Boat owners, future boat owners, dreamer boat owners – the most common question they ask me is: ‘What’s going to make me and my boat safer?’ They want to know what my one piece of crew-overboard gear is that i’d recommend, my thoughts on which sea survival course is the best, or an instruction manual for emergency situations.

In other words they’re looking for a quick fix. i’ve got a bugbear here. you cannot buy safety. you cannot shortcut safety. safety has to be earned, and that takes time. gear and certificates don’t make you safer – not in isolation anyway.

You need another key ingredient. So what is that? What actually makes you a safer sailor?

It’s true that lifejackets, drogues, sea survival courses, an evacuation plan, knowing where the ‘arm’ button is on the EPIRB… all these things are important. but what is more important?

Sailing. the number one thing to up your safety game is simple: sail more, and get better at it. take performance boats. a common justification for buying the same length boat for double the price is speed: ‘by choosing the performance option we’ll be able to outrun bad weather.’

But the lightest, best-designed hull on the market won’t help you escape the storm unless you know how to handle it. i love performance boats. i also think fitting out your boat with good equipment is not only a safer choice, but more enjoyable to use.

And yes, investing time and money to take safety courses is prudent and necessary. but some owners spend hundreds of thousands on upgrading their boats – adding carbon rigs, nav systems, and 3di sails – yet hesitate to invest in a single day of professional coaching.

Just imagine how much faster and safer they’d be if they swapped the equivalent cost of one sail upgrade for top-class training. sometimes people justify an option like a carbon rig on safety grounds, because it reduces weight aloft. but then they reef early because they don’t have the sailing skills to push the boat to the edge.

Article continues below…

Thus, they probably wouldn’t escape the storm anyway, and they certainly wouldn’t see any of the slight gains of carbon vs aluminium rig (as a side note, the simple act of reefing early is a far cheaper way of achieving the same effect!). this all circles back to that old argument: qualifications versus experience.

Who’s safer, the sailor with a licence but no experience or the sailor with 10,000 miles and no certificate? the answer is neither. what matters is whether they can handle a boat efficiently and sensibly. and there’s only one way to know that – go sailing with them.

I still remember a delivery from Gosport to Liverpool for the 2017/18 Clipper Race start. On board was a full amateur crew, a few of whom had done extra training as coxswains so they could take over if anything happened to me.

So i tested them: i threw bob, our human-sized dummy, overboard and pretended it was me. they knew the theory. they’d drilled the procedure dozens of times. but when it came to turning the boat back downwind to the ‘casualty’ they couldn’t get the boat to turn.

Minutes passed and the dummy drifted out of sight, until someone finally realised easing the mainsheet might help. only after an hour of search pattern practice was bob eventually found. it was a reality check for all of us.

All the theory in the world needs to be underpinned by real sailing skills – and those skills need constant honing. for any sailor who wants to be safe, the job of learning, reflecting, and improving is never done.

So for anyone considering how to make themselves or their boat safer, i’d suggest putting as much time (and money if necessary) as you can into your actual sailing education. be picky about the sailing school you choose.

Lots of national sailing programmes do not include any practical sailing as part of their syllabuses. also remember, the quality of the education is ultimately a result of the quality of your instructor and not the sailing brand or programme endorsing them.

If you’re interested in performance sailing and short of cash, go club racing regularly to see how people don’t just sail fast, but also operate within the chaos of close quarters boat manoeuvres, and the constant stream of inevitable mistakes. because in the end, gadgets, miles, and certificates don’t make a safe sailor. time on the water does.

If you enjoyed this….

Yachting World is the world’s leading magazine for bluewater cruisers and offshore sailors. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams.

Build your knowledge with a subscription delivered to your door. See our latest offers and save at least 30% off the cover price.

Note: We may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site, at no extra cost to you. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.