March 9, 2014 – Last night we were out with friends at fun comedy show (Wes Barker – Stunt Magician) downtown at the Vogue – great night. But it was a time change night, and we had to be up early to meet with our boating group for the spring class Student Cruise. It was a late night and we didn’t get to bed until after 1:30am. Kirk changed all the clocks since it was also the Spring time change. But things got confusing when morning arrived. The wake-up light came on at 6:45am as expected, but when I rolled over to check the clock, it said 7:57am. I grabbed the bedside phone and it said 5:57am. So, now thoroughly confused, we checked a couple of other clocks to make sure it really was now 7:00am.
Whew!
Once the adrenaline level dropped back down again, we were back to simply dreading the day; the weather has been pretty much nothing but rain for a few days, and the forecast was for no change until Wednesday, and we were scheduled to help out with an on the water teaching exercise for the boating group we volunteer with.
Spring is always cool out on the water, but a rainy morning makes for a miserable start to the cruise.
But WOW! Weren’t we all surprised to end up with a day like this!
The weather delivered in spades. No wind, no waves, the water barely had a ripple. It was cloudy with bits of blue sky early on, and it just got nicer and nicer. Eventually we were in full blue sky, and the temperature was over 13C. In the sun it was simply divine. When I’d dressed I’d put on wool longjohns, by noon I had to get out of them and lose a couple of layers. It was just too warm.
Life just doesn’t get better than this!
We took the Canadian Power & Sail Squadron Boating Course in 1998, a few months after we bought a 30′ powerboat and realized we weren’t boating on a lake anymore… The safety aspects of boating in general are lost on most. The safety aspects on the ocean are often more complicated. Regardless, anyone boating should have more background than the majority out on the water do. Why we all understand that we need training to operate a car, but that it is some given right that we should be allowed to operate a boat without a licence or any training, simply baffles me.
When we took the course in 1998 it was a significant undertaking. And the examination at the end was daunting. It was something like 7 sections, each section with about 30-40 questions, and if you failed any section, you failed the course completely. 80% was a pass. Anything less was a failure. You could rewrite that section if you wished, at a later date, and if you passed it then, you could gain your certification and join the organization.
We did pass, and we did join. And we ended up starting to volunteer with the Squadron (Norvan) that we joined immediately after the course ended.
CPS is a volunteer organization, with a handful of bodies at headquarters in Ontario running the administration of the parent organization. The Squadron level – the important level where the people actually are involved – is completely managed on a volunteer basis. Kirk and I were pulled into the Bridge (The equivalent of the Executive Board) in 1999 and have been there ever since.
On this, our 15th year of volunteering with CPS, I am starting to question our involvement.
We were drawn into CPS for a few reasons – education, the social aspects, always learning more about boats and boating from more experienced boaters… But the number one reason we continued to volunteer was the knowledge that we were helping to improve boating safety out there, through providing a solid educational foundation for new and future boaters.
I’m not seeing that so much anymore.
Canadian Power & Sail has put business people at the helm in those headquarters positions, and the organization is being treated more as a numbers game. The curriculum has been watered down to the point where I, and others, feel that it no longer provides an adequate level of information to be of service to the “safety” aspects of the course’s purpose.
It’s upsetting.
For a clear example; the new curriculum that we were handed this Spring did not include tides and currents anywhere, and we were informed that we were not to teach it during the mandated eight week period. (The course used to be 14 -15 weeks).
Not teach tides and currents?!?!? This is the ocean, the West Coast! To not teach tides and currents is to not explain that the road underneath you can change rapidly and can affect whether or not that rock on your chart is a danger.
The amount of safety information that has been dumped from the curriculum in favour of pumping more students through a watered down course, to gain short term members, is deplorable. The exam is now nothing more than a Pleasure Craft Operators Card exam – 50 multiple choice questions, 70% to pass. And it hardly differs in content to what one can take online. The online version of the course is something you can take, if you fail, you just retake it until you’ve learned all the questions, and pass it through a process of trial and error rather than learning and understanding.
CPS is no longer doing a service to the boating community, and I can’t be in the Boating Class classroom anymore because of it. The organization is so focused on numbers that it has lost sight of the fact that they are gaining more short term, uninvolved members, and fewer people are choosing to become involved long-term at the Squadron organization level. As a result, the Squadrons are floundering, and something really great and with a rich history, is being lost.
I still teach VHF Radio, and as long as the rest of life doesn’t overwhelm me, and as long as CPS doesn’t reduce it to the same meaningless level that this year’s new Boating Class material has been taken down to, I’ll continue to do so.
But the one thing we can still offer to the students is the student cruise. Sadly, the material that we teach on the water, which used to be familiar to the students when they arrived on the boats for the practical exercise in safety awareness, plotting, and conning, is now alien to them.
Should we be taking it on ourselves to be teaching what used to be a regular part of the course curriculum? I don’t think so, but if it means that they will have some tiny bit of safety awareness out on the waters we frequent, and if the organization that is supposed to be providing it no longer does, then it’s a good thing.
And it’s also a good thing, because we have the opportunity to meet new boaters, and to spend a day on the water with friends.
And we can be grateful that there are still people out there that are hungry for learning, as always, it was great to be out on the water with these students.
The sailboat in the photo – Cekalia – belongs to friends Dave & Michaela.
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