The Sea Scouts in Ireland have made a great little boating book aimed at teenagers available online.
I hope they don’t mind me passing the link on! The Scouts’ boating manual includes useful amounts of information on nautical traditions, heaving a line, first aid and artificial respiration, rowing drill, rowing (including boat drill), sailing, power boating, canoeing, ship types, rafting, boat maintenance, anchoring, tides and currents, use of distress signals and a lot more besides – no doubt, by now you’re getting the message.
Unlike the educational output we see from some sailing organisations, there’s no sense at all that the only boats are new boats – the maintenance section contains material about looking after both wooden craft and glassfibre.’
I’d be pleased to think that any teenager knew half of this material, and we’d be living in a safer, better ordered world if every adult boat user knew 90 per cent of it.
My thanks to regular contributor Paul Mullings for pointing this one out!