Not exactly forced, it was all part of the fun on an Advanced Offshore Survival Course that we completed last weekend. As part of the CAT 1 requirements for sailing offshore at least 30% of the crew need to have completed this training. We figured it would be better if we all did it, so Claire and Jonathan will do a similar course in the UK.
Our instructor runs the RNZN sail training school so of course Daniel knew him, one fellow participant will be doing the Island Cruising Fiji rally at the same time as us next year and we had already met online, another person was from Whangamata and knew Barry and Ngaire. A typical New Zealand gathering where you cannot help but find connections.
The course was a fabulous mix of theory, discussion, demonstration, hands-on use of safety equipment and practical exercises in a swimming pool using a real life raft while wearing our full wet weather gear.
We now have a long list of things that we need to do back on our boat, more gear that we need to buy and safety procedures that we need to think through and then practice.
The main takeaways from the course were; don’t fall over board, don’t get caught in a hurricane and don’t get into a situation where you need to get into your life raft. If we do end up in any of those situations at least we now have a few clues as to what we need to do.
We have no experience of setting of flares other than a smoke flare from the back of a students union minibus driving around the Loughborough University campus circa 1981 ( Doug Clark was responsible for that). We discovered that the red flares get really hot and having a pair of welding gloves in the flares box would be a really good idea.
Weather is lovely, wish you were here 