Date: March 30 to April 3

Location: Anglesey, Wales

Description: This four-day course includes both the BCU 4 Star Sea Training and BCU Coastal Navigation and Tidal Planning. The BCU 4 Star Sea Training segment covers the necessary elements of leadership, group safety and seamanship skills, as well as developing personal performance as set out in the BCU 4 Star Sea syllabus. Completion of the training course will lead to a personalized action plan in preparation for assessment. The course will cover:

Personal Paddling Skills

• Lifting, carrying and launching/landing
• Efficient and effective sea paddling skills
• Forward paddling
• Reversing and stopping
• Maintaining direction
• Changing direction
• Moving sideways
• Support strokes
• Rolling
• Practical navigation

Rescue Skills, Safety, Leadership and Group Management

• Boat and shore based safety and rescue skills
• Incident management and first aid in the 4 Star environment
• Being an effective team leader and team member in rescues/incidents
• Application of leadership
• Leadership strategies, judgement and decision making
• Safety awareness and risk management
• Group control and management
• Equipment

Theory

• Safety (includes coastguard and rescue services)
• Weather
• Hypothermia/first aid
• Access
• Planning
• Group awareness and management
• Navigation
• Etiquette (includes collision regulations and signals)
• General (and historical)
• Leadership responsibilities
• Water features/hazards

The Coastal Navigation and Tidal Planning segment is a classroom based program that gives participants the necessary tools to plan and navigate effectively on coastal journeys in moderate ocean conditions. Upon completion, each student should have planned at least two coastal journeys that they can take home as reference for further personal trip planning. This course is designed to compliment areas covered in the BCU 4 Star Sea Award and is a prerequisite for training. The course will cover:

• Interpreting sources of information required to plan trips
• Understanding tides and currents
• Obtaining a weather forecast
• Identifying conditions and their effects on a journey
• Learning simple pilotage techniques
• Planning tasks and practical exercizes

Prerequisites: BCU 3 Star Award or the ‘old’ 4 Star Sea Award. An understanding of charts and practical navigation.

BCU Information: For syllabus details, visit the BCU website.

Contact: For more information, course fees or to register, e-mail info@greenlandorbust.org.