Mindhelm

Cognitive skills

Cognitive skills are how you notice, hold the job in mind, decide, and answer while it is still going. Attention is staying with the job that is happening now. Short-term memory is holding the thought, the command, and the gap between stern and pontoon before a notification takes them. Long-term memory is remembering where the boat was and how she got here when the track is no longer in front of your eyes. Decision is saying yourself whether to go or to stay when there is no ready answer. Planning is naming the day before you leave, rather than taking a ready plan from a chat. Speech is hearing a command and answering it with the job the crew is waiting for. Place and distance is reading the horizon, the wave, and the gap to the pontoon. Calm is keeping the voice and the hands on the first effort. Rhythm is letting the watch and the weather divide the day. A reserve of strength and attention is what remains for the next job after one job is done.

A phone cuts the job into messages. Tools with artificial intelligence offer the route, the wording, and the next step themselves. Digitisation ashore leaves a track instead of a memory of the place, and a ready plan instead of your decision. A notification takes the place of a look at what is in front of you. The skill does not become an illness. People stop using it.

Mindhelm does not treat this loss and does not promise a medical result. The training week is arranged so these skills are needed again in the work on deck.

Who should come, and who should not

Mindhelm makes sense if you notice that the phone, the apps, and tools with artificial intelligence more and more hold your memory for you, suggest the decision, and lead you to the next step.

It does not make sense to come if you are looking for a rest without deck work and without a duty in the crew. It also does not make sense when a photo from the deck matters more to you than the bay you entered, or when you are not ready to put the phone away even for the time you are docking. A school course can be done without this rhythm.

What the programme requires

Four parts belong to every such week.

1. Use of phones, tablets, laptops, and navigation on watches is limited. Nobody takes them at the gangway.
2. Place and way are kept on a chart and by classic navigation: course and distance by eye, the pilot, a line in the log, a compass, a bearing, and lights. A track on a screen does not replace the chart, the pilot, and the log.
3. Each morning there is a warm-up. The instructor leads meditation and breathing practice, usually in the morning and in the evening.
4. If the crew decides to follow the food rules, the instructor teaches how to cook tasty and healthy dishes.

Food itself is not a required part. If you have your own preferences, limits, or an allergy, you and the crew decide what to do. Responsibility for the food rests entirely with the participants.

How the week looks

As a rule, the group is from four people. It can be larger when the week is not combined with Inshore Skipper and the programmes above it.

Nobody takes the phone, the tablet, the laptop, or a watch with navigation at the gangway. You put them away in the minutes when the crew needs your eyes and your hands: you look at the stern, at the pontoon, and at the person on the sheets. During docking one notification is enough for someone to drop their eyes to a palm and miss the stern coming in. If all week you answer work mail and ask a chat where to go next, a day on the boat is no different from a day in an office. A pretty bay over the side does not fix that day.

What to say before you leave

• Name an emergency contact who can be reached from shore
• Name the “family” and “work” windows, when you are reachable
• Say who on board needs a screen, and at what hour

Before you leave, you name these three things together with the whole crew. If you are going with friends on your own charter, agree the same yourselves while the boat is still at the pontoon.

Before you leave, you read the article on seasickness on a first trip and see what usually helps on a first day.

What you do on board

Each morning you do a warm-up. The instructor leads meditation and breathing practice, usually in the morning and in the evening.

On deck the Mindhelm rule is this: one moment, one job.

Before you leave, you decide together whether to go out today or stay at the pontoon. You check the forecast, and you say how tired people are, how many the boat can take, and how much daylight is left before evening. While everyone is sitting in the cockpit, you can hear each other. If you put this talk off until after leaving, you have to decide on the move: the wind is freshening, someone is already on the sails, and you hear each other less well.

Before a manoeuvre you name the roles aloud: who is on the helm, who is on the sheets, who looks ahead. If the command is not clear to you, you cannot see where the stern is going, or you cannot stand this watch, say so at once. You will be heard, and the watch will be handed to someone else. Nobody expects heroics.

You mark the boat’s place on a paper chart yourself. You estimate course and distance by eye: you look at the water under the side and at the shore ahead. You check the course on a compass, you take the bearing yourself, and you read the lights from their description. Before entering a bay you read a paragraph of the pilot: the description of the shore and the approaches. When the passage is done, you write in the log where you came from and what happened. A track on a screen does not replace the chart, the pilot, and the log.

The helm gives the command aloud and clearly, so the person on the sheets answers with the job instead of guessing from gestures. Straight after the manoeuvre, while everyone still remembers how it went, you briefly say what worked and what you will do differently next time. You tie the knot on the sheet or the mooring line that is in your hands now, and the movement stays with that job.

While the boat is coming into the pontoon, the crew looks at the gap between the stern and the pontoon, at the line in the hands of the person about to step ashore, and at the helm. You start the next job when the lines are made fast and the boat is still.

When the shoulders and hands are locked, you hear a command worse and you notice the wave later. Before docking or a narrow gap, two or three calm exhales are enough so the voice does not jump and the hands do not snatch the line.

If seasickness starts on the water, look at the horizon and breathe evenly.

After a hard manoeuvre, give yourself a minute before the next job. Before a watch you loosen the shoulders and the neck. After a turn at the helm you loosen the hands and the back. At anchor you stretch.

Shore and deck

What people ask here

How do the sea, the yacht, and the programme hold memory?

The sea takes the feed off the horizon, and short-term memory stays with the job that is happening now: a thought and a command do not break into messages. The sea does not store the long way. It does not remember where the boat was in the morning or how she arrived.

The yacht gives short-term memory a live job: the command and the boat’s way, until that job is finished. It gives long-term memory what you passed yourself: the wave under the side, the shore, and the passage. That way stays yours when you are no longer looking at a screen.

The programme gives you the work of memory itself. In one moment you have one job, and a notification does not take the thought while the job is still going. You mark the long way on the chart, you read it in the pilot, and you write it in the log. It stays with you when the track on the screen is already closed.

How do you decide and plan the day here?

The sea changes the morning plan with the weather. So you have to name the decision again, from what you see over the side. The yacht does not say that word: the crew does. The programme does not put a prompt from a chat in place of those words. You name the plan while the day is still ahead, and after the job is done you say what you will do differently next time you go out.

Where do calm, rhythm, and a reserve of strength and attention come from?

The sea gives calm as a horizon without a feed: your eyes stay on the water, and the next effort does not arrive as a line on a screen. The rhythm of the day here is the rhythm of the sea. Light, weather, and the watch divide the day, and a store of strength is left for what is still ahead.

The yacht carries that rhythm into the work. While your hands are on the sheets, the day goes with the boat, and the phone does not cut across that way. You notice the reserve of strength and attention after a job is done: you can see how much of it is left for the next one.

The programme does not treat calm, rhythm, or the reserve of strength and attention, and it does not promise a medical result. You start the next job when the previous one is finished. Contact windows keep messages off the watch, and for that time the sea’s rhythm stays yours. If the messages ride into the cockpit with you, you yourself cancel the sea’s rhythm.

If you are choosing a week

Write a letter to the school and name the programme you are considering, and whether you want this rhythm. If you have food preferences, limits, or allergies, say so in the same letter. Food is not a required part, and responsibility for the food rests with the participants.