in the water with only their personal floatation devices and inadequate personal clothing for the prevailing conditions and the sea temperature. Due to the Mirage boat being a slightly more modern design, it had two big blocks of foam down its length. These kept one of the swamped boats afloat enough to be swept towards a fishing vessel, which raised the alarm with the coast guard. The coast guard dismissed it as a boat left unattended on the foreshore and blown out to sea as there had been no reports of boats or paddlers missing from anyone ashore. As they capsized, the female instructor advised the sixth formers to not inflate their BVs as she felt that this would discourage them. The vests became waterlogged due to their stay in the water and, later as they began to really need them, they were unable to inflate them. https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/fatal-catalogue-simple-errors The centre handyman had been due to pick up the kayakers at the end of their trip. He returned to the centre to alert the manager at 12.25pm. The manager waited until 3.07 pm to call the coast guard after he had driven his Land drover along the cliff, looking for the party from shore. When he phoned the coast guard, he stated that the group were well equipped and had flares and that they were well qualified. This group did not have flares and did not have a tow line, if they had had a tow line, it is unlikely that they would have known what to do with it as they were not well qualified (https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/fatal-catalogue-simple-errors). The last kayak sank at about 3pm. The delayed response, due to the lack of information provided by the centre manager, the inadequate information on the boats and the delay by the manager in reporting his lost group may all have contributed to 3 students dying from hypothermia before rescuers managed to get them into hospital, and another dying later. A local coach, who was qualified to run such a trip, is quoted as saying that he would not have run the trip unless all the participants had their three star in personal performance, let alone the instructors. British Canoeing (BCU as it was then) https://www.britishcanoeingawarding.org.uk/leadership-moderate-water/ stated that the minimum leadership skills for a leader on that trip would be Senior Sea Kayak Instructor, which is a qualification which takes a minimum of one