Sensible Risk - balancing challenge with safety

James Stevens – Chief Examiner and Head of Training, RYA, UK – is one of the most qualified people to offer advice on how to recognise the qualities of potential skippers and sail trainers. He says that part of the challenge of sail training is the risk involved, and balancing risk with safety by selecting the most suitable candidates for leadership jobs is a tough task. “It’s recognising those who not only have the fundamental sailing and seamanship skills but also other skills such as the ability to maintain a leadership role even when the going gets tough.”

Identifying candidates who are capable of taking on a job as a ship’s skipper has, according to Stevens, been under debate for many years. It has been the subject of many discussions with the military on how they deal with similar situations. The ideal scenario is to send the candidate to sea on a fully crewed ship and test their skills but it’s a big risk, particularly when others including young and inexperienced crew are involved.

To find out how well the candidate would react to change and how responsible they’d be in a given situation, are some of the key elements that would need to be evaluated. From his experience, however, Stevens says that because it’s impossible to give them personal real-life experiences by letting them loose on the ocean waves, they’ve come up with what they believe is the most effect method. “Yes, we do give them practical experience, obviously under supervision, but we have found that by introducing a situation while they are already experiencing a fairly taxing drill like, for example adding an approaching ship to the equation in gale force winds, gets them thinking on their feet. This sort of scenario really highlights how they cope, so we use this method quite a lot.”
Trainer recruitment is another area where selection is complex because there are many factors involved, particularly as they will be working with young crew. As well as the obvious teaching skills, tolerance, sense of humour, stamina, motivation, communication skills and empathy were among the most important qualities needed for this job. But identifying these qualities is a fairly tough process. Stevens concluded: “The most effective method we have found is to carry out an assessment process at sea with two independent assessors, ideally on separate voyages. It’s subjective but it works.”

Speaker

James Stevens: Chief Examiner and Head of Training, RYA, UK