Speakers and sessions
Reflections of Tokyo 2020
Ian Walker
A look back at Tokyo 2020 and the outstanding performance by the British Sailing Team. With the help of other British Sailing Team members, Ian shares what it was like to be part of the British Sailing Team in Tokyo, what he learnt from the experience and a brief look ahead at Paris 2024.
About Ian: Double Olympic silver medallist, former America’s Cup skipper and the only Britain to skipper a winning team in the Volvo Ocean race, Ian Walker has been the Director of Racing at the RYA for a little over 4 years. Ian learnt to sail at Chipstead Sailing Club near Sevenoaks in Kent, but now races his RS400 and keelboats from his local sailing club, Warsash. If Ian isn’t sailing dinghies or watching his daughters sail he is likely to be afloat on a kiteboard, wingfoil or rib. He is passionate about all aspects of sailing and in his role as Director of Racing he is responsible for the Performance of the British Sailing Team.
The crossover for Formula One and the America’s Cup Aero Engineering
Alan Smith
A chance meeting in a pub in Oxford in 2019 led to an opportunity alongside Mercedes Grand Prix, to contribute to the design of Ben Ainslie's America's Cup Challenger with INEOS Team UK.
This talk will look at the Aero Engineering crossovers between foiling racing yachts and Formula One cars. It will give insights into the similar design challenges encountered in both sports and the techniques employed to tackle those challenges.
About Alan: Alan began his career as an Aeronautical Engineering graduate intern at Reynard Racing Cars in 1993 where he began work on the aero design of their new American IndyCar project. 1995 yielded victory in the prestigious Indianapolis 500 race, victory in the constructor's championship and victory in the driver's championship courtesy of a young Jacques Villeneuve. The following five years with Reynard gave a further five driver's and constructor's crowns in the IndyCar series and two driver's and constructor's championships in the Japanese Formula Nippon racing series.
Alan moved into Formula One with the British American Racing team in late 2000. After a few years of hard, punishing slog, the BAR team finished second to the all-conquering Scuderia Ferrari team of Michael Schumacher in 2004 and won their first Formula One race with Jenson Button in Hungary 2006. The team morphed into Brawn GP in 2009 and sensationally won the Formula One World Championship Driver's and Constructor's titles with Jenson Button.
Sustainable Boating: Embedding environmental best practice into your RYA courses
Kate Fortnam
This session will provide instructors with an array of sustainable boating best practice to embed into RYA courses including sustainable anchoring, water pollution prevention, and waste and recycling. It will also outline the resources available for instructors to help build upon their own environmental knowledge, as well as support in passing on environmental messages to their students.
About Kate: Kate is the Campaign Manager for The Green Blue, the RYA and British Marine’s joint environmental programme. She has a background in environmental sciences and sustainability, with several years’ experience in environmental education and communications. As part of her role she oversees the programmes main campaign work including: developing guidance and resources to support the recreational boating community in becoming more environmentally sustainable, delivering educational outreach work and managing the programmes partnerships and projects.
MAIB: an overview of recent accidents and lessons to be learned
Andrew Moll
A closer look at safety issues identified in current MAIB investigations. This session will be of most value to Principals, Trainers and Instructors from the Power schemes, although everyone is welcome.
About Andrew: Andrew is the Chief Inspector of Marine Accidents at the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB). He joined the MAIB in 2005 as a Principal Inspector, before assuming the post of Deputy Chief Inspector of Marine Accidents in 2010 and Chief Inspector of Marine Accidents in 2018. Prior to this, he spent 27 years as an officer in the Royal Navy, rising to the rank of Captain. He left the Royal Navy in 2005 specifically to join the MAIB.
Thoughts from 1000 safety management reviews
Tim Morton
Adventure RMS are the inspectors for the Adventure Activities Licensing Authority (AALA) and the Ministry of Defence (DSR). They have conducted more than 1,000 safety management inspections in the last two years. Whilst every club, centre and school is different, there are areas of safety management which consistently challenge even the most diligent and well meaning. If you can’t comfortably answer the following, this session might be of interest to you:
- Is an accident report the end or the start of the process?
- Do the systems you have in place to demonstrate good safety management and compliance demonstrate the opposite?
- Are competence and qualification the same thing and does it matter?
- How do you apply the ‘Ronseal’ test to safety management?
- Is donated equipment a blessing or a curse?
About Tim: Tim Morton is the Head of Service at Adventure RMS. He has worked in the provision and management of adventure activities for over thirty years, much of that time spent on (and too much in) the water. For the last ten years he has worked as a regulator, inspector, and expert witness in the context of instructor led adventure activities. Pre-COVID-19 (and hopefully post) he raced Sharpie’s and was an increasingly inactive Dinghy Senior Instructor and Powerboat Instructor. A keen yachtsman, 2021’s winter cruise managed to combine sailing up the Thames to Tower bridge, with the coldest ‘snap’ of the winter so far – unforgettable for all the wrong reasons!
Teaching real world eNav skills
James Davies
Although the principles of navigation haven't fundamentally changed since the days of Nelson, the tools and techniques used by the modern navigator have. Focussing on the most likely inputs to a typical leisure vessel MFD, this session will explore what we should be teaching our students (with particular emphasis on those in the Cruising Schemes) and some top tips on how to get this information across. A whistle-stop tour of interpreting and layering inputs such as GNSS data, depth, speed through the water, RADAR, magnetic heading, AIS and vector charts, and building sessions to prepare our students for real world boating.
About James: James is an RYA Navigation Instructor Trainer, Ocean Yachtmaster Examiner and avid user of on-board technology. He works with leading marine electronic companies to help test and develop products and cartography aimed at the leisure user. Away from the water (because it would rust!) he’s usually fixing a largely electronics-free Land Rover, supervised by the dog.
The impact of Racism in Sport
Ineke Houtenbos
In this session we will look at understanding some of the terminology used when discussing issues of race and racism, racism in sports, the impact of racism and what this means for our safeguarding practices. Finally we will look at how we can have constructive conversations about racism within our teams.
About Ineka: Ineke Houtenbos is a Senior Training and Development Consultant who has worked for the NSPCC in various posts for the past 17 years. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work and is CIPD Associate in Learning and Development for Managers. She has practiced in Holland, The United States, and Northern Ireland where she is currently based. Ineke, whose father is from Holland and mother is from Tanzania, was born in Saudi Arabia and lived in the Middle East until she was 17 and graduated High School. She has moved around a lot spending time in Tanzania, Bahrain and Saudi and she feels this has given her a unique view of the world.
Her anti-racism work started when she was just 15 and continues now as the Chair of the Black Worker Support Group of the NSPCC, owning her own D&I training business, a member of the Inclusive Education Team of the Black Leaders’ Network and most importantly as the mother of two growing young women of colour.
Confidence - A feeling of self-assurance arising from an appreciation of one's own abilities or qualities
Alan Olive
Confidence is the elusive x factor of life. People strive for it, fail without it. It weaves its way into every facet of our lives, personality, and behaviours. There is even a cognitive bias that suggests we trust people that display confidence. But how do we help ourselves up the confidence stairway, how can we help others to be more robust in their approach to life. I draw on a number of research theories, development programmes, personal experiences and parenting anecdotes to help explore the nature of confidence and how to develop it in ourselves and others.
About Alan: Alan has spent a lifetime working and training specialists to operate in unpredictable environments. Initially as helicopter aircrew, commando qualified, trained by the SAS as a survival instructor, mountaineer, and infantry officer. He then made the leap into performance sport, training as a sport psychologist specialising in skill acquisition and decision-making. He has since been working with a range of businesses, helping leaders develop personal and team skills and building high performance into everyday behaviours. Trained integrator, Insights Practitioner, Dad and self-professed struggling moth sailor, Alan brings a world of experience into the nature of helping people be themselves with more skill.
How reliable are weather forecasts?
Simon Rowell
‘If it looks like an elephant turn left’ - How to get a decent forecast and use it during the day, getting down to the sub grid features that the models just don’t get.
About Simon: Simon has been the Meteorologist for the British Sailing Team since 2015, forecasting at the Olympics & Paralympics in Rio and then in 2021 for the Tokyo Olympics. He has also been the forecaster for the Clipper Round the World Race since 2011, with other clients ranging from ocean rowers to TV production companies.
Simon has been a yachting professional since 1997, starting his career as an instructor before working for Clipper Ventures both as a round the world race skipper on the winning boat in the 2002 race and as assistant race director in charge of the day to day operations and all the skipper and crew training for the 2005 race.
He is an RYA Ocean Yachtmaster Examiner and spent two years as Chief Instructor at UKSA in Cowes before going back to university in 2009 to study meteorology at the University of Reading, finishing the MSc course in 2010 with a distinction and a dissertation investigating how hurricanes start in the North Atlantic.
Before all this he spent seven years as an engineer on oil rigs in various usually insalubrious parts of the world and has a thorough grasp of the many and varied uses of both gaffer and self-amalgamating tape, and of how to find a machine shop that can cut a 1 inch left hand thread in Brazil on a Sunday.
What does equality, diversity and inclusion mean & why is it important?
Katie Loucaides & Issy Hamlett
Delve into the ever changing and adapting world of equality, diversity and inclusion. Diversity comes in many forms, some visible and some not, you will learn how to ensure inclusion, openness and equal opportunities are at the heart of everything you do. We will cover inclusive language and how language can have a profound effect on others. We will look at the difference between equality and equity and give you practical tools to make positive cultural changes in potentially challenging environments. We will cover inclusive coaching and what reasonable adjustment means and how this ties in with your legal obligations under the Equality Act. There will be the opportunity to ask questions throughout.
About Katie and Issy: Katie joined the RYA as Safeguarding and Equality Manager in 2020 and has reignited the RYA’s existing passion and determination to ensure that boating is accessible and inclusive for all, by creating, launching and delivering on the new RYA Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy: “Charting an equal, diverse, and inclusive course for the future of boating”. Katie works alongside Issy Hamlett, the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Assistant who is the main point of contacts for Affiliated Clubs and Recognised Training Centres.
RYA SafeTrx – Why, what and how?
Tom Pedersen
Session outcomes; What Safetrx is and how to set it up, how Saftrx is used in a SAR environment and how it can be used in a training centre environment.
About Tom: Tom is an RYA Yachtmaster Instructor, Examiner and Advanced Powerboat Trainer, as well as holding instructional qualifications in several shorebased disciplines. He works for HM Coastguard training Coastguard officers in a number of skills including navigation, incident response and search planning. He has also been a volunteer with the RNLI at Calshot since 2006.
Electric outboards in the RYA Training Centre setting
Phil Horton and Rachel Andrews
A walk through the current state of play when it comes to electric outboards. We will look at the strategies for outboard engine succession planning, take a peek into the world of battery power, and discuss the practicalities of using electric powered craft in a safety boating and powerboat training environment.
About Phil and Rachel: Phil is a Chartered Engineer and started his career working for the BBC. He later studied for an MSc in Environment and Development and moved to the Centre for Alternative Technology in mid Wales, where he worked on sustainable building, renewable energy and water treatment alongside leading the funding and construction of a 2,000m2 eco-education centre. After a further 7 years working for a renewable energy co-op, latterly as Managing Director, he decided to change direction and combine his 20 years of work in sustainability with his love of sailing and moved to the Royal Yachting Association as its Sustainability Manager. In that role he also acts as Environment Secretary for the European Boating Association. Rachel Andrews is the Chief Instructor of the RYA power training schemes.
Developing your Inland Waterways Instructor skills and knowledge
Ali Selby-Nicholls
This session will look at how to include and utilise teaching aids to benefit you and your students. You will also find out how to use spring lines to your advantage – springing is an underused skill which can increase student development and enjoyment.
About Ali: Ali is an Inland Waterways and Dinghy Trainer from the south-coast. She loves getting on the water with her family, but also helping students develop and gain the skills they require.
RYA Training updates
- RYA Training update with Richard Falk, RYA Director of Training and Qualifications
- Scheme updates with the RYA Chief Instructors; Vaughan Marsh, Rachel Andrews, Amanda Van Santen and Craig Burton
On-demand sessions
- Coaching Conversations – what they don’t tell you on your training course!
Clive Grant - Working towards an approval system for electronic navigation charts and systems designed for leisure vessels
Paul Bryans FRIN - Participation trends and introduction to the Tackling Inequalities initiative
Rob Clark, RYA Director of Sport Development - Top tips for running successful dinghy taster sessions
Rob Howlett RYA Regional Development Officer for the South-West