Space is still open for a 10-hour fishing vessel drill conductor workshop is scheduled for April 15 in Cordova, offered by the Alaska Marine Safety Education Association.
As of late March just three of the 15 student seats were filled.
The workshop at the Pioneers of Alaska Igloo, 621 1st Street, is free to commercial fishermen, thanks to support from the U.S. Coast Guard, the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community & Economic Development, and the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health. The cost for all others is $175.
The workshop will be from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Instructor Laura Schneider will cover cold-water survival skills, emergency position-indicating radiobeacon stations (EPIRBs), flares and maydays; man-overboard recovery and firefighting; immersion suits and personal floatation devices, helicopter rescue, life rafts, abandon ship procedures and emergency drills.
There will be an in-the-water practice session, giving participants practical experience with PFDs and immersion suits, employing survival techniques, and righting and boarding an inflatable life raft.
AMSEA drill conductor workshops meet training requirements for drill conductors on board documented commercial fishing vessels operating beyond the federal boundary line.
AMSEA advises that this is an excellent opportunity for commercial fishermen and other mariners to gain hands-on training with marine safety equipment and learn best practices for surviving emergencies at sea.
Interested mariners may register at
www.amsea.org or call 1-907-747-3287.
