Today is the halfway point for this year's Marine Safety Instructor Training (MSIT) in Sitka. Yesterday, students and instructors toured U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Sitka. On the tour, students practiced with a U.S.C.G. P6 dewatering pump, toured a MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter, and learned about the Air Station's mission and area of operations. Many thanks to LT. Kyle Johnson, AST 3 Tyler Connors, and the rest of the Air Station crew for the tour!

The MSIT is AMSEA's intensive 44-hour, U.S. Coast Guard-accepted, "train-the-trainer" course that all AMSEA instructors complete. The course provides new instructors hands-on training with the required survival equipment found on most commercial fishing vessels. It also teaches skills in cold-water safety & survival, damage control, man overboard recovery, firefighting, emergency signals, and treatment of hypothermia and cold-water near drowning.

Beyond the safety and survival skills, the MSIT teaches new instructors how to be successful teachers. The section on Methods of Instruction gives new instructors a variety of techniques for instructing students from differing backgrounds and in different teaching environments. The Risk Assessment section provides training on how to assess and manage the risks associated with training different skills in different situations.

Students get to put their teaching skills and knowledge together in five and fifteen-minute presentations on different marine safety and survival topics. Students demonstrate their safety and survival skills with hands-on practise through the course and emergency procedures drills aboard a commercial fishing or passenger vessel.

Would you like to become a Marine Safety Instructor and bring marine safety & survival training to your community, organization, or workplace? Our next MSIT class will be held February 3-8, 2020 in Abbeville, Louisiana. Click HERE for additional information and to register or call us at (907) 747-3287.