Elsham and safety

[garycarrot]

Does anyone else think the netting was a bit lacking on sunday?

I like a lot of other people took my wife and kids. Both got shot by balls clearing the nets between fields. Not a good advert for the sport!
I actually saw a line of 3 balls just miss a childs head as he walked past to the ice cream van.

The cars parked at the top were covered in hits, and as a player waiting to go on I was hit a couple of times.

I am not trying to take anything away from the event. I enjoyed it and would like to say thank you to everyone involved. But if someone had lost an eye, where would we be?

I thought that we were trying to get more people to realise what the SPORT of paintball is about, and if that means we have to improve on the safety, lets do it.

Its not much fun getting shot as a player, but when you are just watching, seems worse!!

Just my 2p worth. What do you all think?

 

[Parksy]

Netting was a bit poor, enjoyed the event though

Was standing at the Just Paintball stand picking up some paint when out of nowhere I got smaked in the nose by a ball. Upon looking at field 1, the SP field they were bounding off the back bunkers and wizzing over the netting towards the trade stand section at the bottom. From what I was told I weren't the first person to get hit either

Apart from that, spot on event

Dave

 

[Ledz]

I wasn't there this weekend but I have seen this problem over and over again at all different types of events, I’ve seen netting getting higher and higher, but I think we are going to have to except that there are going to be balls that get out of the netting. It's not expectable for the paintballs to go straight out, the ones that always seem to escape are the ones when people shoot the top edge of bunkers and the balls bounce over the top, most of the energy of the balls is lost on this impact so when it comes back to earth they are pretty much harmless and these are the ones that makes the car park look bad. The ONLY way to stop every balls coming out is to have a roof on each arena and that just isn't practical.

If the netting this weekend at the STB was very bad then don't wait to post it on the forums tell the organisers and get it sorted. We are all responsible for the sport we play.

LEDZ

 

[Dazdread]

That reminds me. I was hit in the love handle while standing about 2 yards from the net in the safe area by the marquees.

I studied the netting and there were no holes in it so it could only have been a ball that can only have hit the ground where the netting did not touch the ground and bounced up, bloody stung.

That in it self I would deem acceptable except for the fact I was standing about 3 feet away from a 6 week old baby in it's push chair at the time.

How ball tight can you make a field, should there be a standard that says all prams should be protected by some form of netting?

 

[Dazdread]

Sorry, meant to say that in general I was well impressed by the standards of a) safety and b) marshalling at this event but even the best can be improved.

 

[liamliddy]

On the subject of netting, the whole area was taken down, new higher than previous telegraph poles were erected and the netting was very high, any holes were repaired and in places the netting was doubled up, it took all of 2 weeks to make sure everything was right about the netting and unless there is a roof on the area then any balls bouncing off barricades skywards can NOT be stopped, the netting was high enough to stop all balls fired straight from the markers and not hitting anything to change the path of the ball and make it rise upwards, so you cannot say the netting was poor as it was not, oh and also there was a one metre gap from the netting where you should stand to be safe from any balls not escaping through the netting but pushing the netting outwards which may hit you, thankyou

 

[Skiggles]

my nice shiny car had hits all over it but I saw that the shots hitting the cars was bouncing up off barricades and coming down again mostly from fields 1 and 6...... my car always is a paint magnet at events but I'm too lazy to park it away from incoming paint!

also saw a few players lifting and going under the netting which couldn't have helped things.

 

[liamliddy]

players who were going under the netting were supposed to get penalty points bully said, lol - car,cheers

 

[jahlad]

i did see a fair few balls making it over the fence this weekend, mostly in the area that was serving as a waiting area for teams going on to the 4 fields to the right. although i did see a few bounce off bunkers and come over toward the stands/staging area.....

as a couple of people have said already unless you put a roof on it its gonna happen, the nets this weekend were in a very good state of repair, didnt see any holes in em

i guess people lifting em and going under aint gonna help anything tho.....muppets

 

[Parksy]

I agree that the only way to stop it happening is to have roofs on the fields, and looking at what people have said the logistics of this is not easy

The ball that struck me had not had a lot of the speed taken out of it aften its bounce over the netting, and some choice words were uttered from my mouth (appologies to Gill from Just for the language ) It isn't really an issue my incident because for all it stung it soon came and went.

Think the point trying to be made is that it can easily be a kid that a stray ball hits after a bounce like this, and as we are trying to get peope to actually spectate think that it won't be accepted by Joe Public as one of those things that happens, especially if someone gets hurt through it.

This isn't a dig at the safety at STB, cause as already stated the netting was all goo and high/doubled where appropriate. But if you want people to come and spectate events I think they will expect that they won't be hit, or have there cars hit by stray balls

Dave