Featured articles


for your students to remember the content you deliver, learn something and enjoy the session! Use exciting and relevant exercises to inspire your learners. Have you tried teaching course to steer by getting people to walk around in the classroom, or buoyage with model buoys and making people navigate around the classroom? RYA e-Books are a great


resource for teaching, with videos, illustrations and fantastic animation. The IRPCS eBook (e-G2) has movable vessels for lights and shapes, which is a great interactive tool that gives the students a break from your talking! For other hands-on activities


why not ask Paines Wessex for a set of dummy flares. They’re free and help make the safety session truly interactive. The same applies for EPIRBs and SART.


5 Testing your teaching Finally, summarise your session. Recap all areas and test your teaching by getting the learners to confirm what they have learnt. Use examples, questions and presentations. People like to demonstrate their


new-found skills, so encourage them to do this. If you taught them how to do a course to steer, they should be able to demonstrate it to you. This also confirms to you that your teaching is effective and consolidates their knowledge ready for the real world. Lesson planning does not have


to be arduous. It should be an opportunity for you to explore the syllabus and ensure that you have covered all of the relevant points. Learning is fun and teaching should be rewarding. Every time I teach a session, I like to think I take away a little more experience and a new way of delivering a subject. So take up the challenge, expose the syllabus and enjoy the journey of delivering quality, effective teaching sessions. See the website for details


and dates of RYA Shorebased Instructor training.


Originally published in the April 2016 edition of Wavelength


www.rya.org.uk S


omeone entering the water when they weren’t expecting to could be


either funny (walking off the end of a pontoon in a marina whilst distracted) or extremely serious (being flung out of a powerboat when the boat hooks). Funny or serious, the life-threatening implications are the same. The very real possibility of cold shock exists. Cold shock happens within the first 2-3 minutes of immersion. The casualty breathes uncontrollably and is likely to inhale water. The most important thing for them to do is to rest in the water, protect their airways and wait for their breathing to regulate. At this stage, the risk of a heart attack is really high as the body works overtime to cope with the sudden temperature change. Assuming the casualty is wearing personal buoyancy, they don’t need to tread water and put extra strain on their already busy heart. According to Mike Tipton


and Frank Golden in their book Essentials of Sea Survival, the gasp reflex (uncontrollable rapid breathing and reduced breath- hold time) can occur in water up to 15ºC. There is an impact on breathing rate in water as warm as 25ºC, but not as extreme as under that 15ºC, so cold shock is a risk almost everywhere.


We are all well aware of the


steps to take to ensure the recovery of a casualty, but are we accidentally playing down (by omission or brushing over it in favour of the boat positioning aspect) the point that a distress call should be made as a priority? It is obviously of utmost


importance that the person in the water is recovered in a safe and timely manner, but sometimes that recovery is not as straightforward as it may at first have seemed. It’s actually quite difficult to recover an adult wearing waterproofs onto a small powerboat. Every second that the person is in the water counts as they lose body heat 20 times quicker in water than in air, so it is a race against time as they lose dexterity and start to fatigue. When we are teaching


powerboating it is important that our students recognise that falling overboard is a life-threatening emergency situation. Making a distress call on VHF ensures that help is on its way. It is easy to downgrade the call by letting the Coastguard know you have recovered the casualty, they are unhurt and you are returning to port as a precaution. It is not so easy to upgrade the call once you’ve been trying for some time to recover the casualty and are struggling to get them on board as they start to lose consciousness.


The rescue services would much rather come out and be turned around when the casualty is recovered, than turn up when the casualty is in grave danger with the crew trying in vain to recover them as they lose consciousness and become unable to help themselves. Whenever we are teaching


man overboard recovery, we must discuss cold shock. Crucially, we must incorporate the distress call into the drill: » Shout » Point » Make a distress call (could be delegated to a crew member)


» Work out wind direction » Begin approach to casualty » Contact » Engine off » Recover casualty Please remember that on all


Powerboat courses except Safety Boat, we use a dummy of perhaps a small fender with a little bit of chain to simulate the casualty. We do not use a person in the water. When looking at the various


recovery methods in the Safety Boat course, the boat should be at anchor, moored up or tied up alongside with the engine off. The person being recovered from the water must be in appropriate clothing.


Originally published in the September 2016 edition of Wavelength


| 7


Man Overboard! Emergency situation?


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20