ENC adds practical classes to training
The Enkhuizen Nautical College (ENC) is adding practical skills to the curriculum for the Kleine Zeilvaart (coastal waters) course. Participation in this ‘practical skills day’ will be compulsory for obtaining the Sailing Licence.
Last Friday and Saturday, practical skills days for Small Sailing were organised for the first time at the Enkhuizen Nautical College.
Divided into five stations, the (in total almost 100) participants were guided past five different stations where they were taught the following topics:
- Safe sailing (manoeuvring, lines and mooring lines, stopping, safety guests)
- Safety on deck (sail handling, basic knots)
- Safe handling of modern and traditional ropes
- Safe handling of steel wire, winches and blocks
- Working safely on board: tools and paint locker
Participation in the skills day will be compulsory for those wishing to obtain their certificate of competence or sailing licence.
Cosmo Wassenaar: “A practical day like this proves to be very useful, we still often see people boarding our ships with insufficient practical knowledge. We won’t solve that in one day, but at least you’ve done it once. In the future, we want to expand this to include, for example, the practical and safe use of sail winches and leeboard winches, things we cannot offer at the moment because we don’t have them. We have been able to cushion the funding for these past practical days with a nice one-off grant from the ‘Vaderlands Fonds ter aanmoediging van ‘s-lands zeedienst’. For the coming years, it means an increase in the school fees for the student”.
For students who already possess the required skills, there is the possibility of being exempted from participating in the practical skills day.
Source: ENC newsletter.
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