Instructing PB2 for a charity

[Mike B]

Hi all, I've dropped a mail to the RYA but thought you guys will probably be able to answer for me quicker.

I'm a Marina Mammal Medic with the British Divers Marine Life Rescue and would like to have the ability to put other members through the RYA PB2 using my RIB.

What do I need to do??

My guesses are:

PBI course ( I have PB2, VHF and St johns First Aid and around 4 years experience.)

But what about the boat - does it need to be coded? or assessed by the RYA? Is this realistically achievable or do you need to be part of an RYA centre.

This would be non profit making - presume I still need to tell my insurance company though!

Thanks for any help or advice

Cheers

Mike

[Jimbo]

Hi Mike,

You're going along the right lines, I'll detail as much as possible!

Yes, you will need to be an RYA PBI, and with your experience that should be as simple as a 3 day course run by an RYA Trainer, and then Moderated by another Trainer. Plenty of centres run these, check out Plas Menai, Calshot, Stormforce, Griffin Marine Services, Powerboat Training UK, SWAC, loads of them about! You would have to check your St Johns First Aid Cert is HSE approved and includes treatment of Hyperthermia and Hypothermia.

After that you will need to apply for RYA Recognition as a training centre. This involves satisfying the RYA that either the Principal or the Chief Instructor holds the relevant qualifications, boats are suitable and insured for training, and the centre is suitably equipped. They will also check risk assessments, standard operating procedures, and if you wish to teach Children a Child Safety Policy.

They charge an inspection fee, and an annual recognition fee. Things they check are minimum level of kit for the boat (Flares, foot pump, VHF, Anchor, toolkit, fire extinguisher, paddles, that sort of thing) as well as general seaworthiness, adequate classroom facilities, and adequate changing/shower facilities. The boat does not have to be MCA coded.

The inspection takes a day (although a fair bit longer to get a date for and to prepare all the paperwork for). You could either gain recognition as a centre in your own right, assuming you have the facilities available to you, or as the British Divers Marine Life Rescue training centre.

Info on this can be found here http://www.rya.org.uk/WorkingWithUs/...dpwcourses.htm

You cannot instruct as just a PBI + Boat, you do have to be attached to a centre of some description. It is possible for existing centers to have your site added to their recognition.

Hope that helps, any more q's and I'll try and answer them.

Cheers,

Jimbo

[Jimbo]

One thing I didn't mention - you could enter into an agreement with an existing training centre to use their recognition, however this poses you a number of problems:

a) There would almost certainly be a fee involved!
b) Only advanced instructors can do away from base tuition, so as a PBI you would have to work out of their centre as a base
c) You would not be able to sign and issue your own certificates - they would have to do this for you
d) You would have to comply with all of their procedures and policies - shouldn't be a problem, but you never know

[Andy_Rs600]

Originally Posted by Jimbo

b) Only advanced instructors can do away from base tuition, so as a PBI you would have to work out of their centre as a base

Jimbo,

where did you find this little gem? I asked this question to the new(ish) RYA cheif powerboat instructor( ) and he didn't mention this at all. We spent about 2 hours, over 3 phone calls, talking about away from base tuition, and he basically said it wasn't possible in a powerboat, only a motorcruiser.

[Jono Garton]

Andy

1/ I belive Jimbo is talking about "Own Boat Tuition" away from base.

2/ What Paul Mara says is final so I would belive him over an Internet Forum.

3/ Its really not as simple as you think. When i set up PPT Paul Glatzel advised me to put six months to a year to one side for the set up, I didnt belive him at the time, but he was correct it takes a good 6 months.

Jono

[Andy_Rs600]

Jono,


I'm not talking about setting up a new centre, just operating at differenet sites. I was wondering if maybe there was a way of doing it i wasn't aware of.

[Simon Hawkins]

Originally Posted by Andy_Rs600

Jono,


I'm not talking about setting up a new centre, just operating at differenet sites. I was wondering if maybe there was a way of doing it i wasn't aware of.

The only way you could do this is to be enrolled on different centres instructors lists so you are teaching on that centres behalf and not your own. If you wanted to use your own boat then this would have to be checked by the principle of the centre that it complies with the RYAs requirements.

As Jimbo said you will need to do your Powerboat Instructors course which will enable you to instruct to Powerboat Level 2 level.

Hope this helps

[Mike B]

Jimbo,

Great info - thanks! and 10 minute response time easily beats the RYA

Cheers

Mike

[Jimbo]

Originally Posted by Andy_Rs600

Jimbo,

where did you find this little gem? I asked this question to the new(ish) RYA cheif powerboat instructor( ) and he didn't mention this at all. We spent about 2 hours, over 3 phone calls, talking about away from base tuition, and he basically said it wasn't possible in a powerboat, only a motorcruiser.

Sorry - I perhaps wasn't clear enough. I was talking about Own Boat Tuition where it is away from your centres base (i.e. your centre is in Southampton, but your clients boat is in Lymington, and they don't want to come to you).

This document here shows exactly who teaches what: http://www.rya.org.uk/NR/rdonlyres/3...swhatpower.pdf

[Jimbo]

Originally Posted by Simon Hawkins

The only way you could do this is to be enrolled on different centres instructors lists so you are teaching on that centres behalf and not your own. If you wanted to use your own boat then this would have to be checked by the principle of the centre that it complies with the RYAs requirements.

You can set up as a mobile centre, provided you have your own boat (the RYA say no centre may offer exclusively own boat tuition). However, to set up a mobile centre it costs £640 a year in recognition, and you will have to go through a tortured process convincing the RYA you are safe to operate at any location, and have the ability to do a risk assessment for each location etc. I don't think there are very many mobile centres around!

If you had one base centre set up, you could then have extra sites added to your recognition, with a cost of £93 added for each site. This would only be useful if you knew exacly which sites you were going to operate at, and you were doing enough at them to make them cost effective.

[tim griffin]

Originally Posted by Simon Hawkins

The only way you could do this is to be enrolled on different centres instructors lists so you are teaching on that centres behalf and not your own.

Perhaps you should consider approaching a school and try and negotiate a discount for fellow members . A school will not allow you to teach on their behalf if their is nothing in it for them. There is plenty of Freelance work around at the moment .

[DGR]

Does the RYA need to assess your boat (i.e. via a site inspection etc), or can the PI of the school make the decision?

D...

[Andy_Rs600]

Originally Posted by Jimbo

You can set up as a mobile centre

As i understand it (from the same conversastion with Paul Mara), a mobile centre is one that operates at more than 2 sites. It does not mean you can operate at any site you like. Every site you operate from still has to have all the facilites and be inspected. Apparently there are 2 registered mobile powerboat centres, and neither is active.

[Simon Hawkins]

Originally Posted by DGR

Does the RYA need to assess your boat (i.e. via a site inspection etc), or can the PI of the school make the decision?

D...

If you are setting up your own centre then the Centre Inspector will check the boat is adequate and safe. If you are to use your own boat working with a centre then it will be for the principle to check it.

Simon

[tim griffin]

Originally Posted by Andy_Rs600

a mobile centre is one that operates at more than 2 sites. It does not mean you can operate at any site you like. Every site you operate from still has to have all the facilites and be inspected. Apparently there are 2 registered mobile powerboat centres, and neither is active.

Hopefully there will soon be three and the new one being very active , I am in the process of doing this so I can offer safety boat, it will run at an existing RYA Training Centre recognised for Windsurfing up to the Advanced and Instructor level, dinghy sailing level 2 and multihull level 2 it is also AALA,RLSS ,BCU and Surf training recognised and is where I teach RLSS Beach lifeguard and RLSS inshore Rescue helm and crew .
Subject to the usual inspection criteria it should be online by the end of July.
The Instructors including my self are all Trainers in either one or more the above disciplines.

[Matt Riley]

Originally Posted by tim griffin

Perhaps you should consider approaching a school and try and negotiate a discount for fellow members . A school will not allow you to teach on their behalf if their is nothing in it for them. There is plenty of Freelance work around at the moment .

[lurk mode=off]

As someone who has been known to occasionally work at commercial centres, you would indeed find it difficult to let them throw away thousands of pounds of potential income, so that you could use their hard earnt recognition...

But you could work alongside a local sailing club who are an RYA recognised training centre for powerboats, even offering to take on the responsibilities of lead PBI, in return for training some of their helms for free/ letting them use your rib if needed for big events/insert bargaining chip here. That way, you get to provide the training at little or no cost (and issue certificates if lead PBI), the students would potentially get to experience a greater variety of boats, and the club would get some cheap training for its members (from someone clearly, even if mammal orientated, in the rescue business). The local centres to you can be found on the find a facility link=>training centres on the top right of the RYA website. Sea Scouts and Sea Cadet units might also be good candidates for this type of arrangement

I think that maybe Jono's estimate of 6 months for setting up a training centre is accurate, even conservative for a top level commercial centre, with the premises, incorporation of the company, AALA registration, employers' insurance requirements, branding, advertising, entering into partnerships with boat builders etc. But you don't need that! All you need is the RYA recognition, and the necessary pre requisites, which can take some time to go through, but isn't that difficult to do, as the RYA produce quite a lot of guidance on sorting the paperwork out.

HTH,

Matt

[lurk/]

[Mike B]

Thanks Matt, another good idea worth exploring.

Cheers

Mike