Skipper and crew responsibilities

Responsibilities of the skipper and crew when taking a sailing dinghy on tidal waters with Cody SC

Skipper Responsibilities

The skipper must ensure that the vessel they are sailing is insured with valid third party liability insurance with a minimum cover of £5,000,000 for any one accident.

As skipper of a dinghy, you are responsible for the safety of the vessel and all people aboard.

RYA Water Safety Advice

The RYA 7 Common Senses for safe sailing you will especially like number 5.

Boat Safety

Your dinghy needs to be seaworthy, and should have the following safety features

  • Anchor (with tripping line)
  • Rigged to be able to be reefed afloat quickly
  • A method for getting the water out of the boat after righting from a capsize (could be self-draining, and if not, you need a bucket or other method of rapid bailing)
  • A method to slow down a capsize inversion
  • Righting lines
  • Towing lines

Crew Safety

Ask confidentially if your crew have any health or other concerns that may affect their ability to fully crew your boat, including hidden disabilities.

Report confidentially to the Daysail Leader concerns that you have personally, and concerns that you have of the crew who are sailing with you, so that the daysail leader has situational awareness of the crew across the fleet.

This information may be used by the Daysail Leader to change the sailing plan, and/or change crews around in the boats to balance the capacity and capability of the fleet.

Ensure that you and your crew are appropriately protected from the elements – suncream, warm weather clothing. buoyancy aid and so on.

It is club policy that all participants will wear a buoyancy aid. It is recommended that this is worn outside of the outer layer of clothing as the buoyancy straps over the shoulders act as a handle and can help recover someone from the water.

Leaving the fleet

The club recognises that the Daysail Leader’s decision is final and the Daysail Leader should remind participants of this fact if necessary. Should the skipper of a privately-owned boat indicate that they intend to sail against any the Daysail Leader’s decision/advice, the Daysail Leader should ensure they are aware of risks that the Daysail Leader has identified and should remind such skippers/crews that they sail at their own risk and if they are too far away, will not have fleet support for their recovery.

If you are planning to leave the fleet and sail independently, it is your duty to let, by any means, the Daysail Leader know, so that they are released of their responsibility for looking after you.

Best Practices in dinghy safety

  • You need to understand and be able to apply the COLREGS to reduce the chances of collision  (1).
  • You need to understand distress signals. An illustrated table describing the life-saving signals must be studied in advance of sailing. (2) 
  • You must pass on information about navigation dangers (if they have not already been reported) to the Coastguard by any means possible.
  • If you are in a position to be able to provide assistance on receiving information from any source that persons are in distress at sea, you are bound to proceed with all speed to their assistance, if possible informing them or the search and rescue service that you are doing so.
  • Your passage will be planned (3)
  • You will not misuse a distress signal
  • Where a VHF radio or other maritime radio equipment (such as an EPIRB, AIS, ATIS, Radar etc.) is carried, the equipment must be licensed.
  • Where in force, you must follow local byelaws and local regulations
  1. The RYA publication G2 – International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, available from the RYA shop, has been prepared with the pleasure craft skipper in mind and includes notes to help sailors interpret and apply the rules.
  2. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1035412/Life_Saving_Signals.pdf
  3. https://www.rya.org.uk/knowledge/safety/have-a-plan
  4.  https://www.rya.org.uk/knowledge/dinghy-trails

RYA Recommendations

Individual Risk Assessments

Responsibilities of the Crew participating in a daysail.

You are responsible for yourself, and need to work with the skipper to make safe passage and good decisions about sailing and personal welfare.

Your are responsible for informing your skipper confidentially if you have any medical conditions which may affect your ability to do what may be required during the activities that are required – launching, carrying, pulling, recovering after a capsize, handling a VHF radio, and so on.

Recent Posts

Cobnor Training Weekend

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July 2026

Friday arrivals were the usual Cody dribs and drabs arrivals, but even Simon arrived during the daylight, and a pleasant evening was had by all gathered around Anna’s wire mesh fire pit in the warm clear evening chatting and watching the satellites proceed across the night sky. A leisurely morning was spent in the lovely warm Saturday morning sunshine with Steve conducting ‘informal’ training on the field for people setting up new boats, optimising existing rigs or rigging spinnakers never rigged before. We took to the water around 11am and mustered on Cobnor Point to discuss the days training which included sailing efficiently in tidal flows, anchoring off with a tripping line, reefing afloat, a ‘acted out’ demonstration of man over board drills and practicing using the spinnaker (once it was rigged correctly). The day’s training was punctuated by a lunch on the foreshore at Cobnor point with Anna and Mark securing the royal ‘king and queen’ throne of the viewing bench there to dispense their regal declarations to the rebellious throng set out below them. All in all, a great day’s training.

The following day commenced with a session on Day Sail Leading, with Chris volunteering to lead a test day sail and presenting all the planning and briefing to the crews on the field before we went off the sail the plan.


From Chris:

On Sunday morning we had a six-boat fleet of Comets for a short cruise. This was part of the training for new day-sail OODs and was led by me (Chris) under Steve’s watchful tutelage.|

We were afloat just before 11, getting ahead of a fleet (flock, swarm… insert your preferred collective noun here) of Toppers, which were holding a youth race meeting from Cobnor SC. Our first leg was just a short hop from Cobnor to a stop at Itchenor hard. But just because it was short didn’t make it uneventful, with one boat finding themselves up a cul-de-sac the wrong side of the harbour jetties, before we were all able to meet up on the hard. Launching again into strengthening winds, the Cody fleet made its way upwind and uptide through a Sunday morning throng of racing dinghies, motor cruisers and anchored yachts to the ‘Wear’ mark. The fleet made good use of the skills of sailing out of the tide that they had practised the previous day. Turning back towards Cobnor, the fleet landed on Cobnor Point, practising landing on a lee-shore. De-briefing over lunch on the rocky beach, we were also able to watch the Toppers racing, with Debbie’s nephew taking a leading role.

We then spent time reefing afloat, more spinnaker practice before the participants left the point to pack up, An enjoyable and very useful day!

Simon and Chris.