Planning Your Voyage
Step 1 – Make a tentative booking
Discuss your requirements with the South Passage office and then you can start mustering students and teachers for the voyage.
Step 2 – Confirm your booking
Once you are confident you will have the student and teacher numbers, pay your non-refundable deposit of $500. Some schools require participating students to pay a deposit to demonstrate their commitment to the voyage.
The countdown begins!
Step 3 – Pay the first invoice
A payment of 50% of the total cost (less the deposit) is due 12 weeks before the voyage. The South Passage office will confirm student numbers with you and send you an invoice
Step 4 – Consider what you want to achieve on the voyage
The South Passage office will send you a client questionnaire six weeks before the voyage. This asks you to define the purpose of the voyage, the type of participants and any cultural or religious issues we should consider in our planning.
Step 5 – Start detailed planning with the students
We will confirm final student and teacher numbers with you four weeks before the voyage and send you an invoice for payment of the balance of the account.
We recommend you start detailed planning with the students. We will send you a pre-voyage planning booklet for each student and teacher. This provides a list of items for students to bring (and not bring) on the voyage as well as information to help them prepare for the voyage. We recommend meeting (or meetings) of the students and teachers to work through this booklet. It will help students in their personal preparation as well as preparing them for their South Passage experience. Of course, in addition to our guidelines, you may have your own requirements for students in keeping with the purpose of the voyage and school philosophy.
We will also send you a ‘Health Information and consent sheet‘ for each student. This provides us with
- Emergency contact details,
- Their health and fitness
- Medical issues of which we should be aware
- Consent of their parent to swim and/or snorkel
Students are also asked to sign a responsibility agreement where they agree to respect themselves, others, the ship, the environment and the reputation of the school.
Step 6 – Return participant‘s documentation
These must be returned to the South Passage office one week before the voyage so we can plan the voyage in detail. It is a legal requirement that we have a register of everyone on board and we have a ‘duty of care‘ to look after the students, teachers, volunteers and crew. To do this we need to know any special requirements (such as diet, disability, medications and so on)
Step 7 – At the start of the voyage
Students will be allocated to a watch and shown their bunk. They will be asked to stow their personal gear and then given a tour of the ship by their watch leader. After a safety briefing for all onboard, the voyage can start.
Students will be issued with a separate personal voyage logbook to record their experiences of the adventure as well as to complete exercises on knotting, navigation, knowing the ship and sailing competencies. Some schools require the students to hand in this logbook as part of their assessment of participation in school activities.
Step 8 – At the end of the voyage
Students and teachers will be given the opportunity to buy hats, T-shirts and other South Passage memorabilia. We will also ask them to complete a survey form giving us their impressions of the voyage so we can continue to refine and improve the South Passage experience.
