By Bob Diamond
You’re out sailing with family or friends and you are at the helm. The boat is healing more, it’s getting harder to steer and one or two of the crewmembers are looking like they are about to panic. There is another boat to windward and it will be disaster if you round up into it. You are the only one who knows how to reef and it won’t be easy for you to get where you need to be on the boat. This is not a good situation. If you had been using good crew management practices you wouldn’t be here.
Good skippers use Crew Resource Management to make sailing more efficient and safer by maintaining situational awareness and delegating responsibility using effective communication skills.
It also enhances flexibility and adaptability.
Originating in the late 1970’s, Crew Resource Management (originally called cockpit resource management) was developed to enhance airline safety by NASA in response to some horrifying commercial airliner crashes. In many cases, the authoritative approach (which had stemmed from the military) was judged less effective in situations where crewmembers had to work together as a team. The conclusion by safety experts was that working together is a more effective way of operating a complex machine like an airliner (or even a boat). You can also use Crew Resource Management to keep your crew safe, happy and productive.
Here are some techniques that are proven to be effective:
Delegating Responsibilities: Enable your crewmembers to be responsible for various tasks when sailing. You can do this by first making sure the crew knows what to do and when to do it. Then especially with new crew, give feed back on how well the job was done. Don’t just criticize flaws in technique but also give positive feedback on what was done well. Of course the skipper has ultimate responsibility, but one person can’t do everything all the time.
Situational Awareness: In additional to understanding the details, it’s very important to not loose sight of the big picture. Are we getting too close to a channel marker? Will a wind shift cause us to hit an obstacle? We need to always be looking ahead in space and time. If you give your crewmembers a chance to deal with the details, it’s easier to keep the big picture in mind.
Communication: Develop communication skills that enable everyone to do what needs to be done without having to guess. When giving orders, make sure it’s clear who the order is for and be clear about what you want done. A good example when leaving the dock is: “John, cast off the bow line from the dock and step aboard.” A bad example is: “Okay!” Have the crew respond by saying what he or she is about to do. A crew response example is: “Casting off the bow line.”
Remember, communication works both ways.
Although the skipper is the final arbiter about what to do, the crew must be allowed to provide information to the skipper. The skipper should encourage the crew’s input by accepting information and suggestions gracefully even if a suggestion is ultimately rejected.
Flexibility and Adaptability: Develop crewmember skills so they can perform tasks interchangeably. Not only will this help them to work better together but also allows you to be more flexible. If you need to take action it may not always be convenient to move crewmembers around in the cockpit. (Climbing over each other is not a good way to initiate a maneuver.) Things will go more smoothly if on short notice you can assign a task to the crewmember nearest to what needs to be done.
This has been an outline about how Crew Resource Management can enhance efficiency and safety. Try using these techniques to see how you can make your own sailing experience more rewarding. As always, you can learn a lot more about the subject by searching for Crew Resource Management on the Internet. There are descriptions of some spectacular accidents that resulted from poor management techniques. Reading the judgments of safety experts can lead you to finding your own ways to manage your crew.