Essential Skills - Group control for instructors

Good group control starts with a good briefing ashore, without that, group control afloat is near impossible. Prepare, plan, and adapt. Prepare all boats, equipment and participants, through checks of boats and equipment, and good briefings. Plan the session and check more than once that participants understand the plan. Adapt early when things are not going as planned. 

Prepare 

Prepare all safety boats and equipment, and set up all on-water equipment (marker buoys). It's important even with advanced groups to do a check over of participant boats, to minimise equipment failure on water.  

COACHING information to gather pre-session planning 

• Weather and forecast 

• Time available. 

• Ratios of safety boats to sailors/boats 

• Facilities available 

• Types of boat.  

• Rescue facilities  

• Medical conditions of the students/ coach/ helpers- Medical form 

• Sailor’s ability, size, gender and age  

• Communications with shore, sailors, emergency teams- MOB, radio 

• Other club activities  

• Hazards associated with sailing at that club/area 

• Tide and tidal flow. 

• Risk assessment & form 

Plan 

Prepare a session plan- from this session plan you will have already worked through the items that need to be covered in the briefing. 

Session plan/ Briefing list: 

• Participant information 

• Time constraints 

• Drills and games for the session (and set up/ course layout- Use a whiteboard) 

• Any Technical skills (Demonstrated) 

• Session outcomes and aims 

• Back up drills and holding exercises  

• Hand and/or Whistle signals 

• Safety issues such as location risks and weather conditions 

• Other activities happening in the area and where 

Briefing tips: 

FREQUENT BRIEFINGS: repetition of information through several briefings, including a welcome brief to overview the session, demo brief for skills required, drills and games brief, and last brief before on the water. 

CHECK UNDERSTANDING: Question students to check awareness after each brief. 

GROUP POSITIONING: Start the briefing by positioning the group where it is easy for them to see and engage- if they are not in a good position they will be distracted, and it will disrupt the group. Don’t be afraid to stop and re-position for better engagement. 

TEACHING KIDS: If you are teaching kids and you are on the short side consider getting the kids to sit down, this will better keep them engaged.  

On-shore Tips: 

• USE FIRST NAMES: Placing Duck tape on Buoyancy Aids with the sailors names marked clearly will help. Also engage eye-to-eye contact and use consistent, enthusiastic body language. 

• WIND SPEED AND TEMPERATURE: directly impact the number of successful exercises you will be able to run per-session. Larger or more diverse groups also influence this. 

On water Tips: 

HOLDING PATTERNS: Control is critical and this is especially true with beginner groups as well as fast classes, such as skiffs or foiling classes where groups can separate rapidly. To avoid this always have a set holding exercise and course area that sailors can revert to in the event that you have to rescue a capsized boat or re-lay the course. 

GOOD PRACTICE: Encourage sailors to come close to the rib at the end of every exercise. This will give you the opportunity of passing on coaching points and brief them on the next activity. It also keeps the group together and stops you having to charge off after individuals. 

COMMUNICATION: Wait until boats are alongside or holding position before passing on instructions. Use a whistle to gain a boats attention and position yourself to windward to help carry your voice. 

BEGINNERS: Use of 'buddy' system at first sessions 

Adapt 

Having a session plan with backup activities and holding exercises done, means you are ready to change up the exercises to adapt to the needs of the group, this will keep them engaged and therefore less likely to wander off. Adapting for the conditions is also important,  if the group is getting frustrated or scared, it's imperative that you adapt the exercise to suit the conditions or call off the on-water exercise altogether and adapt to do an onshore drill or game instead. 

ADAPT EARLY: When things are not going as planned, adapt sooner rather than later to avoid restless and unengaged group chaos. 

HOLDING PATTERNS: Control is critical and this is especially true with beginner groups as well as fast classes, such as skiffs or foiling classes where groups can separate rapidly. To avoid this always have a set holding exercise and course area that sailors can revert to in the event that you have to rescue a capsized boat or re-lay the course. 

It all comes back to Prepare, Plan, and Adapt. Good information gathering leads to good session plans, which leads to good briefing, which leads to good on-water communication and understanding and means adapting the plan if need be is simple and easy.