Hot Liquid stripped of RYA recognition

[BobPrell]

There is a limitation to drills and simulation in that many crew failures are fear and/or stress induced.

Yes. So realistic training should in some way re-create fear and stress.

When I was a trainee army officer, this was done by someone yelling in my ear at the same time as I tried to call an artillery fire mission, for example. It was crude but effective. Some trainees could not cope with it.

This was why the forces invented "adventure training". To rappel down a cliff may never be useful to a soldier but it is relevant because they learned how to overcome natural fear, with training.

Simulators, being safe environments, tend not to cause these emotions to arise and hence allow the participant the opportunity to learn their management.

That is not entirely true, if the simulator is good enough. As described to me, in a ship damage control simulator, the danger is quite real, but it can be quickly removed by a safety officer if the trainee cannot cope.

Just putting someone in a closed box and switching off the lights, results in a test for claustrophobia.

We have some submariners on the forum, I am sure they can tell us, was simulator training worth doing.

 

[Simondjuk]

The difference is that you know you that nothing immediately lethal and unexpected is going to happen.

For example, I've done fire fighting training in enclosed spaces with multiple large fires, smoke so thick you can't see your hand in front of your face or even the luminous gauge of your BA set, and a tasks to complete that run your air down to the whistle before you're out.

Whilst it's physically demanding and you're conscious of the fact that you're being assessed, it's not frightening and stressful in the way that a real fire is. You know that the floor won't collapse. You know the roof won't fall in. You know that there aren't any gas cylinders in the building. You know that there aren't people in the building who will die if you miss them in the dark or don't get them out quickly enough. You know that if you run out of air there is someone standing by to get you out.

There's a fire, there's smoke, there are edges to fall off, and you have only so many minutes of air. So, yes, the dangers are real, but there are safety measures in place and the environment is known and largely controlled. As a consequence, the stress levels are minimal.

 

[rotrax]

Oh Dear!

Where does one start? Hope I never end up on a boat with you as a skipper, or even worse as an instructor. I thought you were attracted by the concept of Gestalt - and here you are doing exactly the opposite - deconstruction of the process to the nth degree.

When you are training people you are aiming to produce autonomous, self directing people who understand the principles involved and the strategies for employing those principles to achieve the objective. Most people are more than capable of working out just about everything on your list of instructions for themselves - if they can't they won't survive for long.

There is no "one right way" of doing things to be effective, even less following a prescriptive set of instructions.

Might I suggest that you read David Kolb on adult learning. He sees learning as a cycle of theory, practical experiment, experience and reflection and true learning comes from going through this cycle. The key thing from his research and that of many others is that people enter the cycle at different points. So some people look for structured theory and see the world in a series of logical tested processes. Others prefer to experiment (find out for themselves) - yet others, probably the biggest single group draw their learning from the world around them and reflecting on what they see.

The approach you advocate only caters for one style and is likely to put at least 75% of the population off! When I started out learning about formal accounting it was taught in a way similar to your description, complete with a ruler to rap knuckles if you got it wrong. Very painful process and most of my classmates never got the hang of it. The penny really dropped for me when I had to do the accounts as executor for my mother's estate. I discovered over the 20 years or so that I taught accounting to mature management students that success in understanding came mostly from not trying to teach the mechanics, with all the attendant failures, but to start from the outcome - that is what are these accounts trying to represent and exploring how the numbers form that representation.

There are strong parallels with teaching say navigation where the basic principles are quite straightforward, but the underlying calculations can be very challenging to do in the abstract. The level of detail required depends on where you are navigating - so greater if you sail in my home waters of the Channel and north coast of France than in the 10 years I sailed in the Eastern Med.

It is a long time since I have done the RYA syllabus, but from what I have seen it is still appropriate for the desired outcomes. I guess the final proof is that leisure sailing in the UK, despite the challenges of the environment is a very "safe" activity and thousands of skippers navigate their boats around the coast successfully every year.

A reasoned and accurate reflection of my views.

 

[timbartlett]

You're not wrong there. It put me off at 'finger nail inspection'!

I will never forget my Yachtmaster Instructor assessment, which was carried out on a lovely old 54 footer of which I later became the full-time skipper.

Part way through the course, one candidate was "skipper of the day". He adopted something like the fingernail inspecting routine, sitting by the companionway and not allowing anyone on deck unless they were wearing shoes and had a knife. Meanwhile, the tide was whistling out -- and with 9ft draft in Newton Ferrers, we were likely to be stuck there if we didn't cut the krapp and get going.

To cut a long story short, the guy eventually asked some of us to go up to the foredeck and "get ready to let go". The Examiner said (quietly) "you didn't quite catch all of that: you thought he said let go". With the staff skipper smirking from ear to ear, we did. The boat slipped gently away from her mooring, and piloted herself down the dog leg bend (sideways) while the "skipper", completely oblivious, carried on with his shoe and knife inspection.

He did not pass.

 

[alant]

As usual there is merit in what you suggest. However I would respectfully say that if training in the depth you suggest were part of a BASIC level course, such as Comp Crew most trainees would wonder what they were getting into at that stage of their sailing career. The RYA syllabus for comp crew is very limited in its scope- after all it is little more than a "Taster" into sailing on a cruising yacht. From my RYA Cruising Scheme syllabus and logbook}-Comp Crew Practical Course-the aim of the course is to introduce the complete beginner to cruising and to teach personal safety, seamanship and helmsmanship to the level required to be a usefull member of the crew of a cruising yacht. The Comp Crew course delivered that and more to First Mate and I in June 2003 when we did it. In an earlier post you bemoan the lack of common sense. If trainees have a modicum of that elusive quality much of what you propose above falls into place during the next practical courses, Day Skipper or coastal Yachtmaster (as it is now). In my view the training available in the UK through the RYA is more than suitable for what it intends to achieve. The highlights you make, while desireable, are not essential for leisure sailing. For example-Liferaft drill. Unless you deploy it and practice getting in and out you can do little more than tell the crew what to do and when to do it. Many of the points will be second nature to trainees who prepare food. I would consider it patronising to be told how to use a can opener. First Mate would probably tell you not to teach your granny! It appears to me that you believe sail training should be more rigorous. I take the position that as a new sailor passes through the increasing levels of the Cruising Scheme these matters are covered fully AND AT THE APPROPIATE TIME. Too much too soon can be offputting and counterproductive. You obviously began your sailing career long before I did and perhaps have had a different experience building up to where you are now. We are in the 21st century and, wether we like it or not the world is a different place and people have different expectations. If training courses become longer and subsequently cost more less will sign up-the training we have appears to be doing a good job and gets both power boaters and yachtsmen on the water with basic skills for a sensible cost. In my opinion, of course................

If I have any comp crew onboard, they get a try at the "basic" stuff the DS/etc do, such as MOB/mooring alongside/picking up a buoy/helming.

Its part of their learning curve, can enjoy the involvement + they are paying 'customers' as well, so should get as much as they can out of their time.

 

[alant]

You're not wrong there. It put me off at 'finger nail inspection'!

Wouldn't get much totty onboard!

 

[maxi77]

The type of simulator I have in mind would replicate the accurate movement of a small vessel-power or sail-and it would not be difficult the simulate sail reefing. Could even have buckets of water chucked in your face while reefing! A screen showing a wild sea with large waves would be synchronised to the movement to give the helm an idea of how the vessel reacts in those conditions. Thats how simulators work. These days they are pretty realistic.

Whilst I have some sympathy with the concept it is I fear not quite as easy as you suggest, you would need the hull and mast of a decent size yacht on a pretty smart motion table that could simulate most of the motion of a yacht in a decent seaway. First not small, and considering the size of the worldwide market not very cheap. Then there are the very real safety considerations, killing some one with a simulated gybe in heavy weather is just as fatal as doing it at sea.

Simulators tend to work in areas where running the simulator is less costly than the real thing, in this case it would cost much more than the real thing.

 

[Deleted member 36384]

I do not understand this sort of reply, unless BlowingOB thinks that the intention was that simulator time replaces all other preparation. The idea is that it supplements other preparation.

When he says that a skipper canl be competent irrespective of milage at sea, how little can it be?

100 miles? 10 miles? zero miles?

If simulator time is so inefffective, NASA and the services are wasting an awful lot of money.



Thanks for your support rotrax.

This is the crucial difference supplied by a simulator. To experience the feeling of 40 knot wind blowing your eyeballs nearly out of your head - the NOISE and all the rest. These can be described but it is not the same as feeling it.

NASA, Airlines, shipping companies etc etc use simulators because it is easier to train a cadre of novice persons in a low cost environment relative to obtaining real world experience, as well as for demonstrating competency, and developing procedures.

Indeed air lines pilots and masters get to manage virtual equipment that responds very closely to real world physics. My position on this is not that simulators offer no value or are not effective, but that they are not relevant to sailing a yacht in heavy weather.

However, what better simulator than the real world and the skipper who understands boat handling and knows his boat and himself are prepared for the eventualities that the weather may cause. The information to prepare ones boat and your self is already here, the environment to practice in is already available, the will to try it out, learn and develop better ways is all that is needed. A small boat bobbing about in a F4 or F5, on a wet day, is ample simulation.

How did the competent skippers of today learn how to handle yachts in heavy weather? I would wager that the majority have done it by being knowledgable (lots of different ways of obtaining knowledge), sailing experience and practising procedures. Then when the weather has deteriorated they have had the confidence to manage the situation.

An example. I used to practice man overboard off Troon Marina in the Firth of Clyde. The shape of the bay and how the sea bed shelfs is such that one can get a nice large swell that is bigger than the wind warrants. Its also a lee shore for the prevailing winds, more or less. So using this area one got to appreciate how the yacht handled, how we recovered man overboard, how we shook out or put in reefs on a wobbly deck. It was as is usual in Scotland raining most of the time with a nice glagg for good measure.

I have a statutory duty to attend Well Control Training every 2 years, including simulator testing (Oil and Gas Wells). The simulators my employer uses are very advanced and look and sound like a modern drilling rig. In one week I get to burn down the simulated rig and pollute the simulated environment many, many times. However, in real life, the matter is very different. On rigs that are well maintained and the crews well practised, problems with well control are readily managed and are not difficult events to execute. With poorly trained crews and poorly maintained equipment, I will have to spend a considerable amount of time and money to get these people up to a minimum standard as I am not allowed to drill into a hydrocarbon bearing zone, unless this minimum standard is achieved. The common factor between both types of crews is the statutory 2 years test and simulator experience.

Simulators are not appropriate or needed for developing confident skippers and crew and would be a waste of time and resources. It would be easy to set up though: there are environmental pools around the UK used for liferaft training and helicopter evacuation on ditching training, complete with waves, wind and rain. Some even have lightening and sound simulators. I suppose you could arrange to have a dummy yacht moored in the centre of the pool and let rip while folks attempt to reef. I'll stick with the real world though.

As for the time to develop competence, its entirely dependent on the individual. I have sailed with incompetent individuals who have sailed around the world and highly competent individuals who have raced around the Clyde on Sundays.

 

[Talulah]

You're not wrong there. It put me off at 'finger nail inspection'!

Suggest you read VO5 public profile. It put's it all in context.
He was born in the wrong time period.

 

[VO5]

Wouldn't get much totty onboard!

The Totty.......sails as a guest.
If the Totty....intends to participate in sail handling etc., the Totty has to undergo clawcutting...otherwise the Totty's nails ...inevitably....will get broken below the quick...which the Totty will not like....because the Totty...will have the unpleasant experience of suffering pain....(you should know that)...and the Totty will be completely turned off by the experience and blame the skipper....and as the skipper....apart from being in command....has a duty of care.... additionally by virtue of being skipper...therefore...in advance of unpleasantness, pain and blame...no clawcutting = no sailing....but presence as mascot or dolly OK.... Period.

 

[BobPrell]

Wouldn't get much totty onboard!

Yes. Very important.

I spent about ten years as a watch leader on a sail training schooner. After a while I learned not to dismiss girls as lightweight when they came on board looking "girly".

Some of them turned out to be way better sailors than the blustery boys.

 

[VO5]

Suggest you read VO5 public profile. It put's it all in context.
He was born in the wrong time period.

No.
I have looked at your website.
Your concern is meeting the minimum standard as set by the RYA.
You and I are different.
I am not intersted in minimum standards.
I am devoted to the pursuit of excellence.
That is why you are flippant and disagree with me.

 

[Elemental]

You're not wrong there. It put me off at 'finger nail inspection'!

+1

 

[Pete R]

Hot liquids in the cockpit.

Bloody Hell isn't this how the thread started.

 

[rotrax]

Whilst I have some sympathy with the concept it is I fear not quite as easy as you suggest, you would need the hull and mast of a decent size yacht on a pretty smart motion table that could simulate most of the motion of a yacht in a decent seaway. First not small, and considering the size of the worldwide market not very cheap. Then there are the very real safety considerations, killing some one with a simulated gybe in heavy weather is just as fatal as doing it at sea.

Simulators tend to work in areas where running the simulator is less costly than the real thing, in this case it would cost much more than the real thing.

One of the most physicaly demanding sports in the world is Motocross. The bikes and riders often fly through the air at great hight and, if controlled correctly, make a fairly soft landing. I tried a simulator some years ago and was amazed how realistic the feeling was of jumping, flying and landing. The most realistic bit was what are called" Whoops"- a series of small undulations like large scale corrigated iron. The feeling through the bike was just like the real thing. The screen in front showing the view expected from the rider was awesome. The cost aspect is of course important. The race and rally car simulators at shows and fairgrounds dont cost too much to have a go in, so I expect the cost can be balanced by punters using it. Certainly help to offset some of the costs anyway. I would not anticipate allowing even the possibility of a gybe, for obvious H&S reasons. Like I have stated previously, just allowing new sailors to find out how hard it it to move around the vessel, use the heads and put a reef in would be a big plus in my view.

 

[maxi77]

One of the most physicaly demanding sports in the world is Motocross. The bikes and riders often fly through the air at great hight and, if controlled correctly, make a fairly soft landing. I tried a simulator some years ago and was amazed how realistic the feeling was of jumping, flying and landing. The most realistic bit was what are called" Whoops"- a series of small undulations like large scale corrigated iron. The feeling through the bike was just like the real thing. The screen in front showing the view expected from the rider was awesome. The cost aspect is of course important. The race and rally car simulators at shows and fairgrounds dont cost too much to have a go in, so I expect the cost can be balanced by punters using it. Certainly help to offset some of the costs anyway. I would not anticipate allowing even the possibility of a gybe, for obvious H&S reasons. Like I have stated previously, just allowing new sailors to find out how hard it it to move around the vessel, use the heads and put a reef in would be a big plus in my view.

Recreating the motion of a decent sized boat in a decent seaway is realy not as simple as race car and rally simulators. You will need a full 6 degrees freedom system, and quite long actuator systems, just look at how you boat moves next time you go out. The boom strike was perhaps just a bit over the top but just think of all the minor injury potential in a boat performing as it would in a storm. Anyway I suspect the cost will ensure no one has to worry about the other problems.

 

[mcframe]

The type of simulator I have in mind would replicate the accurate movement of a small vessel-power or sail-and it would not be difficult the simulate sail reefing. Could even have buckets of water chucked in your face while reefing!

http://www.bowmansunion.com/2002_web/html/2002_People_of_the_Bow.htm

1. To make things realistic, start a cold shower and get in. I recommend wearing your foul weather gear, but that's up to you.
2. Spin around about ten times or so, just enough to make it seem like the shower is "heeled over".
3. Now, with a medium sized frying pan, give yourself a good whack on the top of the head while yelling "MADE!"
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 every five minutes or until you black out. SEE FIG. 1

 

[rotrax]

No.
I have looked at your website.
Your concern is meeting the minimum standard as set by the RYA.
You and I are different.
I am not intersted in minimum standards.
I am devoted to the pursuit of excellence.
That is why you are flippant and disagree with me.

You may not be interested in minimum standard but that is exactly what a standard is. There is a level set at a specific point. Achieve that level and you have reached the standard. There may not be any reward for exceeding the standard. Just like, I suspect, the standards for the impressive qualifications you hold. I dont for one minute believe you enjoy the challenge of really heavy weather all the time as your profile indicates. It would become very repetitive after a while surely? If sailing schools devoted themselves to the pursuit of exellence in the way you would have them do very few people would continue with sail training to improve their skills for what is for most a hobby.They would take up something else pretty quickly! Perhaps you should drop the hook in a nice anchorage and watch a beutifull sunset. Thats the sort of exellence I'm interested in.

 

[Simondjuk]

Suggest you read VO5 public profile. It put's it all in context.
He was born in the wrong time period.

It's intended as a comedy piece.... isn't it?

 

[rotrax]

It's intended as a comedy piece.... isn't it?

Apparently not.