Structure and Management

Find out more about Adventure Activity Licensing Authority.

Safety on the water policy

Set out your general approach to safety on the water, how you will manage it and who does what, when and how – a statement of intent if you like.

A statement of intent may be part of an organisation wide health and safety policy that covers all the activities of the organisation, or it may be part of your Standard Operating Procedures for on the water activity.

The legal requirement to write a health and safety policy is set in the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974). If you have 5 or more employees (a contract of employment exists) you must write your policy down. If you have less than 5 employees you don’t have to write it down but is useful to do so.

Organisations who don't have employees still have a duty to carry out activities in such a way that all those involved are not exposed to risks to their health and safety.

If you do write a safety policy

• Aim for something that is functional and concise
• Share it with everyone involved in the organisation – it’s an important part of safety assurance
• Check you are doing everything you say you are doing in the statement / policy.

One size does not fit all affiliated organisations as there is such a diversity in terms of organisations, facilities, activities, location, and mix of staff or volunteers. It is important your policy is tailored to meet the requirements of your organisation, its premises, its activities and its people.

Your policy, your intent, should state the fundamental importance of safety to your organisation, your aims and philosophy in relation to safety, and the commitment you have made to managing the safety of everyone involved in the organisation’s activities, including a commitment to consult with members, volunteers and staff.

Your policy should be in broad terms. The statement should be signed, dated and reviewed regularly.

Find out more about:

• RYA general health and safety advice
• RYA legal advice on staff.

Roles and responsibilities

Make a list of the names, positions and roles of people or committees in your organisation who have specific responsibilities for safety on the water.

The list is likely to include

• Overall and final responsibility for safety (an individual or managing committee / governing body of the organisation)
• Lead responsibility for putting the safety policy into practice on the water
• Roles that are responsible for specific sessions, events or activities
• Roles in vessels – either with participants, or on a safety boat
• Responsibilities of participants and members.

The list should include the role and a brief description of what they are responsible for. Not every role will have a name identified with it, either because it is a committee or because a separate list exists (e.g. Officers of the day, Race Officers, Competent helms).

Equality

Equality is at the heart of ensuring activity on the water is safe, fun and open. Embracing diversity and challenging discrimination are commitments that will help give people the assurance they need so they feel able to take part.

There are a number of steps organisations can take

• Adopt an equality policy
• Review all your rules, practices and procedures to check you are not discriminating on the grounds of a protected characteristic
• Make sure everyone involved with your activities feels able to raise concerns about how they or others are treated.

Find out more about RYA equality, diversity and inclusion strategy.

Safeguarding

Safeguarding is about

• The protection of people’s physical and mental health, their wellbeing, and their human rights
• Giving assurance to children and adults, parents and carers they are safe when they take part in your activities
• Raising awareness amongst everyone involved so they know what to do if they are concerned about anyone
• Protecting volunteers and staff with practical common sense advice
• Protecting the organisation by taking all reasonable steps to provide a safe environment.

There are a number of steps organisations are advised to take

Adopt a policy statement (Separate or joint policies are acceptable) that defines your organisation’s commitment to providing a safe environment.

Produce a code of conduct for everyone involved so they know what is expected of them in terms of respect and understanding of others.

Detail procedures that set out what your organisation does step by step to safeguard everyone involved, to include: safe recruitment of staff and volunteers, good practice guidelines around safety and welfare, and handling of concerns or complaints

Appoint a welfare officer and make everyone aware of the policy, code of conduct, procedures and who the welfare officer is.

There is a wealth of advice and support for clubs and welfare officers around safeguarding – everything from webinars and training, access to online DBS checks, guidance on safe event planning, access to resources, to policy templates that can be adapted to suit your organisation.

Find out more about RYA Safeguarding support for clubs, classes and class associations.

Remember

You can get detailed advice from the RYA about your legal responsibilities and liabilities, and in relation to the regulations or licensing that may be relevant to the activity you deliver and vessels you own. Email in the first place.

Find out more about our guide to risk assessment.

Daily Risk Assessment

• May be written, or make use of a simple matrix
• Contributes to a sail / no sail decision
• May lead to reducing fleet size / increasing safety cover / reducing sail area or other controls to be implemented on the day
• Captures all those elements that are unknown in advance

It can be useful to record the assessment so you can account for key decisions.

Each organisation will have their own requirements on what to include within a daily assessment.

The following is a guide of the factors that may be considered

You may choose to establish a scoring matrix for the daily assessment, considering each factor on a scale from low risk to very high risk. The person or committee responsible for safety on the water can establish a framework for sail / no sail decisions – above certain levels of risk you may require evidence of additional controls that have been put in place or confirm a no sail decision.

The advantage of a matrix and decision-making framework is that you are balancing the judgements of a competent person with a process that has been agreed by the organisation and that everyone accepts as part of the agreed operations.

Dynamic risk assessment

Dynamic risk assessment is a continual monitoring and communication process by all those involved in managing safety on the water. It is about keeping your head out of the boat, spotting situations, and controlling them before they become problems. It:

• May lead to abandoning or shortening sessions / activity / events
• May lead to requesting additional support
• Is usually not written, though there may be means of logging or noting key decisions / communications in case there is a need to account for what happened later
• Participants and their individual need.

Participants and their individual needs

The Sailability community has a collective knowledge about issues specific to sailing with disabled people and the good practice that emerges from these issues. The knowledge to date has been collated in a safety on the water guidance note.

The knowledge in this guide has been gathered from testing and observations as well as learning and recommendations from previous incidents. The guide discusses a number of issues and the implications for practice, including risk assessment practice.

If you have knowledge or practice to share, please get in touch.

Individual risk assessment

Some people may have health conditions that mean the risks involved need to be individually assessed so you and the individual concerned can make decisions based on:

• the risk factors
• the support that can put in place to keep all involved safe
• people agreeing to participate with a clear picture of the risks involved.

It is always difficult to navigate situations where a person’s health or fitness is fluctuating or deteriorating, and they are unable to do things they used to be able to. It can be the case that the different parties involved will have different perspectives on the person’s health, capabilities and capacity, so there will be different views on what is possible and what is sensible.

If we have the capacity to make decisions (to go sailing or not) we have the right to make unwise decisions, or decisions that others would consider foolhardy. An organisation has to balance this with the duty of care they owe to keep others involved as safe as reasonably practicable.

So an individual risk assessment allows you to

• Consider the context
• Undertake a fact find
• Identify the hazards and assess the risks
• List all the available controls
• Jointly (with the participant) decide on the controls to be used (the support needed)
• Regularly review the controls – session by session if needed.

Through such a process, a vision can be shared (e.g. keep being involved for as long as possible), steps taken to achieve the vision but also an acknowledgement that there may come a time when either more controls (support) are needed or that the activity may not be possible.

An individual risk assessment is

A joint exercise

Involves the person with the health condition, any parents or carers they want to involve and the organisation – recognising the person is an expert in their health condition, the organisation is focussed on delivering safe activity on the water

Dynamic

Conditions for sailing change, health conditions progress or fluctuate; perceptions of what is possible vary – it is likely that the controls / support required to keep everyone safe will also vary over time, and may be added to or reduced session to session.

Resources of risk assessment templates:

• Individual risk assessment template
• Individual risk assessment template (epilepsy)

Find out more about RYA Guide to writing operating procedures.

A safety plan

Every session should have a safety plan. Much of the plan will come from the operating procedures and the steps you take to brief participants, staff and volunteers. A safety plan should mean that those responsible for safety on the water know the steps to be followed for:

• Getting to and from the sailing area, including towing arrangements
• Safety fleet positioning, numbering / call signs and specified roles
• Safety equipment required by safety fleet and competitors / participants
• Boats returning to shore while session is continuing
• Abandoning boats
• Briefing schedule
• Emergency action plan
• Communication methods to be used and channels allocated
• Any tallying requirements or other systems to account for who is on the water
• Medical or first aid cover for both on the water and on the shore
• Guidelines for deteriorating conditions, including loss of visibility
• Participant / competitor list and any specific individual needs
• Emergency drop off points
• Daily risk and dynamic risk assessments.

Find out more about health and safety advice.

Insurance

Risk management is about reducing risk as far as is possible, not eliminating it. It is not possible to mitigate against every scenario. So insurance is an important control to have in place.

Every organisation will have different insurance needs, so please seek expert advice.

It is important that you have an insurance policy(s)

• That is up to date
• Provides an appropriate level of indemnity and covers the organisation against potential liabilities arising from the activities
• Covers any personal liability of staff or volunteers while acting on behalf of the organisation
• Covers damage and third party liability for any craft or equipment you own is insured for damage and third-party liability

It is always worth offering assurance to everyone involved by displaying your insurance certificate.

Recording accidents, incidents and near misses

Any safety management system should have a mechanism for recording accidents and near misses. An accident book is a very useful tool for doing this. Accident books should be reviewed regularly, and action identified to prevent similar accidents from happening again.

The information recorded is an indication of how well safety is being managed and allows others to learn

Accident reporting may well collect personal data, so is subject to GDPR requirements. A variety of accident books are available to purchase, including from HSE.

Near misses are events that could have caused an accident or injury, and it is useful to keep a record of these. The record can be similar in content to an accident book entry. Review, and action from the lessons learned are equally important.

If you are delivering activity for children or people who do not have capacity your procedures should include steps to inform parents, guardians or carers.

Clubs or associations that own, control or occupy land have a range of obligations to guard against visitors being injured. Organisations that are employers will have legal responsibilities to record accidents and injuries and report accidents that cause deaths, reportable injuries and dangerous occurrences (near misses).

The RYA recognises that sharing information about accidents is invaluable for learning and influencing safe behaviour. So the RYA has established a number of triggers for reporting – if you have an accident or incident at your organisation that involves a fatality, hospitalisation, reporting the MAIB, if useful lessons can be learned, or you are in doubt whether you should report, then do contact us using the reporting form.

Agreeing risk assessment and procedures with partner organisations

Affiliated organisations potentially have numerous partners

• Schools, or community organisations getting on the water with you
• Sailing clubs that you are part of
• Sailing clubs that you have close links with
• Activity centres who use the same sailing area

All partner organisations will want assurances that you are safe on the water, so a mutual understanding of what you do and how you do it is important.

This could take the form of

• Sharing key documents
• Explaining safety procedures
• Discussing each organisations’ risk assessments and any differences within
• Consulting on procedures
• Recognising each other’s procedures