Patrons of the Weyburn Leisure Centre will have to forego practicing diving board skills for the rest of the season. The facility has removed the two diving boards for the rest of the season.

The decision is the result of some recent incident reports of minor injuries from people who had slipped while on the high diving board.

Facilities Manager Greg Button said there had been some de-lamination of the high board from wear and tear. This resulted in an attempt at resurfacing the board.

“We had some de-lamination of the original safety coating on the board,” said Button. “So we ordered a kit from our aquatic suppliers out of Vancouver, to refinish the board.”

“We refinished the board, so there was a different texture to it than the original texture, because there always is,” he explained. “It was a little slippery, so we added some extra grit when we were redoing it, to see if that would help and apparently it didn’t help.”

“So, I was here on Thursday, I got three incident reports, and at that time we made the decision to pull the boards off,” said Button.

He said that he will not be ordering new diving boards this year.

“There’s really no sense in trying to order boards and get them here, because they really would not arrive in time,” he explained, noting that the new boards would take three weeks to arrive from Quebec.

Another reason they’re not replacing them this year is that they will cost nearly $10,000 to replace.

“So that’s something that we’ll budget for next year and we’ll buy new boards and install them before the summer season,” said Button.

He noted that diving is still possible in the deep end and that the rock climbing wall is still available for those who prefer to jump from greater heights.

 

Regina resident Carter Stuart climbs the rock wall instead of diving on the boards this afternoon (photo by Marna McManus).