Competent Crew or Dayskipper certs, how different are they?

[ryanroberts]

My CC was with one other student in Mahon. It was a tad windy and the instructor had just been dealing with recovering one of his charter boats that had lost a boom. He was pretty reluctant to leave the harbour for obvious reasons but we learned a lot and gained confidence.

 

[dunedin]

People these days, don't want to go that ancient trad route, they see a big boat, want a big boat, want a DS so they can qualify to hire one in Greece.
Going the sailing dinghy route is too slow, should start when a kid.

That’s rather .... or indeed very .... presumptious. Yes I suspect the OP could go directly to a Dayskipper Course.

But the suggestion of perhaps doing a dinghy sailing course could be a very good one for somebody who wants to transfer from hire motor cruiser to sailing yachts, and to get the best range of competencies This could be done in addition to the DS course, perhaps more locally.

It is my personal observation that people with dinghy sailing experience are generally much more natural sailors, with better understanding and “feel” for the balance of the boat and the set of the sails. People without such dinghy experience may disagree, but it is my observation having done a lot of both.
So it is a good option for the OP to consider if he/she wants to gain sailing expertise. Far from being an “ancient” route, many tens of thousands of young sailors come into the sport through this route. And one of the dinghy sailing places in the med can be a great fun holiday.

 

[scotty123]

That’s rather .... or indeed very .... presumptious. Yes I suspect the OP could go directly to a Dayskipper Course.

But the suggestion of perhaps doing a dinghy sailing course could be a very good one for somebody who wants to transfer from hire motor cruiser to sailing yachts, and to get the best range of competencies This could be done in addition to the DS course, perhaps more locally.

It is my personal observation that people with dinghy sailing experience are generally much more natural sailors, with better understanding and “feel” for the balance of the boat and the set of the sails. People without such dinghy experience may disagree, but it is my observation having done a lot of both.
So it is a good option for the OP to consider if he/she wants to gain sailing expertise. Far from being an “ancient” route, many tens of thousands of young sailors come into the sport through this route. And one of the dinghy sailing places in the med can be a great fun holiday.

Not presumptious at all.
People with dinghy sailing experience might well be more natural sailors, but sailing a big boat is a different & messing about in wet/dry suits doesn't appeal to all.
As mentioned previously, people want to get into big boats & take their friends/family on yacht charters. Often beach clubs are involved, but this can mean paddle boards & windsurfing, rather than dinghies.

 

[yesCDWplease]

Hi folks, thanks for all the knowledge so far!

A bit more about my experience and access to boats for those who asked... Regarding access to other peoples boats, I don't have much. There was an opportunity to go out with a racing club on Saturday mornings, but since I'm in the office every Saturday that just didn't pan out. A friend (who has never sailed) has bought a 32' boat but the only things he knows about it is that he thinks it's pretty and made of wood, he hasn't laid eyes on it for nearly a year. So while there is a boat that I have an open invitation on, I'm not sure that boat or owner would be much help at this stage of my career.

I would like to get into a dinghy, and do feel that it would be a great learning tool, but I'm soft and would prefer to try my hand at that in late Spring or Summer. The DS/CC I have my eye on is being held in late March out of Kinsale. It's the only 5 day consecutive course I can seem to find in Ireland this year and it falls on a bank holiday, so it gels well with my work schedule. Also, unless I'm mistaken since i'm Irish, a British sailing school cannot issue me papers which rules out a nice trip to Gib or even a cheap flight to the UK. I'f I'm mistaken in this apprehension, please let me know!

Regarding sailing experience, I have zero. But I am reasonably comfortable handling a single engine 42' mobo without a bow thruster in close quarters, taking account of prop walk, current and wind and when possible using them to my advantage and using spring lines to get off when not. I don't know if it's any indication, but in the last few years I've noticed that private boat owners no longer come running out with panicked expressions clutching fenders when we're in the marina. We've even gotten a few compliments on our boat handling and deck work, but I suppose not scaring the living shit out of them is enough to get a compliment when behind the wheel of a rental cruiser.

I should also say that while being able to charter in in the Med is a big motivation, another is to buy something modest to be kept on Lough Derg which if you're not familiar is a lake with an area of about 50 square miles. There are three of us relatively close by and it's the most accessible body of water available to us. The types of boats we've being looking at would be Prelude 19, Pandora 22, Westerly 22/Nomad, Hunter Europa, Newbridge Navigator. Basically something that draws not too much draft and has a mast that can be stepped without use of a crane, and won't be too much of a burden financially.

I think that's all I can add, and once again, thank you all for the advice.

 

[Stemar]

Go for it.

Comp Crew takes you from "What's a mooring line?" to being useful on a boat. You're clearly already there, so Day Skipper will give you the knowledge to manage a sailing boat safely. Learning to do it competently is what you do once you've got your own boat!

 

[Skylark]

The sage advice, imho, is to carefully read the relevant CC/DS info on the RYA website and then to talk through your situation and aspirations with a sailing school principal.

I fell into teaching the practical courses, almost by accident, after I retired from a career earning an honest crust ?

One of the more difficult experiences I’ve had was to downgrade a candidate from DS to CC while keeping them enthused and motivated. A well meaning friend suggested that “you can sail a boat, you don’t need CC, go straight to DS”.

There is a big difference in course content between CC and DS.

 

[RJJ]

I would do DS and, as a precursor, go through the CC syllabus and tick items off.

Then do some dinghy sailing to learn how to sail.

Finally and most crucially, know your limits and be curious to expand them.

 

[scotty123]

I would do DS and, as a precursor, go through the CC syllabus and tick items off.

Then do some dinghy sailing to learn how to sail.

Finally and most crucially, know your limits and be curious to expand them.

What is this mantra about dinghy sailing?

 

[lw395]

What is this mantra about dinghy sailing?

It's something the RYA suggest themselves.
"
Day Skipper
Advertisements


A course for aspiring skippers with some yachting experience and basic navigation and sailing skills.
Learn to skipper a short passage with the instructor on hand to give advice and encouragement and ensure your safety. Experience being in charge, taking credit when it all goes well and being responsible when it doesn't.
Before this course, if you are not sure that your sailing is up to speed, a good way to learn is on an RYA Level 2 dinghy course. This will teach you to sail around a course and control the boat's speed.
If it's help with navigation that you need, you should take our Day Skipper shorebased course (see Navigation and seamanship theory on the left).
"
As for jumping straight into Dazed kipper:

Pre-course experience

5 days, 100 miles, 4 night hours on board a sailing yacht

 

[raven]

People these days, don't want to go that ancient trad route, they see a big boat, want a big boat, want a DS so they can qualify to hire one in Greece.
Going the sailing dinghy route is too slow, should start when a kid.

It may be that people these days want to fast-track themselves to the charter boats of Greece, but LIB's advice is still very valid. If you really want to be a good sailor, starting in dinghies is about the best practical way of going about it.

 

[tr1234]

I've very recently gone through the CC route to DS so can add my experience:

My background is some dinghy sailing, windsurfing and powerboating, so probably more relevant sailing / wind experience that the OP, but until I did CC i'd never stepped foot on a yacht. I don't know anyone who owns a yacht or have ever been presented with the opportunity to crew for anyone so me and a few friends booked a CC course as a stepping stone to DS.

I'm really glad I did, the syllabus is very basic but all worth knowing, and our instructor went well above and beyond this and tailored the course to suit us. Aside from the training course side of it, you're getting 5 days of enjoyable sailing with an experienced skipper, with all food and mooring fees included, for less money than the equivalent time staying in a premier inn - cant beat that for value.

You could certainly get the experience required for day skipper other ways or probably even just blag the prerequisite mileage etc and go directly to DS, however I had great fun doing the CC and it set me up for DS and beyond as well as I could have hoped.

 

[scotty123]

It may be that people these days want to fast-track themselves to the charter boats of Greece, but LIB's advice is still very valid. If you really want to be a good sailor, starting in dinghies is about the best practical way of going about it.

Its the traditional way of going about it & who cares for tradition, if their only boating future is a couple of weeks each year on a charter in Greece.
They rarely intend to become owners or race around the buoys each wednesday evening.

 

[jac]

If it's purely the sailing that is an issue, why not see if there is a local keel boat course that you can do . No capsizing and all the learning focussed on actually sailing the thing. Then use the DS to tie your sailing knowledge to your mobo knowledge

 

[dunedin]

Its the traditional way of going about it & who cares for tradition, if their only boating future is a couple of weeks each year on a charter in Greece.
They rarely intend to become owners or race around the buoys each wednesday evening.

You clearly don’t like others having different opinions from you - with 4 or 5 repostes to various different posters suggestion. But dinghy sailing .... as an additional option, and as suggested by the RYA, and as done by thousands of young sailors each year .... is not an “ancient” way of doing things. And many do actively sail later - in dinghies, on charts yachts and as yacht owners. Perhaps you should be more open minded.
And the OP can decide what he/she prefers.

 

[RJJ]

What is this mantra about dinghy sailing?

Astonishingly, in thirty years of sailing, racing and cruising, big boats and little boats, inshore and ocean crossing...I have never met a dinghy sailor that struggles with helming, sail trim, MoB, docking, or knowing instinctively when she's overpowered or underpowered and what to do about it. Nor have I, and I bet nor have you, met a dinghy sailor who doesn't swear by their dinghy experience.

Plenty of yachties who dismiss the "mantra". Some can sail, they have acquired the expertise and my observation is it was harder-won than if they did a few outings in a Laser or similar. Some can't, and don't recognise the fact. But because they reject the dinghy route, and are defensive about it, they'll never understand what they missed.

To the Op, my advice stands to do a bit of dinghy . It's not "necessary", you can be safe without it, but it will give you disproportionate and accelerated benefit in terms of mastery of basic sailing skills.

And it's cheap, very cheap by comparison.

 

[scotty123]

You clearly don’t like others having different opinions from you - with 4 or 5 repostes to various different posters suggestion. But dinghy sailing .... as an additional option, and as suggested by the RYA, and as done by thousands of young sailors each year .... is not an “ancient” way of doing things. And many do actively sail later - in dinghies, on charts yachts and as yacht owners. Perhaps you should be more open minded.
And the OP can decide what he/she prefers.

Of course I have my own opinion, as do all on here.
Yes, thousands of young sailors are dinghy sainling, but that is a route into sailing, not necessarily a route into big boats, I doubt a fraction end up in them.

 

[Babylon]

Hi folks, thanks for all the knowledge so far!
A bit more about my experience and access to boats for those who asked...

Useful to have that gap-filling information - and a delight to have a new gently self-deprecating voice in these parts!

So here's a little story...

I once had a week on a Coastal Skipper prep course, with Sticky Stapylton as instructor (see Essential checklist for planning a passage - Practical Boat Owner ). He described me as a 'natural sailor' which I don't think I particularly am, but the difference was this: the four other trainees were all people with very little experience who had gone straight for the Day Skipper practical. None of them had done CC or the DS Theory nor previously done more than a few days yacht sailing, and only one had some dinghy sailing experience (she quickly breezed the actual helming and trimming and quickly became good at sailing onto buoys etc). The others generally struggled with the basic sailing and DS stuff, and the relentless bore puked.

Whereas I'd come to sailing as a complete novice aged about 40 but via a CC course, then bought a cheap old 12ft cruising dinghy to practice on the Norfolk Broads etc. I then - after racking up a few hundred miles as crew on various yachts with different skippers - did DS Theory and Practical, then bought my own 27 footer and had racked up another thousand miles or so by that time, plus first-aid, VHF and sea-survival day courses. So nothing 'natural' about me except good structured training plus experience.

Given your aspirations and mobo experience, I'd say you'll be fine going straight for the DS Practical - where you can devote your learning time more to the practical sailing side of things than those aspects of driving and nav you're already familiar with. But DO also see if you could cadge some experience as crew first on small yachts. Is there a club in your vicinity you could join?

 

[scotty123]

Astonishingly, in thirty years of sailing, racing and cruising, big boats and little boats, inshore and ocean crossing...I have never met a dinghy sailor that struggles with helming, sail trim, MoB, docking, or knowing instinctively when she's overpowered or underpowered and what to do about it. Nor have I, and I bet nor have you, met a dinghy sailor who doesn't swear by their dinghy experience.

Plenty of yachties who dismiss the "mantra". Some can sail, they have acquired the expertise and my observation is it was harder-won than if they did a few outings in a Laser or similar. Some can't, and don't recognise the fact. But because they reject the dinghy route, and are defensive about it, they'll never understand what they missed.

To the Op, my advice stands to do a bit of dinghy . It's not "necessary", you can be safe without it, but it will give you disproportionate and accelerated benefit in terms of mastery of basic sailing skills.

And it's cheap, very cheap by comparison.

"Cheap"?
Not compared to a CC/DS course & charter.
Topper Dinghy £1500, Wayfarer £10,000

 

[RJJ]

"Cheap"?
Not compared to a CC/DS course & charter.
Topper Dinghy £1500, Wayfarer £10,000

You can get a seaworthy topper, laser or wayfarer for under a grand. And you're comparing ownership with rental. That dinghy can get you on the water every day for a year, and then it's yours to sell.

Even if you only used it five days and then binned it, it can give you more tacks (per £), gybes (per £), more lessons in gust response, more minutes helming and trimming, than the DS course.

Increasingly there a clubs where your 150 quid membership gives you (on top of other member benefits for the whole year) unlimited use of a fully-maintained dinghy for c.30-50./day so five days for 400. Or ten days for 650. Now which is cheaper?

Find me a dinghy sailor who disagrees!

 

[scotty123]

You can get a seaworthy topper, laser or wayfarer for under a grand. And you're comparing ownership with rental. That dinghy can get you on the water every day for a year, and then it's yours to sell.

Even if you only used it five days and then binned it, it can give you more tacks (per £), gybes (per £), more lessons in gust response, more minutes helming and trimming, than the DS course.

Increasingly there a clubs where your 150 quid membership gives you (on top of other member benefits for the whole year) unlimited use of a fully-maintained dinghy for c.30-50./day so five days for 400. Or ten days for 650. Now which is cheaper?

Find me a dinghy sailor who disagrees!

Ask the OP, if he wants to go dinghy sailing, or big boat chartering.