Dear Joan

SAFETY AND UNDERSTANDING HAZARDS

I have been asked to be brief and I will:

Many of the dangerous incidents reported by DCA members could have been averted by a greater understanding of the nature of dinghy cruising hazards and by the latest in dinghy cruising safety practice. For instance, could it be that the inversion capsize leading to hypothermia reported in Bulletin 121 would have been averted by use of the new one-line reefing method, or minimised by sail head or topmast buoyancy? They would have helped me in a similar situation.

The following information is now available on loan from our library:

— the DCA lecture notes for ‘Dinghy Cruising Safety’ and ‘Dinghy Cruising Heavy Weather Sailing’ by Liz Feibusch, RYA Senior Coach and dinghy cruising enthusiast. These include RYA leaflet B3 ‘Man Overboard Recovery’.

— ‘Heavy Weather Problems and Tactics’ — a collection of case histories and notes from DCA Bulletins.

— ‘Beginners Experiences’ — a collection of case histories indicating the hazards commonly encountered by less-experienced cruising dinghy skippers. Len Wingfield