Anybody else not, qualified?

[capnsensible]

The qualification they were offering was YachtMaster Offshore - in 14 weeks, for someone with no previous experience.

That's meant to be evidence of a pretty high level of skill and experience.

I think they are devaluing the brand, by giving such a high certification to someone without more experience.

Students on these courses must achieve exactly the same pre requisites for a Yachtmaster Offshore exam as every other candidate. Some people take years, for example, to log 2500 seamiles. With big gaps. Fast Track students are kept hard at it from beginning to end including the navigation courses, vhf, first aid etc.

Not all pass at first attempt. But they are generally better prepared than the average person. I enjoy coaching all yachtmaster prep courses. But I know which group I prefer!!

 

[Bouba]

But I know which group I prefer!!

The women ?

 

[capnsensible]

The women ?

I'm sure you wouldn't be surprised to know there are many female students who are successful and go forward in the marine industry. A friend of ours that I prepped some years ago for her yachtmaster Offshore exam has gone on to be a very successful superyacht skipper. That gives me a great sense of pride in her abilities.,

 

[billskip]

Oops sorry wrong thread

Can't delete image

 

[capnsensible]

Oops sorry wrong thread

And your point is?

Ah, it's come up as oops wrong thread. BZ

 

[billskip]

And your point is?

Ah, it's come up as oops wrong thread. BZ

I got into a mucking fuddle with things....

 

[Mark-1]

12 weeks is a lot of time to spend on a boat being taught things.
What would the alternative be anyway? A couple of weeks a year messing about? So that's 6 years just to match the sailing time, even leaving aside the formal training.

This isn't rocket science anyway, I don't see why it should take any longer than that.

I'd agree.

I don't see quals as necessary but if.you can't sail after three solid months of sailing you'll never be able to IMHO.

That's more hours that I had in lectures during my whole time at Uni.

 

[rogerthebodger]

I'd agree.

I don't see quals as necessary but if.you can't sail after three solid months of sailing you'll never be able to IMHO.

That's more hours that I had in lectures during my whole time at Uni.

It's nothing to do with qualifications but it's all about insurance complainers having the ability to refute any clams

It's also about the authorities having a way to hold skippers to account and to fine them thus making money to the state

 

[MontyMariner]

A friend of ours that I prepped some years ago for her yachtmaster Offshore exam has gone on to be a very successful superyacht skipper. That gives me a great sense of pride

A chap that I taught to dive went on to become a Director of PADI.
Funny how things turn out, as he learnt within the BSAC organisation

 

[capnsensible]

I'd agree.

I don't see quals as necessary but if.you can't sail after three solid months of sailing you'll never be able to IMHO.

That's more hours that I had in lectures during my whole time at Uni.

Well that's why the RYA scheme provides instruction to be reasonably competent after two five day courses.

Tad different to Yactmaster Offshore. And why it takesv14 to 16 weeks to nail it. There are big opportunities in the maritime industry for satisfying careers and the majority of fast track students are working towards that.

Of course that level of competence, whilst an entry requirement for pros, is rarely so important to leisure sailors. I've coached plenty who've wanted to do it just 'because'. It's the challenge of it....exactly why I did it in the first place. Only then did I think of sailing as a career.

However, the vast majority of those that take courses want to be coached to a Day Skipper level of experience and then go out there and get amongst it.

That's the success story of the RYA scheme, accessible at all levels, choose however far you want to go and not forgetting, exported all over the world to a huge audience.

Sorry to hear that university takes so long to underachieve.

 

[14K478]

I have a friend who did the zero to hero(ine) course a few years ago, in the Channel, in January. She had been taken for a sail by her boyfriend, and decided that sailing was what she wanted to do. She got a series of jobs as a superyacht hostess and saved enough to pay for the course, borrowing the kit from me. She went back as a deckhand. Then she did the Ocean and the Commercial Endorsement and as of this writing she is a superyacht Mate with a nice apartment in Paris.

I would not hesitate to put her in command of anything up to 500 tons, sail or power.

 

[Babylon]

I would have loved to have done a zero-to-hero course when I started sailing twenty years ago (there's nothing like relentless intensity of learning to drum things in), but I was self-employed, mid-career, with a wife and a baby, so I did what courses I could fit in over time: CC as an absolute introduction, DS theory to better understand, then DS practical, plus a handful of one-day courses while I crewed for others, then bought my first boat.

There was for me no alternative method. Bully to those folk who were born to the sea, or those who brag about their qualification-free abilities, but twenty years before I ever stepped onto a yacht I nearly drowned as an inexperienced windsurfer on my own off Hayling Island... lost my rig when I was repeatedly dumped by waves in worsening wind-over-tide conditions, only managed to finally get back to the shore by virtue of my youth and fitness... as I hit the pebbly beach utterly exhausted I swore that I'd never mess with the sea in ignorance ever again.