Your student briefing needs to contain the following elements -

• Safety - Hazards in area, Basic Road rules & byelaws (including slowing down to displacement speed i.e. 5 knots if another craft enters the operating area)
• Aims - what you want them to achieve & why they are doing it.
• Area - the course or area of operation
• Direction of travel when going around a course
• Distance - away from safety craft / between PWs
• Duration - session length / number of laps of the course
• Safe Speed awareness & the speed that you want them to carry out the exercise
• Signals - whistles are difficult to hear over the noise of your students engine, therefore you need to create one of two scenarios - either set them a number of laps of the course to complete and inform them that they must slow down and return to you on completion OR brief them to look over at you on a regular basis, if you are giving them a hand-signal (i.e. arms ontop of your head or pointing & waving them in) then they must return to you at this point. For hand-signals to work effectively, you must position yourself in an obvious place, insight of your students. It may be worth purchasing a fog horn to gain their attention in an urgent situation.
• Key teaching points of the exercise - How they are going to achieve the aims (Demonstration?)

Brief your students to follow you on your starboard side, in front of your wake, leaving a minimum of 3-5 PW lengths between them and the PW infront.. the pattern should look similar to the photo above. 

The dangers of following directly behind each other is that if someone was fall from a PW or stop suddenly the PW behind will run straight into them. The reason for keeping your students to starboard is that they are then kept on the right side of any channels and away from other craft. 

Syllabus states – ‘Can – Approach and recover a man overboard’

Why? Usually to recover your passenger from the water when they have fallen off or perhaps been thrown off!

Fundamentals: Never use a real person to practice this exercise, instead use a weighted fender or MOB dummy. Demonstration as with all aspects of the syllabus, is key. The approach should be made from a reasonable distance downwind and be VERY slow. Remember to turn off your engine when you are near your MOB and recover the MOB from the rear of the PWC rather than the side, if this circumstance happened for real you could only practically recover the MOB from the boarding platform. To discuss recovery methods further there are videos available to show your students in the RYA PWC e-book. 

Syllabus states – ‘Can – Come alongside another craft, pontoon or floating dock’

Why? Setting up a tow, refueling, marina operations

Fundamentals: Always demonstrate first, introduce the manouvere later in the day, once your student has had plenty of practice and in particular understands stopping distances and can pick up a MOB. Get your student to practice coming alongside a buoy first. Once they have mastered this, then move them on to coming alongside a pontoon, craft or floating dock. During your demonstration and your briefing you must emphasise the importance of:

• Using Neutral and reverse to control speed (if they have it, otherwise to turn the engine on and off to maintain a slow speed).

• Angle of approach – this will depend on the strength of the elements (wind/tide) but be aware that if the turn is too sharp, the stern of the PW will continue to swing into the pontoon even once the engine is turned off.

• Effect of wind/tide – use these elements to help slow you down.

• Aim to stop the PW within 2-3 foot (reaching distance) from the pontoon rather than directly alongside it, this will minimize the possibility of knocking it and will allow enough space for an escape route.

When PW riding was all about stand-ups, the teaching was heavily weighted towards body position. Nowadays the market is dominated by sit-down PWs and this seems to have been forgotten. PW riding is classi ed as a sport, so let’s get our students to stop sofa-riding. This will not only improve their riding ability and help them get the most out of the craft, but it will also add some more energy!

How to do it:

start the student with some practice runs where they are just on the plane (around 16-18 knots).

Instruct them to:

Start the turn earlier than they think they need to and get a feel for how much the PW slides.

Start wide, turn early and aim

to finish their turn adjacent to the buoy. This will put them in the best possible position to

go straight into their next turn (slalom course) or put on some more power for the straight (box course).

Once your student is feeling more con dent; ask them to try

Ease, Drop and Squeeze.

Ease the power which will drop more bow in the water.

Drop their body position aggressively into the turn.

Squeeze the throttle back on to power through and exit.

Top tips:

»  Plant a foot towards the rear of the outside footwell to keep the stern locked in. This reduces slide.

»  Brace your legs, squeeze them in against the seat and brace the outside foot against the edge of the footwell for extra leverage.

»  If the PW has trim control, trim down for the turn and then trim up as you enter the straight for maximum speed (box course).

Advice to pillion riders:

Sit close to the helm to reduce the amount of movement and bumping into him/her.

Mimic the helm’s body position to help with the turn.

Reduce the risks:

Students instinctively want to stand and pull their arms in a brace position, which results in two primary risks;

1. Having your arms pulled in and

down brings your face closer to the handlebars than necessary. When you hit waves or a wake the PW will bounce, making it likely to impact your face.

To avoid impact and ensure

they are positioned a reasonable distance from the handlebars, ask your student to check they can see both their elbows in their peripheral vision at all times without needing to move their head.

2. Hitting waves or a wake when in a standing position is likely to mean you will be pushed forward on the bounce, causing impact on the handlebars with your chest, stomach or face.

At the very least this will cause discomfort or winding.

Advise your students to hover with their buttocks about 3cm above the seat. Their shoulders, hips, knees and ankles will then absorb any bumps without losing core body stability or grip. Encourage them to grip with their knees rather than relying on their hands, which will fatigue more quickly. The end result is protecting your back/ spine from impact without risking losing control of your body position. As an instructor, if you can see the sky between your student’s buttocks and the seat, they are too high! 

There are two obvious ways in which you can teach capsize recovery; firstly, it is always a good idea as with anything, for your students to see 'how' it is done. The Capsize video in the RYA PWC proficiency course eBook is the best way of doing this. Press play and pause at key points talking through what is happening, check you students understanding at the end. There is alot of concern pinned to the capsize exercise by students, the 2 main concerns seem to be:-

1) That their ski will not re-start after capsize.

2) They will not beable to right the capsize.

If you don't have the eBook, please see PWC Capsize Recovery Video by clicking here, please note there is much more detail in the RYA eBook (along with other videos that you will find useful whilst teaching the course)

Sometimes its hard to figure out the best way to manage short vs. afloat sessions, especially when you review the course syllabus and how easy it is to perceive that theres alot of ‘theory sessions’ involved, so, how do we ensure that our students get enough time actually riding a PWC to meet the time requirements and ensure they gain enough PWC handling experience?

Whether you teach the proficiency course on a lake, the sea or from the back of a Superyacht the same rule of thumb applies, a minimum of 70% of our day should be spent afloat, this not only makes it more interesting for your students but also allows them enough time to truly get to grips with riding a PWC to be safe in the future on this relatively short course.

Here are some ideas of how to make this easier for you and allow the time to be used in the best possible way..

Cover ‘theory sessions’ 1:1 / 1:2 whilst the other PWC/s are carrying out the slow speed practical sessions, this is particularly relevant when running courses for 3 x PWC where only 2 PWC are on the course at any one time. However don’t forget to keep an eye on the practical sessions at all times!

Tidal streams & Weather are directly linked to sessions like MOB, CAS and Stopping distances/ Teaching these subjects as part of these practical sessions will help make them more relevant to the task at hand.

Knots: Why not get your students to practice their knot tying whilst waiting for their turn at a practical session? A great use of time and preparation for the towing session.

Buoyage: If you work in coastal waters then use the buoyage thats around you particularly during the ‘follow a planned route’ session rather than ‘talking about it’ in a classroom, this will not only make it quicker to cover, but also more relevant.

IRPCS:  if you run your course in a busy patch of water then you will ‘see’ various IRPCS activities whilst transiting between locations whether that be ship movements or leisure craft heading out for the day.

Slipway Launching & Recovery: This is the perfect time to introduce a working knowledge of Tides, Depths / Chart Datum for fear that you will instead have your trailer stuck in the mud!

Types of PWC:  If you are launching from an area where other people are using PWC’s use this an opportunity to show your students some different types of PWC. Alternatively if you are based near a PWC dealer why not pop in over lunch and have a look round.

Balance & trim: This subject that becomes quickly relevant when running slow speed familiarisation and can be enhanced during the planing speed exercises.

Capsize recovery/ Versa Docks / Launching - if you have a smart phone or tablet (in a waterproof case) why not get your students to watch the video/s (within the RYA eBook) whilst they are waiting for their ‘turn’ at a practical session