Monday 16 November 2020

2020 Swamp tests

Last Sunday we revised our Sunday Sailing practice to being swamp testing and safety drills.  The low tide that was coming in meant the channel was running at full speed and causing a strong rip in the area outside the den.  For that reason we decided sailing was not feasible, but we decided we could do our annual swamp test of the cutters.  This is a fun activity that requires scouts to sink the cutters and then leave them to float.  Flotation in the cutters ensures that they float quite high out of the water and we have to maintain these to ensure this height out of the water.

219 showing water just above the centre case

146 sitting only a little deeper than 219

83 failed.  This is not how a cutter should look in the water.

For completeness we put 83 through the same test and this result was expected.  New flotation is currently being made for it and should be installed in the next weeks.

The scouts also had some fun doing some safety drills:

  • Pulling scouts out of the water and onto the boat
  • Swimming under a kayak with your life jacket on
  • Swimming and coming up underneath an overturned boat
  • Swimming underneath a sail on the water


Alfie heading under the boat

Rose coming out from swimming under the sail

More pictures are available here:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/G941fFuvVXteDGnv7


No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments?