I’ve spent the past two days helping teach a Level 2 powerboating course for the new first years. Take some people who’ve never been in a powerboat before, add a force 4 wind, lots of chop and say things like “OK, I want you to pick up that mooring over there…”. It’s a recipe for fun :)

They coped remarkably well. None of them had that “My god! I’m gonna die!” look on their faces (except once when our RIB went to rescue a Topaz that’d capsized and the person running rescue cover took control of the boat and jammed the throttle to its stops). After letting them practise man-overboards for the 800th time we went for a little trip up the loch to play in the waves…

Waves + powerboats = sore arse. It’s fun, but after smacking rather sensitive bits of your body off the seat for the fifth time in a row you begin to wish the waves would calm down just a little. The constant spray that works its way down your neck is a tad unpleasant too. Going with the wind was fun though, you could catch up with gusts, overtake them and then take off over the tops of the waves :-)