’s arm and I had to step on it, pushing it down further for it to be flushed out, relieving pain to dad’s arm. The white single guide’s kayak was stuck but was eventually flushed out by current (about 2 mins from we capsized) on its own. But in the process of being flushed out, the kayak smashed hard into my chest and I had hence let go of the blue barrels in the moment of pain and shock.

I then, flushed out, swam towards the nearest capsize kayak and grabbed onto it to stay afloat. I was then drifted alone in the middle of the sea in a matter on minutes. I then immediately called the mpa first but they had this hotline nonsense (press 1 for … , press 2 for …), absolute rubbish. So I hung up and then dialled 999 for assistance. But as my phone was soaked, they couldn’t hear me and I had spent much time getting my message across to them. (capsize location, headcount etc)

I then called Aaron Ang after I hung up to inform him of the situation I was in and that I needed assistance.

Whilst I was in the middle of the ocean and far away from shore, I could barely see the guests as I was far. But according to the dad and son duo, the young couple acted hero and went towards the capsized father and son wanting to save them, but ended up capsizing as well.

Few minutes passed and the PCG arrived first, they took quite long to locate the guests but eventually did.

For myself, an offshore fishing charter passed by and helped rescue me onboard along with the tandem I was floating on. Once I boarded, I borrowed a phone to talk to the police, wanting to ensure the headcount of people rescued was 5 (including myself).

When the fishing charter drove over to the One Degree rescue boat, they had already rescued the boyfriend and the young boy. I then transferred from the fishing boat to the one degree rescue boat with the tandem.

The other PCG boat was in the midst of rescuing the dad and MPA was rescuing the girlfriend.

After all 5 of us were safe onboard the respective rescue boats, the boy swapped over to the PCG his dad was on and immediately went to hospital for check-up as per his dad’s request to PCG.

The other PCG with the girlfriend and the One degree boat (with me and the bf on) then went back to one degree to dock. An ambulance was waiting at one degree to receive the young couple and bring them for a checkup as well.

A one degree/mpa boat (cant remember which), went out to retrieve the white single kayak. Aaron and I then stayed to clean up the mess after the messy incident.

Reflection:

I do admit and believe that the whole incident occurred and happened because of my huge mistake of turning left to begin with. I should have took the safer option to just turn right to fish in a familiar place. It was a error to override the judgement by Aaron to remain as a support and took the trip into my own hands and run it as a main guide. I made the wrong decision by turning left as I had been consecutively turning left on trips the past few times when with a main guide so I thought it was fine to do so.

When the guests were setting up, I could have been more situationally aware to notice the current picking up and could have told the guests to paddle out earlier to prevent them from being sucked into the blue barrels.

Moving forward / Improvements that can be made:

What has happened has already happened and thank god everyone is safe and ok. It was unfortunate for what to have happened to even occur but it could have been prevented. But here are just some suggestions and my personal views on what could have been improved.

1. For Sentosa waters, I would personally suggest for the Red beacon area to be removed as a trip tour route to bring guests on. It is the most unpredictable and dangerous place in SG with deadly water movements hence I would highly suggest removing that area as a trip route. For guides to fish during fun trips and all is another topic for discussion but for guided trips I would highly suggest that we remove that area. I was no doubt not experienced enough to bring guests to that area but I do believe what had happened to me can also happen to any other guide. So to prevent or even risk such a thing from occurring again, I think it would be safest to remove that route from the tour list completely.

2. For guests, I would suggest that we have a height requirement for guests. Like for example min 1m. It is dangerous for kids to be in the sea fishing when they cant even reach the pedal. I don’t think age is an issue but height requirement I think is important. Usually during the trips that I guide on, the tandems with kids that cant reach the pedal usually end up slowly down the whole tour group as they will be significantly slower than everyone else. Very disruptive and quite ‘burdensome’ to the group.

Conclusion:

I feel that it was unfortunate for the whole situation to have happened. It could have been preventable if I turned right but to the other guides, please be damn bloody careful if the turn left area were still to be a guided route for guests. Even 0.4 knots can turn out to be a disaster. After guiding for coming to 2 years, I never would have anticipated for such a thing to have happened. Not on myself would I ever wish for that to happen, what more my guests and a 6yr old kid. It was a genuine mistake of immaturity and I can guarantee that this kind of incident will never occur again.

To the other guides, no one should ever deserve to go through what I went though and please please stay safe guy’s “

Aaron’s Response

How did this happen?

An incident like that is never cause by just 1 mistake or bad call by only 1 person, it's a series of mistakes by many compounded onto each other.

let's assess what happened:

Admin side:

to deal with 2 groups with vastly different requirements, Ron asked Max for permission to run 2 separate trips, 1 for the nature tour and 1 for fishing. Max replied 'can', giving Ron the permission to separate the group.

Hindsight: Max does not have the authority to allow a support guide to guide solo. This would need the approval by Aaron.

Aaron: given that David is a support with 2 years of guiding experience, I would have made the same call but would have told Ron to stay in sight of David and within radio range, in case Ron or David needs assistance.

On the water:

Ron told David to stay close to him during the trip, David disregarded that instruction and went left. Ron thought to himself, from the perspective of an experienced main guide, guiding a group of 4 at Sentosa was one of the easiest possible things, so even though this was a group separation, Ron decided to allow it.

‼️Hindsight: David should not have turned left for many reasons:

1) Sentosa cove is the most dangerous place for kayakers, every month, there will be an incident there, either a kayaker from OLA or a kayak fisherman from Onedegree will get stuck and capsize on the barriers.

2) the currents were mad fast that day, making an already dangerous location even more treacherous. (rising currents)

3) there was a 6 year old on the trip, no point risking a young life there.

4) David is a support guide, he was never given permission by Aaron to guide solo, just 2 day before on a video chat, Aaron told him that he was still not ready to be a lead guide.

5) David does not understand the currents and conditions there, you must be absolutely sure about the currents before attempting Sentosa cove.

6) in case anything goes wrong, there’s no lead guide to provide immediate assistance.

While setting up the rods for kid, David and guests kayak drifted into the barriers, with currents that strong, they drifted to point of no return. (marked XX in the image)

Somehow, an incident involving one kayaks ended up capsizing ALL 3 kayaks.

Hindsight:

There was a severe lack of situational awareness here, when fishing at the cove, a guide must know where the guest are at all times, never letting them get too close to the barriers, a minimum of 40m.

There was still a chance to turn around as head back toward Tanjong beach when he realised the currents were too strong here. Do not compound an error !

When 1 kayak got stuck, david should have contained the situation and made sure that that was the only kayak in trouble and made sure the other kayak stay safe and out of the situation.

‼️Hindsight for Ron:

Knowing that separation was the plan, Ron should have given David a clear gameplan on shore.

When David turned left: there were many opportunities to pull David back on the guide radio. Knowing the dangers of Sentosa Cove, Ron should have stopped 🛑 David and told him that he should find calm waters around Palawan beach for a group like this.

When the incident happened: ron and David we so far away from each other that they were not within radio reach.

Attempts to call Ron on his phone failed too

‼️Hindsight: always be ready to pick up the phone on the water, in case of emergency or weather warnings, do not keep your phone in the dry bag.

Moving forward:

What are the protocols that we have to change ⚠️or emphasise 📣?

📣Support guides are not allowed guide ansolo trip

📣Support guides and trainee must stay with the lead guide at all times.

⚠️Exceptions can be made but with prior approval from Aaron.

📣Lead guide have full autonomy on how to run a 5 star kayak fishing trip within the fever framework of a peak-end experience.

📣Lead guides makes key strategic decision on the water and have the final say.

📣Lead guides are responsible for the safety and well being of both the support guides and guests on the water. There should be little separation of the group, even if there is, the groups should be within sight and radio contact.

📣The responsibility of a lead guide is very high, lives are in your hands, so you'll only be promoted to lead guide when we think you are ready (unanimous vote)

⚠️Fever admin (Max) does not have the authority to grant a support the permission to guide alone, unless prior approval is given by Aaron.

⚠️Current: all lead guides should have marine safety number saves in the phone

⚠️Now: all trainee and support and lead guides must have this number saved in the phone to call for emergency support.

‼️Important‼️NEW: Anyone can RED flag 🚩 a trip if you feel that the guide and support arrangement is not ideal or not safe I.e: lack of man power. Do understand that Aaron is busy with other fever stuff and have no ideal what is the scheduling. Max's job is to maximise the revenues and there are certain things where she may not understand because she not a fever guide, so there will be some scheduling mistake in terms of guide capacities. Put a 🚩and Pm your concerns to me if you want a second opinion on it.

‼️As for turning left to Sentosa cove side : we will be implementing a 2 month safety timeout on turning left, no one is to turn left.

📣I disagree that there should be an all out ban on turning left just because of an incident by a support guide, we have led countless safe trips to the left side and Saint john island without incident. An all out ban would be a cop out, just like a PMD ban. It's better to take a step back, reassess and figure out a safer way to do this with zero chance of another incident like this happening again.

⚠️The risk of the blue barriers must be made apparent to all guides, not just the lead guides, only lead guides that have been given prior approval by Aaron can turn left, all other guides are forbidden to turn left until we are confident that you can handle this dangerous route safety

⚠️No kids under 12 is allowed to fish in the Sentosa cove area unless approval is given by Aaron

‼️Guides approve for Sentosa cove route: Nathaniel, Yu Wei, Nicole, Ron, Yi Xuan,

For capsize situations (not at the blue barriers)

Step 1: isolate the problem, make sure that that is the only problem, get everyone to stop everything that they are doing and move into a safe area of low to no current.

Step 2: solve the problem: keep everyone alive: if it's not a Sentosa cove blue barriers situation, keep the guest calm, make sure they are not floating away from the kayak, staying close to the kayak is the best thing they can do.

Step 3: flip the kayak

Step 4: check if the kayak is flooded, if yes, pump from the middle hatch first then pump the last remaining bit from the front hatch.

Step5: get the person back onto the kayak, check if they are okie to proceed (they usually are), if not, bring them back to shore

For blue barriers situation 


How to prevent?

Alway keep a safety distance of at least 40m From the barrier at the cove 
You must be aware of your guests location at ALL times when fishing in that area. 
If current if fast, abandon fishing there, or move into the sheltered cove with no current. 
If current is fast everywhere, abandon fishing there, do not compound the error.

If for whatever reason, a kayak gets stuck on the blue barriers, the most important thing to do is to PREVENT the guests from tilting the kayak toward the direction of the current, if it tilts, water rushes in and that is the point of no return, the kayak will capsize and go under the barriers.

Attempt to pull the front of the kayak away from the barriers and help them to paddle away without putting yourself in danger. Use a hand paddle, ask the front person to grab one end, you grab the other end and reverse away.

If the kayaks capsize at the blue barriers, abandon the kayak, and prioritise the safety of your guests, get them to hold on to the blue barriers's chain, and call MPA for help immediately. Keep them calm at the barriers until help arrives. (Alternatively, if it's possible to hold on to the kayak and float away with it, sticking with the kayak is also a safe option, cause the kayaks are technically unsinkable, there are foam pieces inside)

Stay with your guests at ALL time so that you are able to keep them safe and give crucial location information to the authorities and help.

In a trade like this, it only takes 1 incident to end it all, we almost killed an innocent kid when there were so many things we could have done to prevent it.

The total damage of $20k we can pay back, the lost of our clean reputation we can build it back, but we can never pay back a life.

There are reasons why we are so strident about promoting supports guides to lead guide, we will only do so if we are 100% confident in your abilities to handle ALL situation out there on your own. It’s just not possible to prepare you for all possible situations. There’s an infinite possibility of things that can go wrong, so your problem solving must be very good, with high situational awareness. If you lack that, we can’t push you forward. It’s nothing personal.

Letting a support guide (or any guide that is not ready) to guide a solo trip would just be irresponsible on our part. We are not trying to hold anyone back, we are looking out for the safety of you and our guests, the survival of a company and everyone that depends on it.