RYA Safety Advisory Notice
- Thread starter alant
- Start date
sailorman
Well-Known Member
No mention of improving their training syllabus
flaming
Well-Known Member
Does it need improving?
sailorman
Well-Known Member
capnsensible
Well-Known Member
Yes
The RYA always welcome suggestions as to how training may be improved. The relevant staff may be contacted by email through their website.
sailorman
Well-Known Member
One assumes they are hopefully logged in hereYes
The RYA always welcome suggestions as to how training may be improved. The relevant staff may be contacted by email through their website.
rotrax
Well-Known Member
Pray explain how you arrive at the conclusion that the RYA's Training requires improving from a report on a speedboat accident where it looks like wine consumption may have been a contributory cause.
As I am sure you are aware, I could go and buy a REALLY fast powerboat and operate it as a private vessel with no training, insurance or other regulation.
From personal experience-within the last six years-the RYA training I recieved was exactly what I needed to further my sailing ambitions. It gave me confidence, ambition to make more passages-especially night passages-and taught me the skills needed to keep my boat and crew safe.
As capnsensible says-the RYA will be keen to know what they are doing wrong.
sailorman
Well-Known Member
The chap was not in fact over the drink drive limit was he.
He had bought a very powerful craft with a training course i assume from the vendor.
The course was very basic.
[h=1]Level 2[/h][h=2]This two-day entry level course provides the skills and background knowledge needed to drive a powerboat and is the basis of the International Certificate of Competence.[/h]It focuses on low speed close quarters handling, man overboard recovery, an introduction to driving at planing speed, and collision regulations. The course can be taken inland or on the coast and your certificate will be endorsed accordingly.
View our online brochure here
[TABLE="class: two-titled-table one-column-width, width: 479"]
[TR]
[TD]Assumed knowledge[/TD]
[TD]None. May be preceded by Level 1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Minimum duration[/TD]
[TD]2 days[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Minimum age[/TD]
[TD]12. Candidates under the age of 16 will be issued with an endorsed certificate[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #98D3E4"]
[TD]
Course content[/TD]
[TD]Launching and recovery, boat handling, securing to a buoy, anchoring, leaving and coming alongside, man overboard
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Ability after the course[/TD]
[TD]Self-sufficient powerboater in the right conditions, aware of own limitations and those of craft
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
lw395
Well-Known Member
I consider myself qualified to ride my motorbike, and have the piece of paper and 33yrs experience that says so, but that does not mean I'm able to apply full power whenever I feel like it.
There is a limit to what can be expected from a two day course that nobody fails.
It's like doing basic training on a moped and expecting to be able to do stunts on a GSXR1100 at the end of it.
There is a limit to what can be expected from a two day course that nobody fails.
It's like doing basic training on a moped and expecting to be able to do stunts on a GSXR1100 at the end of it.
rotrax
Well-Known Member
You have not answered the question.
Unless training is made compulsory, I cannot to see where the RYA have failed.
As I said in my last post no training is required at all to use a recreational vessel.
Just because a motorboater who may have had a minimum level of training has acted in a certain way that cost lives does not mean the RYA has failed, does it?
The underlined red bits tell the story-it was a failure of the operator to know his limitations and that of his craft. The trainers have to let go at some time and let the trainee gather experience.
Unfortunatly this did not happen in this case.
Simondjuk
Well-Known Member
Presumably then you advocate training which is both rigorous and compulsory?
VicS
Well-Known Member
One cannot make assumptions.
If they welcome suggestions on improving their course and can be contacted by email now is your chance.
Put together a carefully worked out improved power boat training scheme.
Post it on here so we know you really are doing it and invite further suggestions from the forum members.
then email your proposed scheme to the RYA, incorporating the suggestions you get from the forum.
Stork_III
Well-Known Member
The MAIB make recommendations for improvement in the RYA Powerboat training scheme, "to revise content and delivery".
http://www.maib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/Milly.pdf Section 5
RYA are probably actively engage onsuch modification.
sailorman
Well-Known Member
Well yes, Hands up to that. He had the ticket so he was trained wasnt he.
Iain C
Well-Known Member
In that case you've never ever broken the speed limit on the road, or drilled that hole without wearing goggles because you couldn't find them? He took a risk, and it backfired, big time.
There's a lot about the RYA training syllabus that I don't like. My automatic ICC because I have PB2 in tidal waters and a DI ticket. Being told by an examiner that my buoyancy aid being unzipped was irresponsible and dangerous. (The fact that it was 25 degrees and I was sat down on some grass drinking a cup of tea and eating lunch was irrelevant apparently). Adults doing "performance sailing" courses with masthead floats in very moderate conditions. Some of the less than "real world" content of a DS shorebased course.
However, one thing the RYA have always rammed home ad infinitum, and absolutely must continue to do so, is that killcords are not optional. And good on them for doing so. Just because someone decides to ignore what they have been taught, and common sense, is not the fault of the RYA. If any good comes out of this sad episode, is that there probably won't be a PB course run in the country that doesn't mention Padstow when talking about killcords.
A picture of the boat should be included too. We're all used to seeing mangled car wrecks where people have died due to drunk driving/lack of control etc, and it's a case of wincing and going "ooo, isn't that awful". What makes the Padstow incident more scary and sinister, is that the boat is sat there, all shiny and tied happily to the pontoon, having killed and maimed, yet it looks totally unmarked and ready to do the same thing again if it's not treated with absolute respect.
rotrax
Well-Known Member
Sailorman-as a one time trainer in the Motor and Motorcycle industries-for in excess of ten years and with formal qualification-I know FROM DIRECT EXPERIENCE that training is an ongoing process.
This unfortunate event may have been avoided had the owner had more extensive training but as you are now aware NONE IS REQUIRED!
The training recieved, as with most watersport training , was to a recognised level.
If further training was thought to be required by the unfortunate owner I am sure it would have been readily available to him-or other family members-and at whatever level THEY CHOSE.
Powerboat level two is not very extensive in scope for operating powerfull speedboats.
Perhaps the salesperson could have stressed the importance of training at the correct level when the boat purchase was made.
Whatever went wrong, in my view it was not the training recieved, but the level of training chosen, or reccomended by the salesperson.
This unfortunate event may have been avoided had the owner had more extensive training but as you are now aware NONE IS REQUIRED!
The training recieved, as with most watersport training , was to a recognised level.
If further training was thought to be required by the unfortunate owner I am sure it would have been readily available to him-or other family members-and at whatever level THEY CHOSE.
Powerboat level two is not very extensive in scope for operating powerfull speedboats.
Perhaps the salesperson could have stressed the importance of training at the correct level when the boat purchase was made.
Whatever went wrong, in my view it was not the training recieved, but the level of training chosen, or reccomended by the salesperson.
Last edited:
[70521]
Well-Known Member
I am sure we will take great pleasure in reviewing Sandyman's new training programme and look forward to seeing the fist draft.
All sport includes some element of risk, that is why we do it, and sadly on this occasion two people lost their lives. But and it is a huge but the message has gone out "Use a kill cord at all times". No amount of training is going to change that simple statement.
If my 11 year old daughter can understand that I am sure everybody else can.
All sport includes some element of risk, that is why we do it, and sadly on this occasion two people lost their lives. But and it is a huge but the message has gone out "Use a kill cord at all times". No amount of training is going to change that simple statement.
If my 11 year old daughter can understand that I am sure everybody else can.
macd
Well-Known Member
Without getting into minute detail, my general criticism of RYA training is that, being profit-making, one of its fundamentals is the need to attract 'customers' (or whatever they like to call them). This is surely one of the reasons why satisfactory completion of a fairly basic course qualifies one as a 'yachtmaster', when in reality a successful candidate is no such thing. Such a course should, at the least, demonstrate to the candidate what he or she does not know, as much as what they do. No doubt many candidates (and perhaps a higher proportion than average amongst visitors to these forums) do glean that from it and thus do not over-rate their capabilities; but I daresay that many of us have a sense, if only from anecdotal evidence, that this is not always the case. There's also the issue of whether pass-rates are sufficiently rigorous. A little knowledge, as the saying goes...
That said, it's difficult to conceive of a way which a body such as the RYA could improve in this respect without denting their commercial position.
That said, it's difficult to conceive of a way which a body such as the RYA could improve in this respect without denting their commercial position.
flaming
Well-Known Member
No it doesn't.
Yachtmaster is only awarded after a rigorous exam, it is NOT a course completion certificate. That is Day Skipper.
newtothis
Well-Known Member
This sort of patronising attitude really p*sses me off. It implies the person with 40 years' experience is the only person fit to sail or have an opinion. It also ends up discouraging other people from getting into whatever field it applies to, not to mention demonstrating a strange insecurity from the person spouting forth: you'll never be as good as me because you've only got x qualification or x experience. Big deal - forgive me for not being born on an oyster smack in the 1920s.
I did a ten-week YM course during the summer. I'd already done c. 2,500 miles, including some offshore racing, so not quite zero-to-hero. I learned shedloads by doing it; more than I would have by doing the odd bits of sailing that most of us get the chance to do. The school was keen to point out that passing the exam was just the beginning, and I'm the first to admit that there's more I don't know than there is that I do know. Learning to sail is a life-long process and I'm looking forward to the journey.
But to have that training and qualification summarily dismissed by someone with an axe to grind against the RYA makes me realise there's a certain sort of sailor I don't want to become.