Have you done a course?

powerskipper

powerskipper

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I have just finished teaching today,3 guys, I will call them the 3 musketeers, The course started when the weather was blowing, we had F7 to f9 in the Solent, so I did 3 of the 4 day course and then postponed the last day to today, forecast was a F4 to F 5 today, turn out to be less and we had a great day pontoon bashing, with out 1 single bash.
Anyway back to what I was going to say!!!!

It was rough they said with mammoth waves when we went to Newtown on the first part of the course, or so they had told everyone!!!
It was quite lumpy, good example of wind over tide in the Solent in an area that has shallow patches.


So what I was going to ask was, as I always ask something is;

What do you remember about any course you were taught ???
 
So you get waves in the solent .... we call them ripples... :D

Four day practical onboard "Alpha"...

Don't listen to instructor who said "dont worry about draining port water seperator... it'll be fine".... led to a perfectly "simulated" engine falure and Instructor askeing how I managed to generate the gradual engine power loss, vibration and subsequent engine stall .... and was quite chirpy... until I told him it was actual... as I pointed out the red funnel thingie was bearing down on us... Instructors words would be censored in here...
 
I know Alpha

Divemaster1 said:
So you get waves in the solent .... we call them ripples... :D

Four day practical onboard "Alpha"...

Don't listen to instructor who said "dont worry about draining port water seperator... it'll be fine".... led to a perfectly "simulated" engine falure and Instructor askeing how I managed to generate the gradual engine power loss, vibration and subsequent engine stall .... and was quite chirpy... until I told him it was actual... as I pointed out the red funnel thingie was bearing down on us... Instructors words would be censored in here...
Click to expand...

She is a lady who likes to keep you on your toes, but she is a very responsive about it.!
 
I remeber dayskip practical, 1998, sealine sea school, on board "Alpha", which in those days was a F44 flybridge, the one wih the 2 little round portholes in the superstructure, based universal marina. The course was me, my brother and my father plus Sealine's instructor. It was freezing cold, february. I remember the lovely run down the hamble each morning - first time I'd done that. And the cruises to Cowes, Portsmouth and Lymington. Highlight was the night nav, leaving Lymington in the dark and coming back to Southampton. It was the first time I'd ever driven anything bigger than a dayboat and I loved it, and as soon as the course finished I booked a charter (bareboat) of a Phantom 42 in Mallorca for a week then bought a Phantom 42. Happy days, and a really nice time with Sealine Sea School. I still reckon dayskip practical is the best course of all, to convert someone from complete novice to reasonably ok driver of 30-40 footer in one week. Sure, the other courses teach more but the real importnat basics are in dayskip prac.
 
Bored flying instructor, asks for permission over Winchester to do some aerobatics, he was fed up with just teaching the basics. I remember seeing Winchester cathedral through the roof of the cessna, as he reminisced about the good old days when he flew a spitfire in the war. He was border line crazy but boy could he fly.
 
powerskipper said:
What do you remember about any course you were taught ???
Click to expand...

The fog.

Miles of fog.

And seeing this enormous purple blob on the radar at a couple of hundred yards distance: being able to HEAR it, but not being able to see it - then like something out of "Ghost Ship", she looms into view...

dv.
 
powerskipper said:
What do you remember about any course you were taught ???
Click to expand...

Not to touch any metal part of the BA set for two minutes after fighting a simulated fire on the course at Leith (it was too hot to touch).

The sweat in my gloves boiling and scalding my hands inside the gloves.

Finding the heat barrier by raising my head until you heard the crackle of your hair singeing and the painful blisters on the top of your ears because you kept your head too high for too long in the heat barrier.

Learning that it was perfectly safe to climb down a ladder through 10' high flames because you knew it was cooler the further down you went nearer the seat of the fire.
---------------------------------

Having the confidence to lean forward and fall out of the door of the helicopter at 0200 over the channel and allow the harness to take the weight as you are lowered down.
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I suspect that this was not really what you were looking for !!

Tom
 
powerskipper said:
What do you remember about any course you were taught ???
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I've only ever done 2 'Practical' courses . Day Skipper on both Power (1994 ?) & Sail and both were great fun as well as learning a heck of a lot.

I was lucky enough to do my 5-day Day Skipper with 2 guys doing their YM practical (as industry professionals) - so a right mixed bag as it were and I benefitted hugely from the expectation and advice from them.

The Sail was in La Gomera and SWMBO and I were the only 'pupils' on board .. magic holiday.

Best bit of both was the night cruising and I will always love cruising on perfect still nights.

The 'Theory' courses are imo boring .. I went to night classes for my YM Theory and it was 'slow'.
 
Being absolutely drowned on the flybridge of a Birchwood TS37 taining boat on a roughish F5 wind against tide night passage from Yarmouth to Port Solent (the instructor stayed in the warm below!). Arriving after the bars had closed, and going shopping in the Marine Superstore first thing next morning for a decent jacket.

Also, same course, when a student went missing off the boat one night in Lymington. He'd had a few (he was if I remember a pub owner from Dublin!), and we were all concerned he'd fallen overboard during the night. Eventually found him at the hotel in Lymington High Street - his "cabinmate" was a heavy snorer and in exasperation he'd left for a good nights' sleep elsewhere!!
 
What do you remember about any course you were taught ???[/QUOTE]

Back in the 80's in preperation for a med flotilla holiday with girlfriend and other couple, the 4 of us did a weekend sailing course (April / May time) around the Solent with a small sailing school which operated out of the owners house at the top of the Hamble. The two girls had no sailing experience, with one never being on a boat of any sort before. It was a great weekend which packed in a lot including a night passage from Hamble to Cowes, a Saturday night at Bucklers Hard and plenty of boat handling under both power and sail.

One of the many highlights was after having a pleasant lunch at anchor around Newton Creek(?) we then proceeded to sail across the Solent. The Skipper was keen to show us reefing so we were all on the coachouse around the mast except for the very inexperienced girl who was given the tiller and instructed to head towards a yellow buoy in the distance (she was not happy about standing anywhere on the boat, so the tiller was the least of all evils). Those at the mast got a bit engrossed and after a while the person on the tiller triumphantly announced we had arrived and what should she do next. As the 4 of us at the mast looked up, a now very large yellow buoy of the special mark variety, bounced down the side of the boat.

Once we had moored up at Bucklers Hard that night and before we could go to the pub for food and beverage, the skipper insisted we clean all traces of the yellow paint marks from the hull as he was seriously worried as to the reaction of the school's owner. Upon return to the school the next day, the owner made a comment as to how clean the hull looked leaving him a bit bemused as no admission was made as to even cleaning the boat, let alone to clanging into a buoy mid Solent.

The subsequent flotilla holiday turned into a bareboat charter, on which all 4 of us thoroughly enjoyed and coped with admirably, in large part to the Solent weekend course, which we still talk about today.
 
Best thing I remember from any course: I struggled a bit with the Day Skipper nav ex work, because it required accuracy of 1 degree and calculated speeds in decimal points of a knot. This was after years in aviation where anything less than 5 degrees accuracy was wishful thinking, and given that my boat was capable of 30kts, I didn't care whether the tide effect was 2.3 or 2.5 kts. All of which meant that I really didn't see the point of what I was being asked to do, and didn't finish the course. So when I discovered Powerboat Levels 1, 2 and Intermediate (and Advanced next year maybe), where calculations were to a relevant degree of accuracy to my kind of boating, I had found my niche.

And, re Spinreach's post above. I was recently on a cruise on THV Patricia, the Trinity House buoy maintenance ship, when we picked up a yellow off the Needles with a huge 'ding' in the side. It required much repainting etc - and will doubtless be replaced the next time around (maybe with a plastic one?). I wonder if there's a connection between the two stories.........
 
I did my day skip wiht Sealine back in 2004 in Alcudia, on their F42/5 'Omega' - the best thing was the night nav, great course, great instructor, great week!
 
Divemaster1 said:
Sorry Julie.... exhale all the way to the surface is;

a) Diving and equipment failure
b) Submarine escape

... helicopter escape is somewhat different...
Click to expand...

Well done Alf, It's "B",

http://www.subescapetraining.org/

today http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=sfy60cgx65zp&scene=42355907&lvl=1&sty=b

yesterday

oberonclass.jpg
 
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