Been a bit tardy on my blog lately; I guess I’ve been busy. On the weekend of May 2-3rd, I attended my Yachting Australia (YA) / Royal Yachting Association (RYA) Safety & Sea Survival course. It was being held at the Mosman Bay Sea Scouts Meeting house. Think of it kind of like boy scout meeting hall on the water.
The instructor was Gerry Fitzgerald out of the sun coast. He is a salty, old sea dog, but is really passionate about sailing and sail racing safety. His course is put together using lots of guidelines learned from actual incidents that have happened in races such as the Sydney to Hobart Race. The 1998 Sydney-Hobart Race was pretty tragic with 115 competitors, 71 retirements, 6 abandonments, 50 helicopter rescues, 8 yacht ship rescues, 5 yachts sunk, 10 dismasting and 6 deaths. Another Race example used was the 1979 Fastnet Race where there were 15 deaths – 7 from rafts.
If you are asking yourselves about the “7 from rafts” part of the last sentence, then you are at the crux of why this course was put together. A couple of the 7 racers died just getting out of the raft and onto the rescue boats by not properly exited the rafts and falling between the raft and the rescue boat and getting swept to the propeller or the rescue boat due to lack of the training.
Now days, there are rule governing how many folks have to have had formal safety and survival training onboard for different categories of races. Each year, these standards are getting tougher.
In the class, we spent the morning and the first part of the afternoon in classroom. I was the person with the least experience and they guy with most had done the Sydney to Hobart Race several times until on his last one someone died and he hopped off boating for several years. He and the other classmates shared their experiences as well as Gerry sharing his. In the afternoon, we were supposed to head to a local pool to do wet drills, how to jump in the water without the gag response (cold water), how to manually inflate our PFDs, how to carry a dead or unconscious body in the water, how to inflate a life raft, how to pull bodies onto a life raft and tons more.
Even though previous classes over the past years had used the pool at the local aquatic centre, our class got denied at the last minute, so Gerry had us use Mosman Bay. First we changed into our wet gear, for some folks it was $1500 full outfits with PFD and harness, for others it was bib pants, waterproof jacket, boots with PFD and harness, and for me it was a $200 waterproof shell, my jeans, and a rented PFD and harness. Trust me Mosman Bay was cold! I got to see the early affects of hypothermia on others and maybe a little on myself. I think it was much better training since we were actually in the real water, with no bottom that could be seen and no pool walls to grab onto. Good Stuff!
In the category, There Is A God, it turns out that those folks that run 5 miles a day, eat tofu are usually the first ones to be affected by hypothermia, while those that enjoy a good bottle of wine, and are a little heavy last a lot longer. All Hail!
On day two, we had more classroom work and then took a break and went outside and used flairs. Now I’ve been using fireworks my entire life, so feel comfortable with a bottle rocket launching from my hand. Holding a magnesium flair in my hand was scary. They burn hot, hot, hot, and if you were to grip it a little too high, you would pretty much melt the flesh from your hand.
In the end, great instructor and great course.
