On the topic of kids and safety, I had our kids watch
this video as we started sailing. They were 5 and 8 years old. At the 6:20 mark in the video, they play through a MOB drill from the perspective of the MOB. I don't want to open up a conversation here on the preferred MOB approach, but I wanted to show the kids what is going on from that view. In short, don't panic. The boat is not able to make a 180 degree turn and come right back to you. You will see the boat move away from you for a while. Then turn and head in another direction and then come back to you. Like most prep, it was overkill since nobody fell off. But I wanted to get ahead of it with my 5 year old daughter since I knew that would be one scary feeling being dunked in the ocean and seeing the boat sail off. Funny story, we also practice proper family MOB drills letting the kids know how important it is to be the spotters in the cockpit and point to the person who fell over so the skipper never loses perspective. We practiced that a number of times with the kids. On the way back into Road Town, my wife decided to knock the sand off of her shoes and one went right over. The kids pointed the whole time and never lost site of that shoe all the way to the rescue.
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