Trainee Approved Boat-Handling Instructors

[Trevor M]

Following on (sort of) from Peter's post, I was having a look at the BH syllabus (which can be found at the link below) as I'm in the middle of getting ABI status.

The syllabus contains the line:
"Trainee ABI's may only be used under the direct supervision of another ABI but they should not represent more than 20% of the total number of instructors used on a course. See also Note 12."

Is 20% right? That doesn't seem to make sense. If 3 students want to do the BH course, then only one ABI is needed, but the 20% rule seems to suggest that you can't have a trainee ABI without having 4 ABIs - should it be 50%?

Can someone shed some light on this for me?

(Also, Note 12 doesn't exist, I think it's supposed to Note 10.)

T

[Mike Halligan]

Trevor,

Been there, done that, got the tee-shirt.

Speak to your Regional Coach. The 20% rule, I was told, is there to guide Regional SDC Organisers. [The idea seems to be that when there are dozens of students in unfamiliar boats the ABIs shouldn't have great rafts of trainee ABIs to cart around as well.]

I was permitted to run a BH course with 6 trainees, 2 ABIs and 2 trainee ABIs (50%). However, in that particular case only 2 Branches were involved, and in fact all trainees, both boats and both ABIs were from the home Branch.


(Also, Note 12 doesn't exist, I think it's supposed to Note 10.)

I agree with your analysis.


Good luck in your assessment,

Mike

[John Williams]

The aim of that guidance is to ensure that you are exposed to the teaching abilities and styles of several ABIs. Even the best instructors can only get across *most* of what they want to. Exposure to several will give you different ideas that you can adapt to your own style - and as much chance of seeing everything as possible.

A boathandling course with 3 students and one boat is not really a good place to learn. It cannot meet all the requirements for a course anyway. How can you be shown how to tow another boat if you dont have one available? A large part of the skill involved in driving a boat is awareness of other craft. I have yet to find a more efficient way of appreciating this that having 10 boats involved in a BHC all manoevering in a confined strectch of sheltered water.

The training for ABI is not just about teaching boathandling - it is about learing to managing a team of instructors, using several boats to acheive the objectives of the course (which might include training/assessing other instructors).

After all - when you are an ABI you could be in the position of running a major course utilising several boats, from several branches, using several instructors that you have not worked with before.

You could get this from teaching on several smaller courses - but would it not be better to be able to see how a larger course works and to be able to draw on the combined experience of a larger team whilst it is all fresh in your mind (and when you can ask those instructors who are all present together to debate the relative merits of their different methods for you!)

If you are having difficulty finding a large enough BHC to observe - try asking your Regional SDCO for help. There will be room for you on a Regional Course.

All the best


John

[john kendall]

A boathandling course with 3 students and one boat is not really a good place to learn. It cannot meet all the requirements for a course anyway. How can you be shown how to tow another boat if you dont have one available?

Is towing another boat part of the Boat Handling course then? Is it actually on the syliabus? I ask, as we don't have boats in our branch, and so went to another branch for my BH course, but we were not shown towing.

Thanks
John

[John Williams]

:=A boathandling course with 3 students and one boat is not really a good place to learn. It cannot meet all the requirements for a course anyway. How can you be shown how to tow another boat if you dont have one available?

Is towing another boat part of the Boat Handling course then? Is it actually on the syliabus? I ask, as we don't have boats in our branch, and so went to another branch for my BH course, but we were not shown towing.

Thanks
John

Yes it is!

See day 2,practical session 8 of the course notes linkied to here.

<a href="http://www.bsac.org/techserv/syllabus/boathandlingsyl.htm" >http://www.bsac.org/techserv/syllabus/boathandlingsyl.htm</a>

[john kendall]

:=
:=:=A boathandling course with 3 students and one boat is not really a good place to learn. It cannot meet all the requirements for a course anyway. How can you be shown how to tow another boat if you dont have one available?
:=
:=Is towing another boat part of the Boat Handling course then? Is it actually on the syliabus? I ask, as we don't have boats in our branch, and so went to another branch for my BH course, but we were not shown towing.
:=
:=Thanks
:=John

Yes it is!

See day 2,practical session 8 of the course notes linkied to here.

http://www.bsac.org/techserv/syllabus/boathandlingsyl.htm

Thanks for that.

Looks like I'm gonna have to have a word with the instructors from the other branch on that one.

John