Anchoring, recovering a person from the water, and what to do when it is blowing far harder than you planned for. These are the three practical skills every assessment tests, and the three most often practised badly.
Anchoring
Scope — the ratio of rode deployed to depth of water — governs the angle of pull on the anchor shank, and a flatter pull holds better. On all chain, 3:1 to 5:1 suffices in settled conditions because the chain's own weight keeps the pull low; go to 7:1 in fresh conditions and 8:1 or 10:1 in a blow. On rope, which has no catenary of its own, start at 5:1 to 7:1 and always use a length of chain at the anchor end. State handbooks quote a simpler figure for day boats — NSW says about three times the depth, plus extra for bad weather — which is fine for lunch and wrong for overnight.
On all-chain rode, rig a snubber: a nylon line from the chain back to a bow cleat, with the chain eased so the snubber takes the load. It absorbs shock, quiets the chain and stops the jerking that drags anchors out. Catamarans and boats that yaw in a cross-swell use a two-legged bridle instead.
Setting is where most people fail. Approach slowly into wind or current, stop, lower the anchor to the bottom rather than dumping it, pay out rode as the boat drifts back, snub off at the calculated scope, then back down under engine until it digs in. Confirm the set with a transit on two shore objects or a GPS anchor alarm — not by feel. Retrieve by motoring up to the anchor as the crew takes in rode, then breaking it out vertically from directly above rather than winching it out sideways.
Holding ground: mud and soft sand are generally best; hard sand is good once the fluke sets; weed is poor and needs an anchor that can penetrate it; rock and coral are unreliable and, in Australia, frequently illegal — Chapter 21 covers the reef and marine park rules. Modern roll-bar spade anchors (Rocna, Manson, Spade) set faster and more reliably across mixed bottoms than the old plough designs, which is why Australian cruising boats have largely converted.
- Shout "man overboard" — everyone aboard needs to know instantly.
- Press the MOB button on the plotter or GPS. It marks the position, and the position is what you will need if you lose sight of them.
- Throw flotation — danbuoy, horseshoe, anything buoyant, immediately, even if it lands well away. It marks the water and gives them something to swim to.
- Assign a pointer. One person does nothing but point continuously at the casualty and never looks away. In any sea over a metre, a head in the water disappears within seconds of losing it.
THE RECOVERY MANOEUVRES
- Quick stop. Turn immediately toward the side they fell, spinning the boat tightly so the casualty stays in roughly the same visual arc, kill way, and work back. The first choice when the crew reacts immediately, because nothing is lost in distance or sight.
- Williamson turn. Under power: helm hard over toward the side they fell; at about 60° of heading change, helm hard over the other way; steady up about 20° short of the reciprocal. It walks you back down your own wake. The method for delayed discovery and for poor visibility, because it works without ever seeing the casualty.
- Figure of eight, or reach–tack–reach. Under sail: bear away to a broad reach, then come back on a closing reach to approach slowly with the sails able to be luffed to stop. Preferred short-handed and in heavy weather precisely because it avoids the crash gybe that a quick stop under sail can force.
The hard part is the retrieval, not the return. Every instructor says the same thing and every crew discovers it the first time they try. Approach so the casualty ends up in your lee, with the boat sheltering them from wind and sea. Stop with them at the shrouds, the widest and lowest part of the boat — not the bow, which will rise and fall on them, and not the transom, where the propeller is. Then get them aboard: a swim ladder if they can climb, a Lifesling or strop taken to a halyard winch if they cannot. A limp adult in wet clothing weighs well over a hundred kilos and cannot be lifted by hand over a metre of freeboard. Practise the lift, not just the approach.
Heavy weather
The governing principle is stated the same way everywhere: if you are thinking about reefing, reef now. Reefing is easy while you can still stand up on the foredeck and hard once you cannot. The same logic applies to every heavy-weather decision — make it early, while the boat and crew still have margin, rather than reactively once you are already overwhelmed.
- Heaving to. Back the headsail to windward against a reefed main and lash the helm to leeward; the boat settles roughly 45–60° off the wind, forereaching slowly and sliding to leeward, leaving a slick to windward that flattens breaking crests. It is the most under-used tactic in cruising: it stops the boat so the crew can rest, eat, reef, fix something or simply wait for a front to pass.
- Running off. Steering downwind under reduced sail or bare poles, matching boat speed roughly to the waves. It needs sea room — a lee shore makes it impossible — and careful helming to avoid broaching or being pooped. Usually combined with a drogue streamed from the stern to control speed and hold the transom square to following seas.
- Sea anchor. A parachute deployed from the bow on a long rode, holding the boat head to wind and sea and almost stationary. Useful when the boat will not heave to, or when you must stop drifting toward danger. It loads the bow fitting enormously and is very hard to recover once loaded — plan the retrieval before you deploy.
- Lying a-hull. All sail down, helm lashed, boat left beam-on to find her own angle. Taught today mainly as the tactic to avoid: lying beam-on to breaking seas is how boats get rolled.
- Storm sails. A storm jib on an inner forestay, well inboard, sheeted to strong deck padeyes — not an over-furled genoa, whose shape and loads are both wrong. A storm trysail set on its own separate mast track so it can go up without first stripping the mainsail off, and sheeted to the deck rather than the boom, because in survival conditions the boom is lashed down.
Crew management is the other half. Before it arrives: brief, assign roles, and make everyone eat and sleep while they still can, because fatigue and seasickness destroy judgement faster than wind does. Rig jacklines and clip on. Rig lee cloths so off-watch crew stay in their bunks. Secure everything loose — in a knockdown, a flying winch handle or a tin of food is what actually injures people. Agree hand signals for when nobody can hear anything.
The training
The courses themselves — what exists, what each qualifies you to do, what it costs, and where the Australian system quietly stops and the British one takes over. Plus the commercial ladder, and what the tickets at the top of it actually earn.