BCAB Open Water Navigation And Tidal Planning

Overview

The content of this course builds directly on the themes covered in the Coastal and Tidal Planning training and seeks to develop your knowledge and understanding on how to plan crossings and journeys in an advanced water environment. This course is a pre-requisite for the British Canoeing Advanced Sea Kayak Leader Award, as well as being suitable for any sea kayaker planning more advanced trips.

Who is this aimed at?

This one-day classroom-based course is designed for all sea kayakers who want to develop their knowledge and skills in more advanced environments.

Objectives

You’ll build on your existing navigation and tidal planning skills and knowledge, learning how to interpret sources of relevant information including maps, charts, coastal pilots, tide tables and tidal stream atlases. You’ll apply the information in calculating vectors and negotiating open crossings and/or coastlines with no landing zones and/or tide races and overfalls. You’ll develop the necessary knowledge to navigate on the water using advanced pilotage techniques in poor visibility or hours of darkness. By the end of the course, you’ll have planned at least two open crossings to take away as references for further trip planning. You’ll also have gained an awareness of the range of resources you need to plan trips in any sea area.

Itinerary

We’ll cover the foundation skills during the first part of the day; computation of rates, tidal vectors, three different ways to address planning for open crossings. You’ll then get chance to apply them by planning a range of real-world crossings using actual charts and forecast data.

Experience Required

BC Coastal Navigation and Tidal Planning Course (or equivalent e.g. RYA Basic Navigation or Day Skipper).

How should I prepare?

Make sure you’ve refreshed what you learned from the Coastal Navigation course, so we maximise the amount of new material we cover.
Familiarise yourself with the British Canoeing course content here