A yachting professional .......

However, up until 1999 i was a profesional Fire Officer in the Hereford and Worcester Fire Brigade, during which time i managed a watch on an operational fire station, and worked as an instructor at the Brigade Training Centre.  Here i was responsible for co-ordinating and delivering First Aid and Breathing Apparatus Training, as well a teaching firefighters how to deal with road traffic accidents.  This was also where i got injured, resulting in me contracting asthma .... not all bad news though, as now i have devloped  my passion for yachting into a sucessful profession.

Putting the excellent training that the Fire Brigade gave me into practice, has allowed me to develop my instructional skills in a marine environment.  I am now able to deliver all of the RYA courses usually undertaken by the cruising and racing yachtsman as well as  some of the MCA short courses, and am qualified for the following:

RYA Examiner for Sail, Power and Ocean

RYA Yachtmaster Ocean Instructor for Sail and Power

RYA Shorebased Instructor Examiner

RYA Sea Survival Instructor

RYA SRC Instructor

RYA Radar Instructor

RYA Diesel Instructor

RYA/ISAF Offshore Safety Course Instructor

MCA Elementary First Aid, MCA Medical First Aid and Profeciency in Medical Care Instructor

MCA Personal Safety and Social Responsibilities Instructor

During the last 9 months i have been involved with developing the forthcoming RYA Basic Navigation Course, which has included forming the syllabus, writing the course questions and writing the accompanying book.  This will be launched at the Southampton Boat Show in September 2007.

In May and June 2007 i will teaching on board Skip Novak's Pelagic Australis whilst it is on passage from Punta Arenas to Cape Town.  During the trip the yacht will traverse the Magellan Strait and Beagle Channel, will visit Cape Horn, stopover at the Falkland Islands and Tristan Da Cunha, before arriving in Cape Town.  During the trip i will be teaching the paying crew the RYA Coastal Skipper / Yachtmaster Theory and possibly the Yachtmaster Ocean syllabus.  It is an extemely interesting trip and i am very priviledged that Skip Novak has asked me to teach on his boat, as he is one of the most famous and highly respected high latitude sailors in the world.

Until recently i was the Chief Instructor for Hamble School of Yachting, but i have now been appointed as the Principal of Ondeck Sailing.  On Deck is one of the fastest growing marine businesses in the UK, and it will be my role to oversea school development.