We take safety seriously and it’s impossible to have high safety standards without also having high training standards. Most skippers talk about how important safety is to them, but very few actually do a thorough job of training their crew and ensuring that the vessel can continue to operate safely even if they are incapacitated.

It’s one thing to have the knowledge in your head, but it takes a different level of safety management to ensure that accurate, safety and vessel operations information is at everyones finger tips when it’s required, especially in an emergency situation. It’s often 2 or 3 poor decisions or minor operational mistakes that can set off a chain of escalating problems and cause injury, gear failure and in extreme cases, loss of life or the vessel.

Although we perform several hours of safety training and vessel familiarisation prior to departure, it’s not always easy to remember every detail. What we also carry on board and make available to each crew member during every passage is our 151-page Yacht Operations Manual written especially by us, and tailored to each yacht’s crew, yacht design, systems and safety equipment.

• Read more on safety equipment and systems.