More success for rusailing in the annual Bluewater Regatta! - see our racing page for more details

rusailing takes their Sea Survival training to a new level:

With high demand for the very popular RYA One Day Sea Survival course, rusailing prepared a course to be run away from their base in Lagos. As soon as word got around it was going to be held at Oeiras near to Lisbon, the course became fully booked almost immediately.

The chosen venue was a lecture hall and combined outdoor swimming pool at Oeiras leisure centre. Overlooking Oeiras marina on the Rio Tejo, Lisbon, it was the perfect venue. Supported by local Life raft agent 'OREY', the lecture hall was soon prepared for the course and everything safety related was there and on display for everyone to see first-hand. From various inflated lifejackets to dummy flares, epirbs, SART's and rescue modules - there was a chance for everyone to see all sorts of equipment and consider their individual merits. Much use of this and the expertise on hand was made by all in the various coffee and lunch breaks.

Although able to take up to 16 students, the number of students was limited to just 10 in order to maximise the attention given both ways throughout the day. Very 'rusailing' as some of you will know!

After a very informative morning session in the class covering topics such as case histories, life raft and lifejacket, survival difficulties, cold shock hypothermia, life raft ailments and rescue. We even had a practical flares exercise overseen by the Maritime Policia. The afternoon was set up to finish off lectures and move on to include a practical session in the pool... Everyone was looking forward to the practical pool session and they weren't let down! Donned in wet weather gear and various types and styles of lifejacket, practical demonstrations and drills were performed such as entering the water safely, maintaining the H.E.L.P position, maintaining airways, the group huddle, rescue towing and the infamous 'crocodile' - all good fun in the relative calm of a pool. To finish the session, out came the SOLAS 8-man raft which (with fingers crossed) inflated and provided the next focus. Boarding safely (dry and wet!), equipment inside, boarding injured people, CUT-STREAM-CLOSE-MAINTAIN drills and eventually, individual righting exercises just about tired everybody out!

Back to the class for a de-brief and congratulations to everyone, not so much for successfully completing the course, but more perhaps for the fact that these people had realised this could be the single most important course they may ever attend - let's hope not.

We plan to run up to four courses during each year, the next one being at our base in Lagos during November of this year. Be sure to register your interest early as these courses are always over-subscribed! With any luck, we may even have the support from the Portuguese SAR (search and rescue) for an extra special display....