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CYC members have expressed a strong interest in having more club boating educational activities. I recently put together an online survey that asked members what topics they are most interested in. Forty-one club members responded to the survey from the 210 email list members (memberships can include two people). The email list membership is about twice the size of our club membership of 105. Assuming that it was mostly club members who responded, the return rate was about 40%.
A wide range of topics were listed and respondents rated their interest in the topic from 1 to 5. Topic ratings were computed by simply adding the ratings for each topic. (If there are any statisticians out there who would like to help me with a more sophisticated data analysis, please contact me!). Here are the results:
| Topic | Total | Percent |
| Safety equipment & procedures | 137 | 67% |
| Sail handling & trim | 137 | 67% |
| Rules of the Road (COLREGS) | 135 | 66% |
| Diesel engine maintenance | 130 | 63% |
| Basic Navigation | 126 | 61% |
| Practical & decorative knots | 124 | 60% |
| Docking | 123 | 60% |
| Anchoring | 120 | 59% |
| Canvas maintenance & repair | 113 | 55% |
| Marine wildlife identification | 113 | 55% |
| Fiberglass repair | 109 | 53% |
| Painting and varnishing | 96 | 47% |
| Racing rules and tactics | 95 | 46% |
| Boat winterization | 94 | 46% |
| Basic marine survey | 90 | 44% |
| Fishing from a sailboat | 86 | 42% |
| Maritime photography | 73 | 36% |
Surprising to me is the fact that there is not a wide spread of scores; most club members gave a high rating for most of the topics. Given the topic scores and our limited resources it seems to me that any topics at or above 60% would be good topics to focus on. Of course, providing educational programs depends on finding people and resources that can provide education on those topics.
In the next newsletters, I will list some current resources for boater education and explore a bit more about what the CYC can do to satisfy our members boating educational interests. If you would like to help with this effort you are welcome to contact me, Mike Reed or Kathy Sheehan. We are an informal group of club members who are looking into bringing more education
-Ken Russell
Winter Classes at the Community Boating Center
- Seabirds of the Salish Sea
- Essential Knots for Boaters
- Introduction to Coastal Navigation
- Intro to the Inside Passage
- Introduction to Tides and Currents
- Understanding PNW Weather
To find out more about these class and register, go to https://www.boatingcenter.org/classes/adult-lessons/indoor-classes/.
Spring Classes with the Bellingham Sail and Power Squadron
- America’s Boating Course
- Weather
- Introduction to Boating Skills and Safety
To find out more about these class and register, go to http://boatingisfun.org/education.asp.
26 MAR 2020
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