Crew training

Crew training aboard Eximius

After owning Eximius for 10 years, we finally got to have crew aboard for a local Ocean race and what a difference! 

We have had crew aboard for a 40nm trip, but it was literally a straight line cruise from Hillsboro Inlet to Lake Worth Inlet, so just the three of us: Myself, Peggy and one crew.

On our last race, we had two crew and what a difference that made. The day was Stormy, Wet and wild but the two 'girls' were still smiling when we got back to the dock despite not finishing the race. 

Luckily, they both wanted to come out with us again, that's a good sign, and they are this weekend. But also, our sailing club has a lot of potential crew to call upon. I happen to manage the club's website ( https://www.hisc.org ) and have put a 'Crew Pool' system in place where club members can volunteer to be crew on the boats that skippers own.

However, the question often arises is 'But what experience do they have' and that is a good question. I'm looking to see how we can establish that criteria for each wanna-be crew, it's a challenge. 

So, one thing I'm considering:- What are the benefits of training regular Crew. 

We seem to be a decent skipper and admiral, my 60years of sailing experience and quite a bit of education ( Navy as well as ASA 101 ) so I believe that we could offer crew some useful sailing education.

Just like 'I'm not a Bank', I'm also not a 'Free Sailing Classes provider' but would not want to charge crew for 'training'.  However, having better educated crew is a benefit to all onboard.

Ok, having convinced myself that it would be worth my time to offer some sailing education, now I need to figure out what to offer.

Let me say from the outset - I would / will suggest the ASA courses but many of our club members have done at least the ASA 101, some a lot more, obviously, this subject is not aimed at those 'crew' that do have experience - in their case, it's not so much training but in education about how we run our ship.  A frequent phrase we used in the Royal Navy was 'Different Ships - Different Cap Tallies - that refers to the ships name tally that junior sailors have on their caps, those Tallies change when you change ships - so to do the ships procedures.

For the less experienced crew, there are some basics. A good friend of mine told me that when you get a new crew, educate them on one job and help them get good at that job. I like that idea.

BUT - that's a long slow process, and going out  for a sail with the simple goal of practicing a particular process, such as 'Putting in a Reef' can get crew up to speed much more quickly.

I did have the opportunity to educate a bunch of our club members on correct Radio Procedure ( My Ship ) and have the documentation that I used. It would be easy for me to type up some other processes ( such as Reefing ) and take the crew out for practice ( Crew Training ) 

You may have ideas on this and I sure would like to hear about them, so go ahead and comment on this subject - I'll toss out any crazy comments, no offense, but so far my blog has had over 500,000 views and I delete junk comments. I really do look forward to your input.

See you on the water - hopefully with crew.

Paul