Nautical Skills Stage 5 Activity Badge

Nautical Skills Stage 5 Activity Badge

Unleash your inner seafarer and develop the skills to take a boat or other craft out on the open water.

How to earn the badge:

1. Develop your skills in one water based activity to a level where you can operate the watercraft safely. You could demonstrate this by gaining a personal permit or the relevant national governing body personal competency award.

2. Show how you would use your watercraft to recover others from the water by taking part in a simple rescue exercise.

3. Demonstrate knowledge of pilotage, navigation lights, sound signals, tides, currents and eddies, depending on what’s relevant to your local waterways.

4. Demonstrate that you can tie a figure-of-eight knot, clove hitch, and a round turn and two half-hitches.  Tie an additional three knots: sheet bend, rolling hitch and bowline, then describe their uses.

5. Explain the different types of ropes used in water activities, their advantages and disadvantages and how to care for them.

6. Complete one of these:

• Make a rope fender or other piece of decorative rope work, such as a lanyard or a decorative knot.
• Demonstrate three calls made on a Bosun’s pipe, other than ‘still’ and ‘carry on’.
• Hoist the colours for a Sea Scout ceremonial or nautical themed ceremony.

7. Plan and take part in a one-day expedition or exercise afloat with others.

8. Learn how different boats communicate with each other in your location.

9. Take on the helm or cox role in a watercraft or help prepare a team for a competition.

10. Learn how to get local weather forecasts, understand their importance and be able to recognise signs of changing weather.

11. Learn how to safeguard against the effects of cold, and how to recognise and treat hypothermia.