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  • Yachting Monthly

    A skipper under scrutiny

    Oct 10, 2019 10 minutes

    Liz Rushall has won national dinghy and keelboat titles, but currently cruises a 28ft classic called Ragdoll

    PART TWO Practical

    It’s not often I wish to not be aboard a boat. But in the dead of night, stressing about to what extent should I be using the instruments, when the examiner hasn’t said you can or can’t, and not being able to ‘chat’ with my crew as I would normally, and I was well out of my comfort zone.

    This was after making myself feel a complete idiot from being unable to articulate the type of diesel engine, it’s cooling system and the location of the heat exchanger on an unfamiliar boat, and getting my words impossibly muddled up about flares and liferafts. I was a bag of nerves.

    Whilst I hadn’t committed any of the instant fail sins (running aground, involuntary gybes and hitting anything), I certainly spent the first night feeling broken. Luckily, James Pearson, our extremely patient examiner asked many ‘helpful questions’ and allowed us to correct some of our verbal gaffs over the two-day exam.

    WHY DO IT?

    Having completed, and passed, this exam with my husband and brother, we are still justifying to curious friends the ‘why on earth, with all your experience’ we did it. Mark, an Olympic coach, and I have raced successfully all our lives, and more recently cruised Ragdoll, our little 28ft long-keeled classic boat some respectable distances. However, whatever our friends kindly say, we knew that following a few cruising errors in previous seasons, it was time to hit the refresh button and fill in some knowledge gaps. The adage that you never stop learning in sailing could

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