During the last weekend of March, Bert took his car and went of to Quiberon, France, for getting introduced to and (literally) immersed into the wonderful world of sea survival.  The regulations of La Classe Mini oblige every participant of the Transat 650 to follow an ISAF Certified Sea Survival training.

Bert enthousiastically tells about this thrilling weekend:

On Friday morning (27/3/2008) I arrived by car in the French city of Quiberon after a trip of 8 hours. It was raining, cold and there was quite a lot of wind. I would say a force 6 or 7. The perfect conditions for a sea survival training. The Mini Class rules demand that the skipper of any mini has completed the ISAF Sea survival training. On Friday and Saturday this two day long training session took place at Quiberon, not far from la Trinité-sur-mer. The teacher was the well-known sailor Thierry Dubois.

Friday afternoon we had theoretical lesson about the use of lifejackets, life rafts, pyrotechnics,… It was very interesting to listen and learn many tricks from Thierry and from the 17 other mini sailors who were present. After the theoretical part we changed into our survival suits and headed for the sea. The conditions were optimal to simulate a real survival situation: force 7 winds, waves, rain and water of no more then 10 degrees Celsius.