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plugsie
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Member#: 9074 Location: Registered: 03-09-2010 Diary Entries: 416
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1st March 2008
Other: Axbridge Wind Direction: West Wind Stength: 20kn Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: 6 Sea Temperature: Weather: Gusty Max Speed: Distance Covered:
Going against the theme of the site, but an absolute necessity for H&S.
Powerboat and rescue training. The session was a busy one as we were also
the rescue boats for the day. Good hands on training if you ask me! The day
started with just getting used to the the boats with some simple maneuvers,
S-turns, 360's in both forward and reverse. During lunch there was a theory
session on rescues of both people, man over-boards and finally boat
rescue.
Straight after lunch it was back to the powerboats, but first we needed to
find some willing guinea pigs to be rescued. That sorted it was time to put
into practice what we had learnt. We hadn't been out on the water long
though when we were putting our new found skill into practice on a real
rescue. Winds were strong and gusty and had taken one of the laser sailers
by surprise whilst going down wind. This capsized her with the centre board
up, although she had managed to stop her boat from being completely
inverted, the boom was caught up on the centre board. Holding the top of
her mast and shading the boat from the wind she managed to release the
tangle and re-set her centre board. We then righted the boat and the sailor
climbed back aboard her boat. Still holding onto the Laser the sailor
sorted herself out and re-composed, all OK and she was off again.
Back to the training session we went off in search of one of the club boats
that we had left inverted in the reservoir. We found the Mirror and righted
this on fairly easily, shrouds made it easier than the Laser we had just
done. Our instructor climbed aboard the Mirror and sailed away, leaving me
and one other trainee crew in the powerboat. We followed for a while. Then
one of the other powerboats came alongside her and they also tried a rescue
with the Mirror. While they were doing this we decided to go off and rescue
the Topper that was now drifting close to the edge of the reservoir. Think
we done a good job of this righting and pulling the boat upwind and away
from the edge. By the time we had done this our instructor had climbed
aboard the other powerboat and was once again joining us in our boat. Not
happy though that she had not witnessed us righting and rescuing the
Topper, she made us do it again! Happy with that it was onto the man
over-board, I found this the easiest of all, I think that all those years
of pulling fully kitted up Scuba divers into boats helped with this
exercise. Last of all was the rescue of the sailboard, again a reasonably
easy rescue as these are not as heavy as boats. We were quickly alongside
and pulling the sail onto the back of the boat followed by the board. Now
heading back to shore to conclude the day. All the power boats were put
away and locked down before getting our RYA level 1 powerboat log books and
certificates. :) passed :). Now changed back into the car and drive home.
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