50 Februar y 2015
practical: families
We figure there is no right or wrong,
rather what is most appropriate for you.
Our boat has a centre cockpit, so
while being supervised we allow our
son to be in the cockpit without a
harness. Given his age, when outside
the cockpit, he must have his harness
on and clipped on whether we are in the
marina, sailing or at anchor. He clips on
to a jackstay, allowing him to access the
full length of the boat.
He got used to wearing his harness
when he was crawling and now he is a
competent walker, knows where to find
his harness (rope bag in the cockpit)
and passes it to us or tries to put it on
when he wants to get out of the cockpit.
He has recently learnt how to get out
of the cockpit under this own strength
and does try to ‘escape’, so we have to
vigilantly supervise him.
There is also varying advice on
netting, some families use it as part of
their safety regime and others do not.
We want to do everything reasonably
possible can protect our son and
ourselves while living on the boat,
either in the marina, motoring, sailing
or at anchor. So now our son is walking
and reluctant to stay in the cockpit,
we are about to put the netting on.
Other advice from sailing families was
the importance of creating at least one safe
space just for our son, his own personal
space. We identified two, his cot/bed (with
the lee cloth) and the vee-berth.
We installed a lee cloth across the
vee-berth so our son and his toys could
stay in the area.
Although we use the vee-berth for
other things (when our son is not in it),
it is primarily our son’s play area.
He has a range of toys to play with from
soft toys, books to Lego. Having the
luxury of a play area separate to the rest
of the boat means we do not need to be
constantly tidying up after him.
Other play areas are the saloon table,fantastic for drawing, playing with
stickers, any task that requires sitting
or standing at a hard surface; and the
cockpit, great for playing cubby houses
and building obstacle courses with the
cockpit cushions.
Like most toddlers, our son manages
to turn any area in the boat into a play
area, including mimicking the things we
do, such as doing the laundry, cooking
or making a cup of tea.Emergency and safety
Other great advice given to us was
to review our emergency planning to
make sure it took into consideration a
baby or toddler.
This included making sure we know
who is responsible for what and to start
talking about it with our son. It translates
into little things like, which way we hook
our son’s lee cloth in, it is always the same
way, in case we need to get out quick.
It also included checking any
documentation associated with
emergency planning (such as
registration of the EPRIB and
insurances) has the correct number of
people or names on it.
One liveaboard also suggested that
we see our son’s paediatrician or GP
to make sure our first aid kit has child
appropriate items.
Playing in the vee-berth Our paediatrician (who also happens
with the lee-cloth up.Fast asleep and
safe with the lee
Our boat Medina. cloth up.