RYA safety boat presentation

1. RYA safety boat presentation Suggested methods for dealing with small craft in a sheltered environment

2. Guiding principles • Count heads! • Ask if help is required, and if so, what. • Recover and return students to shore if the situation is becoming serious. • Leave the craft ‘tagged’ to let other crews know it has been dealt with. • Don’t become another casualty yourself .

3. Guiding principles • If students are in the water near to your boat, turn the engine off. • Even if they are not, consider turning the engine off. • Involve the casualties in their rescue. • Holding or raising the tip of the mast may be all that is required if sailors are tired. • Whilst dealing with a rescue, the rest of the fleet may be without cover. Remain alert for them.

4. High performance dinghies • In a training context ‘prevention is better than a cure’, therefore….. • Use a mast-head float. • Prevents inversion. • Doesn’t affect performance much.

5. They can be squash containers or in this case, a canoe air-bag.

6. Just fasten it to the halyard.

7. High performance dinghies • In the case of entrapment, the priority is to bring the casualty to the surface. • Either lift the spinnaker pole, or the stern to create an air gap.

8. It will allow you to see under the hull.

9. High performance dinghies • Resist cutting lines, the sails will be easier to manage if you don’t. • Use wire cutters as a last resort and only then on the trapeze system.

10. High performance dinghies • If it’s a standard ‘rescue’.. • Get the spinnaker down first. • Ask the dinghy crew to do this. • If they can’t, ask them how and do it yourself.

11. High performance dinghies • Drop other sails if possible. • Roll jib if it has that system. • Put wing/rack over RIB sponson and ask crew to sit on it. • Remove dagger board. • Pass line around mast. • Consider ‘spring’ towline to take strain.