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I began RYA Coastal Skipper & Yachtmaster Offshore Theory on 10 November 2023. As a confident Day Skipper, I wasn’t sure I’d find much new.
The amount of new material astonished me:
• how to behave around wildlife
• Latin cloud names and how clouds form
• using radar
• atmospheric pressure’s effect on water level and how tide tables are compiled
• heavy-weather sailing techniques
• the principles of passage planning
Every topic brought a small revelation. Worth every penny; I wholeheartedly recommend it. Now I don’t really understand Coastal or Offshore Skipper qualifications in IYT and ISSA. They don’t have such a comprehensive course, do they?
Difficult and fascinating. I replayed some topics repeatedly before properly understanding them. I’d expected to finish in a month, but dragged it out until 9 May 2024. I wasn’t studying every week, of course: boat repairs and my day job kept me busy too.
There was no feedback during the course, even where comments on answers were promised. Disappointing. But as soon as I emailed my drawn pilotage plan, I received a friendly, detailed PDF reply, including a review of the online test.
The exams took two days:
• ninety minutes of rules-of-the-road questions, including particularly tricky cases involving fishing gear extending from trawlers and different towing arrangements
• 120 minutes of chartwork: mainly fixing position and calculating currents’ effects over long passages. I needed another hour
• 360 minutes to plan and execute a passage. I took about 400. This was interactive: plan it properly first, then deal with problems introduced ‘during’ the passage. For example, work out where you could get with a failed engine and justify each suggestion
Five weeks after the exam, on 29 May 2024, an envelope arrived with my certificate. My review on Trustpilot.
#training #ardent
The amount of new material astonished me:
• how to behave around wildlife
• Latin cloud names and how clouds form
• using radar
• atmospheric pressure’s effect on water level and how tide tables are compiled
• heavy-weather sailing techniques
• the principles of passage planning
Every topic brought a small revelation. Worth every penny; I wholeheartedly recommend it. Now I don’t really understand Coastal or Offshore Skipper qualifications in IYT and ISSA. They don’t have such a comprehensive course, do they?
Difficult and fascinating. I replayed some topics repeatedly before properly understanding them. I’d expected to finish in a month, but dragged it out until 9 May 2024. I wasn’t studying every week, of course: boat repairs and my day job kept me busy too.
There was no feedback during the course, even where comments on answers were promised. Disappointing. But as soon as I emailed my drawn pilotage plan, I received a friendly, detailed PDF reply, including a review of the online test.
The exams took two days:
• ninety minutes of rules-of-the-road questions, including particularly tricky cases involving fishing gear extending from trawlers and different towing arrangements
• 120 minutes of chartwork: mainly fixing position and calculating currents’ effects over long passages. I needed another hour
• 360 minutes to plan and execute a passage. I took about 400. This was interactive: plan it properly first, then deal with problems introduced ‘during’ the passage. For example, work out where you could get with a failed engine and justify each suggestion
Five weeks after the exam, on 29 May 2024, an envelope arrived with my certificate. My review on Trustpilot.
#training #ardent
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