Sailing Toolbox — Instructor Guide
Sailing Toolbox is built around one idea: the quality of a student's debrief determines the quality of their learning.
Your session log activates and shapes their debrief. The more accurate your log, the more useful their reflection.
Before the Course
1. Build My Course
Tap Build My Course in Engine Room. Set your course type — CC, DS, CS or YM.
Each course type changes the role rotation, topic ratings and safety brief structure automatically.
Add your crew with their username and password. They arrive and sign straight in — no registration needed.
2. Set Up Your School (Settings)
Go to Settings → Roles to customise role names, responsibilities and safety brief points for your school.
Every school runs differently. What you set here pre-fills the skipper brief and topic ratings automatically throughout the week.
3. Build Your Week Plan
Tap Set Week Schedule → Week tab. Set the focus for each day — exercises, departure time, overnight stop, meals.
This is your framework. You will adjust it every evening based on weather and how the debrief went.
For CC courses, assign safety brief topics to students from Day 2.
During the Course — Daily Flow
Morning
Skipper fills in the day plan the night before — departure time, destination, exercises.
Skipper Corner shows the crew their role, the plan and any notices automatically.
After Sailing
Log Today's Session — location, wind, miles, activity checklist, topic ratings per student.
This is the most important step. It unlocks the student debrief and tailors it to what actually happened.
Be accurate. A honest rating is more useful than a generous one.
Face-to-Face Debrief
Run your group debrief as normal. Students then fill in their DebriefDock debrief privately —
what happened, what went well, what was hard, their confidence rating.
Watch the debrief summary on your Engine Room dashboard. Anyone flagged in red needs a check-in.
End of Day
Tap End Day after the face-to-face debrief. This advances to the next day.
If you have a night sail, the day stays open automatically — it will not close at 21:00.
End of Week
After the final day tap End Day — it will ask if you want to close the course.
Students keep full access to their progress, logbook and all debrief history after the course closes.
They get an end of week summary showing strong points, focus areas and what to work on before the next course.
The Student Folder is their permanent record. Every course they do on Sailing Toolbox adds to it.
When you teach someone again you can see exactly where they left off.
Why Accurate Records Matter
The debrief is only as good as the data behind it. If you rate everyone 3 out of 4 every day the system
cannot identify who is struggling. If you skip the checklist the student debrief has nothing to respond to.
Accurate records over a full week give you and the student a clear picture of their development.
Patterns emerge — the student who is always confident on deck but anxious when navigating.
The student whose confidence drops every time the wind picks up.
These are the insights that make you a better instructor and them a better sailor.