Yachting and Boating World forums: RYA money money money

has nothing to do with it. The figures still stand for ever. The details of the Battle of Waterloo are as easily defined today as they were back then.

Newly arrived participators are of course more likely to have an accident/mishap than a more experienced person. BUT there are more accidents among the OLDER more experienced drivers than there are with the young newly arrived.

Glad you appreciate that older boaters too are accident/mishap prone by the very nature of the fact it is older persons, who in the main do not have, or have only recently gained, qualifications in boating, that can afford to own the vessels. Therefore we can conclude that being older and more experienced is no guarantee not to have mishaps. By proportion it must be something in the order of 90/95% of call-outs are for older, experienced, persons.

We do not advocate a free ride for trainers and your rhetoric takes a poor turn saying this.

Yes, you are right, trainers should be qualified to an appropriate standard. However, in symbiosis with the Chief Trainer at the RYA (read his articel in PBO last or one before that issue) we are saying that over-qualification is not necessary and to have to have YM Offshore practical is and unecessary over-qualification to teach Day Skipper, no matter how noble the the cause or regime.

It boils down to inclusion in life and not feeling disaffected, excluded, not wanted. Exclusion or disaffection does not have to be pro-active, the fact a person doesn't have enough money to join in, what ever, is self-exclusion. Some years ago it was found that consumers were self-disconnecting themselves from the electric because they did not have the money to put in the meter. This left the young, the elderly and disadvantaged very vulnerable. Hope you follow the thread.

What we would like to create is a whole heap of youngsters who are trained and will in turn train others.

It is pompous and naive of you to make the smug statement 'because they don't have a boat to use it in'. There are numerous ways of ensuring they do have access to boats and I hope you will take a couple of youngsters out with you and show them how to sail while letting them see minor chart work in operation. You will need to notify your insurance company, have up to date lifejackets, flares, at least have had a Sea Check by the RNLI and a whole list of other things like seacocks in good order when you had them out to look at last year an so on. So no need for another debate on the boat issue. We've got the will, the youngsters, the boats, a whole pile of philanthropist boaters, volunteers, insurance and I'm sure you can think of more.

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