Lifeboatman PIC!

Today was the final day of Lifeboatman class and we took the test and were issued a Lifeboatman PIC Certificate.  Yesterday was the really interesting day as we broke the class into two groups with one group heading to the marina to do the practical assessments in rowing, while the other group went to the gravity davit and did multiple evolutions in raising and lowering the lifeboat. 

The group rowing were able to get a crew aboard the lifeboat (think of lifeboat of yester-year in the movie Titantic) and row around the harbor using oar commands from the 1800's or before.  Toss oars, backwater, let fall, trail oars, in bows were some of the commands.  For me personally, I knew exactly what I wanted the boat to do and how to do it, but when the time came to give the command, I was racking my brain to remember the proper command to give.  I'm sure with more practice it would come very naturally.

After lunch our groups switched with the morning rowing group taking over on the davit.  We ran through several raising and lowering evolutions with each man in command of the crew several different times.  The process is fairly straight forward as long as you remember to terminology.  Much easier to remember than the oars commands.

We finished up the day and returned this morning for a little bit more course study, some really useful discussion from Capt. Dana regarding the USCG licensing process and some of the pathways to make your package sails through easily.  Whenever you go to the USCG and turn in all of your paperwork (your package), you want to make sure that everything is filled out properly, you are using the correct forms, and you are asking for everything you qualify for.  The USCG won't always offer to let you know that you may qualify for a certain rating or endorsement, so knowing the things to ask for is important.  We had a nice lengthy discussion about that this morning and I think everyone in the class found some good value from it.

Once again, I would like to recommend Compass Courses to anyone getting a captain's license,  upgrading or going after some STCW training.  They really do a good job and you'll get your money's worth.

For the next few days, I'll be working on my getting my package ready to deliver to the USCG in Seattle.  Stand by to stand by.