Intensive Training

[Achillesheel]

My daughter and son-in-law have booked themselves on a Croatian flotilla as part of their honeymoon in August.
Both are doctors, late 20s, keen windsurfers and surfers, Kate has done some dinghy sailing with me as a child, Gareth has done RYA 1&2 and flott'd with his parents several years ago.

I am taking them out in a couple of weeks for some refresher training, over a couple of days.

What should I concentrate on teaching them?

My list so far is:-

Basic boat safety (one hand always for the boat, life jackets, lifelines if rough, etc)
Basic Navigation, ie 3 point fix
Chart symbols
Tacking & Gybing a yacht
MOB
Heave to
Anchoring
Coming alongside, and picking up a mooring - not vital as flot crew will be hands on but useful boat handling skill

My boat is a lot smaller than they will have, and doesn't have furling genoa or main which theirs will have.

I am confident they have the basic sailing skills, and plenty of water/weather sense, its the conversion from dinghy to yacht I need to concentrate on.

Comments awaited.

 

[LadyInBed]

Putting up and taking down sails
Positions that can be safely achieved in Hammocks, single and double berths
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[Oliveoyl]

Might want to add Med mooring to the list

 

[Skyva_2]

VHF, Colregs, more safety checks like gas, fire.

 

[Achillesheel]

Yes, had thought of VHF, and colregs a good call.

As for Ladyinbed's suggestions, they've been living together for about four years, they don't need that sort of advice, especially from me!

 

[AliM]

Just build their confidence in handling the boat. If they think it's going to be easy and fun, then it probably will be. So, run through all you've said, but in an informal, fun way, and anything else that they are worried about. The flottilla people will be used to people a lot less experienced and a lot more stupid than they are, so can probably handle any real crisis at the time. You just need to give them the confidence to go out there and enjoy themselves!

 

[H4B]

How to reef.!! They will scare themselves faster than anything else if they get caught in a squall with too much sail.

Howard.

 

[Steve_R]

One risk is travelling along a featureless coast and losing track of which bay is which, so lend them a hand held GPS and show them how to plot the position on a chart.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Some anchoring practise, esp lunch hook techniques.

Also, demonstrate that an anchor, once dropped, will sink. There is no need to watch it sinking, just to confirm that it has.

 

[Melody]

PLEASE make sure that they know their rule of the road.