Our crew puttered up in the tender, offered their help and were told to ‘clear awff’. Put yourself in the Bavaria owners' deck shoes.
The offer of help had come from a tender with an average crew age of 9.8 years. David, aged 10, spun the dinghy round like a pro and continued the tour of the marina.
Later, in the Oyster’s saloon, their faces were alight as they relived the days in the Solent, where, as instructor Simon Smith said, the whole family had made huge strides in seamanship.
The Oyster was ‘Grandma’s boat’. It had until recently been Grandma and Grandpa’s boat in which they had sailed more than 9000 miles, but sadly Grandpa had died, and the 406 was a higher maintenance boat than Grandma (Barbara) could manage. However, Barbara’s large sailing family agreed to make it the shared family boat. Until now the Cheshire branch of the family had sailed as passengers, but now Jackie Leyland (her husband suffers from seasickness, so stayed at home) and her five children had decided to learn.
Instead of Jackie learning and then dragging her five offspring in her wake, she decided to make it a true family affair and booked Simon Smith, a yachtmaster instructor whose background with the Ocean Youth Trust has given him experience of sail training with children.
Jackie was signed off as day skipper in summer, and on the strength of this took the boat out as skipper in August. By her own admission, she frightened herself silly, but no damage or harm was done, and this autumn’s instruction was intended to give Jackie more time skippering with an experienced instructor over her shoulder. Barbara comes along to cater and manage Matt, leaving Simon to instruct and Jackie to develop her sailing and command skills. The children learn so fast you could almost hear the neurone pathways being made in their brains.
Safety is one of Simon’s instructing obsessions. ‘If you sail for long enough,’ he says, ‘there’s a good chance that one day something will do wrong, and day skippers don’t necessarily suffer day-skipper level emergencies.’
And so, out in the western Solent, Emma on the helm in a force four, that well known sail training figure Bob went over the side. Four children with licence to shout ‘man overboard!’ at top volume is an eardrum-buckling experience. The three who were tall enough to see over the cockpit coamings pointed while Emma ran through the MOB list dinned into her by Simon. One crew member despatched below to send a mayday, the sails taken in, a check for lines in the water, engine started. Sarah had boathook duty, using it to point at Bob as Emma brought Matriarch to a dead stop next to the casualty, and Bob was saved. Only to be hurled in ten minutes later. Each one helmed and did boathook duty.
All four got their man back aboard first time. 14, 13, 10 and 8. Read it and weep. A fender and bucket is a long way from the real thing, and how could four kids recover a waterlogged adult in the water?
That evening, Simon demonstrated a carefully thought out recovery method. Tie bosun’s chair to spinnaker halyard (they can all tie bowlines) and lower it to the casualty, in this case 15 stone of sailing instructor sitting on the pontoon. Load the halyard tail around three winches, and grinding as a team three children get the casualty aboard in 40 seconds.
This, said Barbara (a very experienced sailor and shrewd observer of her daughter and grandchildrens' sailing development) was part of Simon’s success in teaching the children: find easy ways to do things and keep the jobs coming which will engage their interest. Plan for stops to allow shore leave and opportunities to do things such as get the dinghy out.
During the late October trip a deep low pressure area came through and Matriarch’s barometer fell off the bottom of the scale. Despite the pressure portents, a gale did not scream through, but it did rain. Problem? Would modern, TV gawping youth sulk in the saloon? No, and Emma’s verdict was, ‘It’s better to be out in the rain doing things than sitting inside looking at it.’
An evening potter in the tender was the reward for a good day crewing. Simon spent a day in the marina talking the family through dinghy drills, and by the end of the week they were perfectly capable of inflating the dinghy, mounting, starting and stopping the Mariner, checking for cooling water, loading and driving, kill cord around the wrist. Everyone could row to safety should the engine fail.
The dinghy and outboard engine play was a firm favourite of the two boys David and Will, but David also relished rope work, especially knots. Both took immense pride in coiling warps, and Simon discovered a coiling method that didn’t tire young arms: coil it around the fore hatch, pick up the loop which falls into a coil of the right length, ask passing adult to hold out an arm, over which the coil is hung while the young bosun gaskets it, then holds up the finished item for admiration.
In summer, David listened to Simon’s well-rehearsed safety brief and without notes repeated it back to his class in September. ‘You could teach that boy the whole yachtmaster syllabus in a week,’ Simon commented. His brother Will has dyslexia and needs more one-to-one tuition since his attention span is limited. ‘You have to tailor your teaching to the children’s abilities, but one of the great things about sailing is that they learn a skill, or a rule and they’re it using that day.’
Sarah has the makings of a helmswoman: her favourite manoeuvre? Spin turns. Initially practised in the Solent, then in confined marinas.
Sarah’s sailing story:
‘I thought the way Simon taught us was really good. It wasn’t like he was telling us what to do on a teacher-pupil level, he showed so you thought, ‘yeah I could do that’. I really enjoyed doing short turns. We all had a go at it, and now I know if I ever really had to use it, I’m sure I could.
‘It was my first time on the boat as crew and there was loads of stuff to do. Before we set off, Simon would tell Mum what we were going to do and then she’d pass instructions on to us. She was good at that bit. We all had our own jobs to get on with, and help each other with.
‘At first it seemed there were loads of do’s and don’ts, but when we were sailing they all made sense and it all fell into place when we were sailing. When you’re on a boat, you get to have go at what you’re learning about rather than just reading or writing about it. I would most definitely recommend it to all my friends.’
Emma is obviously one of nature’s deckhands: she couldn’t single out any particular job or manoeuvre which grabbed her attention, just saying she enjoyed ‘all the bits and jobs we had to do out there.’
‘I was very excited about learning to sail a yacht, but also nervous about the responsibility. When I learned about all the rules that come with sailing on a yacht I was surprised at first, but it soon became apparent that most of them were to do with safety. It can get boring sailing in bad weather, but there are always new things to leans and jobs to do.
‘The skipper needed to plan the day, what jobs to do and alternatives if the weather was bad. I found the actual sailing and learning how to use the inflatable dinghy the most exciting part, but learning the Beaufort scale and all about buoys the most boring.
‘Teachers at school don’t make things feel as if they could fit in to every day life, and you don’t get the same sense of personal benefit or achievement from school as we found on the yacht. I really enjoyed learning the basics of sailing and crewing, and felt a real sense of achievement when I got my Competent Crew certificate.’
The boys Will (8) and David (10), had shorter attention spans and initially found the do’s and don’ts annoying. Then they went sailing and realized that there was a reason for the rules and were happier.
Will said, ‘I was really proud of myself and felt a lot more self confident when I completed my competent crew certificate.’
While this conversation was going on in the saloon, Simon was giving mother Jackie a cockpit tutorial in navigating depth contour lines in fog. Afterwards I asked if next summer the Matriarch and its competent young crew making yachtmaster qualifying passages across the Channel? Both girls perked up at this, the boys were slightly doubtful. That’s over the horizon.
Jackie said that the tuition had made her grow in confidence as a skipper, something Simon recognized: ‘In the summer, Jackie was letting me give the orders. Now she’s stepping forward, briefing the children clearly and giving them their jobs to do.’
Jackie said with some pride, ‘You know what it can be like with brothers and sisters, but it was great to see them working as a team.’
The Leylands are bursting to get back aboard. As the kids relaxed in the saloon, they struggled to think up something that they didn’t like. What, I asked would they do if they found a fire on board? Electrical, kitchen or diesel, I was asked. Touche. The four older children competed to recite the fire drill. In a silence Matt (4) piped up. ‘Make sure everyone’s on deck.’
So, if you’ve made a pig’s ear of mooring and a tender with an average crew age of less than 10 offers help, don’t be too quick telling them to ‘clear awff’.
Lessons from the Leylands:
• Learn as a family. A parent with an RYA certificate doesn’t mean you’re competent to teach your kids.
• An instructor has a different authority to a parent. This can be important in ensuring kids do take notice.
• Remember that children have a short attention spans and can crash and burn quickly.
• Regular snacks are good
• Have books, games and CDs aboard.
• They’re never too young to learn. Will, aged 8 can now start the yacht’s engine, recover a man overboard, give a mayday call and knows the boat fire drill.
• Safety, safety, safety.
About the instructor:
Simon Smith is an RYA yachtmaster instructor for both sail and power, teaching in UK waters, the Caribbean and Mediterranean. He specializes in teaching families to sail safely, runs RYA sea survival courses, skippers for the Ocean Youth Trust and has sailed challenge yachts. He owns Black Arrow, a steel 40 foot cutter which he sailed from Antigua to Lymington, and next year will be used for charter and sailing instruction, and in 2006 will be sailing across the Atlantic to Antigu aas part of the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers from.
His thousands of miles at sea has given him first hand experience of coping with emergencies, and he has dealt with fire, collision, flooding, structural failure and a real-life man overboard during his sailing career. Simon's website is at http://www.safesailing.co.uk