Students review - PB2 with the Bala training team

Published 13:09 on 26 Nov 2022

Whilst the unexpected snow and rise in the lake levels put a short delay into sailing returning to Bala SC, a pre planned PB2 course for members was in the diary and 5 lucky people turned up in typical March conditions to earn their stripes. Bala operates a tight policy on those members who can operate the ribs to ensure that from both an insurance and safety cover we operate to the highest standard and the RYA PB2 is the perfect platform for this.

Mark and Paul are highly experienced sailors and RYA instructors with a number of disciplines in their training portfolio so they are able to blend both the PB2 with real life sailing experience to create a balanced course which delivers the PB2 syllabus as well as allowing the attendees to go away with a set of skills relevant to the club racing scene.

A number of the attendees have kindly provided their reflections on the day.

Chris Prior

My wife Helen and I joined Bala Sailing club last year. We had little or no experience of sailing, kayaking, canoeing up until then and throughout the season, experienced quite a lot of it with friends who are club members. I was asked if I would like to assist on the safety boat several times and was immediately hooked so when the opportunity to enrol onto the PB2 course came about, I did not hesitate. 

On the morning of the first day of the course, I made myself known to the instructors,  Mark and Paul, who were very welcoming. 

The course started with a classroom-based induction, discussing all the safety equipment required and walk around checks of the RIB. Soon after, it was time to get changed and bring the boats to the water. We were taught many manoeuvres depicting different scenarios and conditions and were given plenty of opportunities to master them.

Day 2 started very much the same with a classroom briefing,  but this time with regards to tidal scenarios and communications. Again, after doing our boat checks we entered the water and had a more hands on approach to the physical aspect of the role with the marker laying, capsize drills and the Person Over Board scenario - cheers for that Mark!

The course complete, we met for a debrief in the classroom. Everyone had a great time and enjoyed the course with all credit going to the professionalism, knowledge and approachable nature of the instructors. 

Eddie Roberts

You know RYA accredited courses are going to be good. You also know that RYA courses delivered by the team of dedicated and very experienced instructors at Bala Sailing Club will be even better. As a newcomer to the sport and club all the courses have been pitched at the right level. The quality of instruction is fantastic with the pace of delivery tailored to each students progression. Most of the learning takes place on the water and it makes for a full and intense but very enjoyable weekend. Looking for a new challenge?

Then the PB2 course could just be what youre looking for.

Rob Sloggett

Who would have thought? An easy way to right a turtled Pico with a centreboard full up is to pop the bow onto the side of a rib and drive round in circles! But more of that later....

Having driven powerboats for water-skiing in the 80's as a teenager, I had a basic understanding and feel for driving at high and slow speed on water but it was fantastic to be trained "properly" and undoing old bad habits, focusing initially on the safety aspects which was a continually enforced subject over the 2 days but also undertaking a number of the most common manoeuvres to build confidence in our boat handling skills. In all honestly, people probably have a view of ribs ripping down the lake but actually less than 15% of the time on the course was at any form of speed, with most of the time focusing not just on low speed skills but actually moving between the two different types of ribs based at Bala SC to understand the differing characteristics.

Think Cat Rib (I now know how it got its name) as a Vauxhall Omega and Red Rib as a Golf GTi. It was important to flick between the two and redo the basically handling drills as they were both so different.

Back to the safety aspects, the two key messages for me were the adherence to always having the kill cord used and also the "one hand on the wheel and one on the throttle". As a car driver (and my previous PB experience being on a powerboat with a foot throttle), forcing myself to steer single handed and consciously always maintain my hand on the throttle felt very alien but this was regularly prompted by Mark in our rib to ensure we were not developing bad habbits.

The on water time was blended with a good balance of classroom knowledge sharing to ensure that the PB2 syllabus was covered to a good depth and I don't think I have tied so many bowlines in the space of a weekend.

Part of the purpose of delivering PB2 to club members is to provide a good selection of people to provide safety duty, so to compliment the course (but not detour from the core syllabus) the final afternoon moved our boat handling skills with real life recovery drill. Mark (after doing Man Over Board in the morning), showed us how to rig a Pico to aid the non sailors on the course identify the "bits" they may need to worry about, then with a bit of a blow out of the lake we followed him out and then as teams in two ribs, one team practised their "holding station" and observing, whilst the other team went through a process of supporting a capsize, a full turtle then a turtle with a missing centreboard.

For me, getting to experience these drills as part of the PB2 not only enhanced the course but has given me the confidence that when I come across a scenario on duty I will have had some first hand experience but also having been shown that no two recoveries are the same, as part of the role of the Safety Boat, a level of thinking as to recover or support a boat and crew is evident.

I can only close by thanking Paul and Mark for being such great instructors and the other 4 people on the course being such good fun company to share the experience with.

As always, the feedback from the day was exemplary and even if it was a bit chilly out on the lake, everyone came away happy that they had committed the time to the weekend and built up a brand new set of skill that allows more people to support the weekend sailing rota.

Ahuge thanks must go out to Mark and Paul, not only for giving up the weekend to run the course but also for the enthusiasm and depth of knowledge they bring to the training experience. 

Last updated 22:54 on 27 November 2025