Pwllheli Sailing Club members undertake Offshore Personal Safety and Sea Survival training
by Vicky Cox 23 Jan 2023 12:36 GMT
Pwllheli Sailing Club members undertake World Sailing Offshore Personal Safety and Sea Survival training © Nick Smith
While our boats are drying out ashore over winter, it was time for crews and skippers to get wet with a bit of World Sailing Offshore Personal Safety and Sea Survival training. With a number of our racing crews needing to gain/refresh their certificates for certain 2023 offshore races, it was already a Pwllheli Sailing Club dominant course, including Vice Commodore and Rear Commodore/racing captain, our numbers further inflated with Pwllheli Sailing Club cruiser crews too.
As you can see from the smiles, we all had tremendous fun while learning valuable lessons. A chance to get familiar with flares, safety kit and life rafts together with time to practice techniques to get into the raft and to limit heat loss in the water.
We also had time to look around the life boats and talk to the RNLI crew about rescue procedures and what they would need us to do if they came to our assistance.
For those doing longer offshore races such as Fastnet or Round Ireland this is part of the prerequisite for doing the races, needing to be renewed every 5 years. Whether cruising, racing or doing deliveries offshore, this course is a huge eye opener and invaluable. We've all come away with plenty to think about, plenty to plan and plenty to practice ready for the sailing year.
Pwllheli Sailing Club's racing season starts with a light hearted tuning session at Easter with a few boats aiming to be out on the water at the end of March. We'd welcome any new boats, crews and skippers wanting to join us. Contact .
The full racing schedule can be found in the racing section of the club website at https://pwllhelisailingclub.co.uk/
Pwllheli Sailing Club have to give a huge thanks to Stuart Gibson of Ocean Discovery and RNLI Llandudno for providing an extremely informative course for us all.