To checklist, or not to checklist ?

sarabande

sarabande

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Forum thoughts and suggestions welcome on the following scenario, please.


One and only child (aged >20 :) ) is a competent sailor, though not hugely experienced, having done all her sailing with me as skipper up to the time she went to uni. Not experienced with outboards. Can read charts well, and good at pilotage (DofE Gold chitty for charging around the landscape safely). No formal RYA qualifications.

She now has a small keel boat, which I am preparing for launch next weekend. The boat is 19ft OA, 2ft draught, encapsulated ballast in long keel. After a few hours joint sailing trials and familiarisation, I am intending to let her loose on her own in a tidal estuary while I tremble on the shore. She is extremely independent, and very determined to go sailing solo, and with her friends in due course.

I am a great believer in check lists, having spent many years writing them for use in disaster response. There is a temptation to laminate a few check lists

e.g.
Arriving on board
Safety and working kit check
Preparing to sail
Leaving the mooring
Under way
Col Regs
Comms
Emergencies
Returning to the mooring
Leaving the boat

and then let her out solo to potter for a couple of hours, then half a day, and so on.


My other life as a schoolie tells me that nothing teaches like experience, so if I am reasonably happy that she can make the boat go in the direction she wants, keep out of other people's way, and know when to ask for help or advice, then I should 'just' let her go, and go and find a book to read till she returns.



How do other parents undertake the transition from a child being a crewperson, to being in charge of a small sailing boat and disappearing, if not off to the horizon, then around the bay ?


Are checklists are distillation of years of experience, a very present help in trouble, an annoying link to and reminder of parents, an imposition of regulatory land-based authority, or a hindrance to learning at first hand ?


Or should I take up gardening ?
 
Have to say, this reads more like you're dealing with an 11-year-old child than a woman in her early twenties!

Pete
 
She's going to do it, whether she has your checklists or not. The decision is hers, not your, so why not print up a couple and discuss them with her. Tell her what others you have to offer and explain their function - replacing memory and logic in a panic situation by distilling it in advance. Assuming she'll take the first offered ones aboard, even if only as a polite gesture to Dad who got her a boat, her experience may soon teach her the usefulness of such aids on occasion. Just keep it friendly, not condescending - after all, you use them. Tuck them into a copy of last year's almanac and a set of up-to-date tide tables.

Rob.
 
She's twenty. You can produce a check list for every eventuality but, if she doesn't want to use them, she'll take them with a smile and just put them out of the way somewhere.

Suggest that she thinks about having some checklists, then take it from there.
 
prv said:
Have to say, this reads more like you're dealing with an 11-year-old child than a woman in her early twenties!
Click to expand...

I'm tempted to agree. Presumably the girl doesn't have learning difficulties, as she's been to university. I'd just let her get on with it.
 
Over 20 ?

She is her own boss now.

If she asks for help or advice give it other wise stop trying to run her life for her.
 
VicS said:
Over 20 ?

She is her own boss now.

If she asks for help or advice give it other wise stop trying to run her life for her.
Click to expand...

I agree, but part of me thinks she is so lucky to have parent(s) who care so much about her. I would say to the OP - produce your checklists for her, put them in an envelope with a note to say "these might help one day..."

Then step back and let her do her own thing.

Perhaps she will come to cherish the note and checklists that you thoughtfully prepared for her.
 
I go sailing to get away from all of this management/control stuff.

Why not go the whole way and give her some MBOs and a bonus in her pocket money dependent on reach her targets ;)

She is old enough to learn on her own. If she wants advice she will ask for it. If you really think it necessary you give her a little check list for leaving the boat.
 
Checklist.....

We have a pre-departure check list, which has proved useful on several occasions - shore power cable?:o
There are so many items to consider (on a larger yacht) that it is difficult to remember everything
Cooling water on?
Shore power off?
12v supply on?
Instruments on?
Plotter on & gps active?
All windows & hatches closed & secured?:o (19 on our boat)
VHF on ?
AIS on?
Hand held VHF in cockpit?
Remote VHF control fitted?
Pilot book to hand?
Chart ready?
Tidal info to hand?
Hand bearing compass?
Loudhailer ?(yes really)
Binoculars ?(his & hers)
Camera?
Lifejackets?
Safety lines?
Windlass radio remote in cockpit?
Passage plan completed?
Boathook in ready use holder?
Lazy bag unzipped?
Main halyard attached to sail?

Probably not our complete list (I don't have it to hand).

In answer to the OP (who I know), yes I think it's a good idea, but how it will be received only he can guess at!

Good luck,

Michael.
 
emandvee44 said:
We have a pre-departure check list, which has proved useful on several occasions - shore power cable?:o
There are so many items to consider (on a larger yacht) that it is difficult to remember everything
Cooling water on?
Shore power off?
12v supply on?
Instruments on?
Plotter on & gps active?
All windows & hatches closed & secured?:o (19 on our boat)
VHF on ?
AIS on?
Hand held VHF in cockpit?
Remote VHF control fitted?
Pilot book to hand?
Chart ready?
Tidal info to hand?
Hand bearing compass?
Loudhailer ?(yes really)
Binoculars ?(his & hers)
Camera?
Lifejackets?
Safety lines?
Windlass radio remote in cockpit?
Passage plan completed?
Boathook in ready use holder?
Lazy bag unzipped?
Main halyard attached to sail?

Probably not our complete list (I don't have it to hand).

In answer to the OP (who I know), yes I think it's a good idea, but how it will be received only he can guess at!

Good luck,

Michael.
Click to expand...

I've flown commercial aircraft with fewer checklist items!!

The idea of a checklist is to confirm the important items.
 
From my (as was) RN Officer Father: "Don't drown" as he let me go out in my Cadet as a 12 year-old at HISC.....!
It was the '60's of course, but today it might be seen as child neglect
 
I once had a checklist that a friend made for me. It was a work of art; fancy formatting, amusing little pictures. I liked it so much that I paid a £1 to have it laminated.

I used it for the first and only time when I was leaving the boat to go home. I was on deck checking things like:

- check that am I on the my mooring and not someone else's
- check that the dinghy is alongside before stepping into it
- etc

when a gust of wind blew it into the sea.

One of these days I'll get another one
 
jamie N said:
From my (as was) RN Officer Father: "Don't drown" as he let me go out in my Cadet as a 12 year-old at HISC.....!
It was the '60's of course, but today it might be seen as child neglect
Click to expand...

I was thinking how neglected I was as child when I sent my daughter off for sailing lessons on the same lake I learned to sail on.

5 Rescue boats, for about 18/20 boats & boards.

Me at 6 I had a dinghy to sail and a Newfoundland dog as crew.

Back to the checklists, just let her get on with it. Yes there will be mistakes, its sailing. Only mental checklist I have are the 4 important things:

1) Gas
2) Water (sea cocks)
3) Electricity.
4) Anode (new boat has one you hang over the side.

The rest I make up as I go along...
 
My son Owen left home at 16 for a holiday job as a dinghy instructor and never came back! Next thing we knew he was singlehanding charter boats back to base after they had been abandoned by the hirers because the weather was too bad to return them. The only checklist he ever had from us was GBS, gas, batteries, seacocks, and that was probably of limited use on a charter boat in regular use.

I have made a few boat checklists, laminated them and put them in the chart table, where they occasionally surface, unread for many years.
 
In your place I would be hoping she would enrol in a suitable course this winter. Day skipper? And progressing with other courses in succeeding winters.
 
Checklists are great. I use them
I have a laminated one for loading the car when going trialling. OK they may seem a bit OCD, but when you get where you are going and can't find the ignition cut-off key you realise the benefit of a checklist.

Do them as a joint venture.

Those who say she is independent and shouldn't need mothering would do well to remember that interfering dad drove 10 hours each way to collect the boat. Perhaps he does have a say.
 
prv said:
Have to say, this reads more like you're dealing with an 11-year-old child than a woman in her early twenties!

Pete
Click to expand...

I guess you don't have kids yet:) but if it were my daughter and I had been sailing with her and was happy with her ability.. I would just let her go. of course you will be pacing the floors till she contacts you..but it will give her lots of convidence to know that you trust her ability. she'll be fine..
 
I use checklists onboard, but on Saturday, daughter, 10 going on 30, just as we were leaving the boat, "dad, you forgot to close the the engine sea cock".
 
Are you sure you didn't mean <20?
Surely not >20 and with you still controlling her activities to the extent described in your post?
Primary biological purpose of parents is to fit their off spring for successful independent life.
My own 20 ish offspring will listen to my advice but make their own decisions as to whether or not to follow it.
Set her free!
Cheers
 
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