The RNLI is working nationally with many safety-related bodies to promote safety at sea, but the Island Cruising Club and its local lifeboat station are already working well together...

Richard Johnstone-Bryden reports from Salcombe.In recent years the Island Cruising Club, which is based on the picturesque Salcombe estuary in south Devon, has been developing a 'disaster weekend' with the close support of the local RNLI station. The disaster weekend is aimed at providing participants with a wide range of potentially hazardous scenarios and how to cope should they arise at sea. The weekend is a mix of theoretical training backed up wherever possible by practical exercises.

The event started as the result of a Trouble Shooter's' cruise devised by the RYA's Bill Anderson and Yachting Monthly magazine - first held on the ICC's yachts back in 1983 and annually ever since.

However, unlike the original week-long cruise it is now held over a weekend both on the Salcombe Estuary and, weather permitting, offshore.

From the local lifeboat crew's perspective it provides them with two good opportunities. Firstly, to practice a variety of different exercises with two vessels which present them with very different challenges, such as towing and transferring first aiders to a yacht to assist 'casualties'.

Secondly, it allows them the chance to speak to yachtsmen about some of the most common problems that they encounter while on services and how the more common failings can be avoided. At the same time the lifeboat crew instruct them in how to react if they should find themselves in the position of requiring assistance.

For the 1995 disaster weekend the ICC used two of their three yachts from the cruising section for practical exercise.

The larger of the two was the 72ft Edwardian gaff rigged schooner Hoshi - Japanese for 'the star of the sea'. Built at Camper and Nicholsons in 1909 she passed through the hands of a number of wealthy owners until she entered service with the ICC in 1952 - initially under a loan agreement, until the club could afford to purchase her outright. At the other end of the scale the Sadler 34 Island Carriad represented a typical modern cruising yacht.

The practical exercises followed a full briefing, either onboard the ICC's floating base (the former Mersey ferry Egremont) or the yachts. The course covered the more common disaster scenarios likely to be encountered by yachtsmen, including first aid, towing, liferaft drills, man overboard, flares and a talk about prevention of engine failure, with advice on how to remedy the situation should one occur.

Symptoms To add to the realism of one of the first aid exercises, members of the ICC's staff were each given a brief as to what kind of 'injury' they had sustained together with its symptoms and then joined the crew otHoshi. The students were given the scenario that a freak wave had broken across the deck and then went through the drill of checking themselves and the other members of the crew for injuries, diagnosing the 'symptoms' displayed and taking appropriate action. By involving the local RNLI in such events the club members gain directly from the exercises, which would be a great help should they ever be in the position of needing lifeboat assistance. More importantly there is less chance that those who have attended a disaster course will need the services of a lifeboat because they have a clear understanding of the most common reasons for a rescue being mounted and how some of those situations can be avoided.

This kind of co-operation between the ICC and the Salcombe RNLI crew is a good example of how the experience gained by RNLI crews can be incorporated into training programmes to help promote safe practice and good seamanship among the yachting community, while at the same time acting as a useful addition to a local RNLI crew training routine..