Club News
We using our new Logo and doesn’t it look great! Thanks to Cormac Murphy for creating it for the club!!

Forthcoming Meetings / Diary Events 
17 July 2007 - Little Tuesday / Committee Meeting The Squirrel Pub, Booker
18 July 2007 - Training Dive, Wraysbury Amanda Radley / Len Sumner
21 July 2007 - Wittering Divers, Clive Bennett
01 August 2007 - Training Dive, Wraysbury Amanda Radley / Len Sumner
05 August 2007 - Training Dive, Portland Amanda Radley / Len Sumner 

(The Clubs Full Dive/Event Program is available on the club website)

Training Review:

Four men and a RIB

When I booked up for the boat-handling course in the spring I envisaged a sun soaked day cruising the French Riviera, with bikini clad babes clamouring around us impressed by our handling abilities… or something like that. As it turned out it was so much more different and the better for it!

So day one, the theory day, Rob Taylor, Alan Davis and myself, meet up at Gray Howard’s for the day. I’m thinking it’s going to either fry my brain, or send me to sleep. Actually the course is well paced, interesting and not brain numbing. Along with the usual slides and lectures there’s some practical work. The first practical is knot tying, and Gary provides a set of four ropes to practice on. I’m not sure what he has them for, but they did come from his kit bag and they had been well used, but what Gary and Milly get up to in their own time is their own business! I’m impressed by Robs ability to tying all sorts of knots, while I perfect the granny knot unintentionally, Rob manages to tie a range of knots like second nature, including a hang-mans noose. I decided it was probably better not to ask about that one! I really can’t think of any practical (or legal) use of the knot in boat handling! Already it’s time for lunch, and a superb lunch is provided by Milly. Then with full stomachs it’s back to the theory again, the second half is as informative and enjoyable as the first half. This time the practical is map reading, we carryout a voyage planning exercise which all goes well until we realise that Alan’s been holding the compass incorrectly and some of our directions are 90o out! My plans for the French Riviera are dashed again! Day one concludes and time to go home and get some rest before the big day in Weymouth.

Day two starts off early, as all trips down to Weymouth inevitably do, we meet up at 6am at Robs and all head down in Alan’s Jeep. The weather forecast for the day is rain and lot of it! Arriving a little before boatyard opens Gary suggest a local restaurant he knows that does a great breakfast and most importantly of all it, does Gary’s favourite pancakes. So we grab a McDonalds breakfast and head over to the boat yard. When we turn up at the boatyard I suspect we woke up the staff, as they didn’t appear to expect anybody to be mad enough to want to take out a boat in this weather. We begin to prep the boat as Gary walks us through it step by step, then on to the water. Gary takes us out carefully, it’s obvious as we get further out that it’s going to be a wet and quiet day in the harbour, as we seem to be the only boat braving the weather. Either that or someone had forewarned all the other boats that Wycombe had another bunch on trainees on the water and that it’s safer to be far away on dry land! We start with some basic manoeuvring and gradually build up our confidence and hopefully our skills too! Rob seams to have a natural advantage here, I suspect the years of driving a speed boat might be helping him! We start to practice the Williamson turn for handling man over board situations, when we stat to get some interest from a Sea King rescue helicopter. They come over to watch what we are doing, probably just to see who these mad people are out in this heavy rain. I’m not sure how impressed they were by our skills, but they did show us how the Williamson turn should be done (in the air off course). At that point I suspect they gave up trying to show us how it’s done or their lunch was calling. And as it was lunchtime we headed into Weymouth harbour. But before we could get ashore for some food, Gary has more exercise for us to do and this time there are a lot of boats in rather close proximity. We manage to complete some of the basic slow skills work without hitting anybody else and dock for lunch. And unbelievably the rain

stops, so we grab some fish and chips and eat on the harbour wall with the usual seagull spectators hoping for a free lunch. Afterwards we get back onboard and continue with our slow skills work and of course just in time for the rain to start up again. We carryout some 3 point turns in a confined space, which did get the attention of at least one yachtsman who didn’t seem to share our level of confidence in our abilities. But I guess when you see the RIB engine heading towards your boat I guess it’s only reasonable to panic a bit and shout some abuse! Being sea hardy fellows we’ve heard much worse language at sea and take the verbal abuse in lighthearted manor it was intended. We move on to turning in a confined space, this turns out to be a lot trickier than it looks, also I’m sure the RIB grows by about 50% when you try to turn in such small spaces! Somehow we all manage it a number of times and without sinking the RIB! Then on to the fun bit, it’s back out to sea and some speed work, followed by a few figures of 8 backwards and the trainings complete. We head back into the boatyard and then have to unload the boat and clean it. Why is that no matter what you do in a dive club there’s always the bit after where you have to clean all the kit down?! With the boat emptied, cleaned and covered we finally get to head of home, via the world’s end for a well-earned pint de-brief!

So all in all a great weekend, learned lots, had fun and somehow managed to stay quite dry throughout!? Now we just need to get some real life practice in.

The course is strongly recommended for anybody who hasn’t done the course and wants to support dives by driving the boat. I’m sure Pete will be most grateful.

Meet the Committee Name:	Simon Fennell
Committee position:	Diving Officer
Been a member since:	2001
Diver grade:	Dive Leader/ Open Water Instructor
Did you learn to dive with HWSAC:	Yes
If yes what was the best part of your training:	Sports diver assessment at Stoney Cove in February – 4 degrees, nice!
How many dives have you done:	250??