Day Skipper - book recommendations?

[dunedin]

Daughter has informed me she wants to get her Day Skipper (and presumably therefore ICC) to do a charter holiday.

Any suggestions of what might be the best text book to use as pre-reading ? Ideally something a bit more visual / inspiring than the dull old book I bought a while back.

Thanks

 

[MADRIGAL]

What about Tom Cunliffe's The Complete Day Skipper? If it is anything like his Complete Yachtmaster, it will be compact and practical.

 

[RunAgroundHard]

When I returned to sailing after a long absence, I used the RYA eBooks and downloaded to a tablet. RYA Day Skipper SHorebased I thought was good, as was stability and Navigation.

Now I would recommend Stress Free series, Duncan Wells: books, biography, latest update. His Navigation Books and Boat Handling book are great, with graphics and videos. I learned more from them that the RYA eBooks.

I own b both the RYA eBooks and the Stress Free Books, so real world comparison.

 

[lustyd]

What about Tom Cunliffe's The Complete Day Skipper? If it is anything like his Complete Yachtmaster, it will be compact and practical.

Why not just the YM one? The DS has the same content just cut down.

Also RYA Navigation by Melanie Bartlett (it may well still say Tim on the cover) is excellent for people starting out.

Strongly recommend against RYA ebooks. They’ve made them a pain to use if you have more than one device and they’re at least as expensive as the actual book but without the benefit of being shareable or passed on.

 

[B27]

Books are pretty cheap secondhand and can be borrowed from the public library.
It can be good to try a couple of books on a subject, because one person's way of explaining something might be clearer to you than another.
Lots of cheap used books on ebay may be a bit out of date in some areas, or just completely neglect electronics etc.
The official RYA book should be a close match to the syllabus.
Speaking of which, the syllabus is probably online, and an organised 'self-study' person could probably just use that to read around everything needed on the web.

If you understand everything in last year's almanac it's a good start, so scrounge a copy and an old chart or two and have a go at some exercises?

 

[MADRIGAL]

Why not just the YM one? The DS has the same content just cut down.

Also RYA Navigation by Melanie Bartlett (it may well still say Tim on the cover) is excellent for people starting out.

Strongly recommend against RYA ebooks. They’ve made them a pain to use if you have more than one device and they’re at least as expensive as the actual book but without the benefit of being shareable or passed on.

Agreed. Despite its possibly intimidating title, The Complete YM is a straightforward, practical discussion of the essentials of handling a sailing yacht. The example of three ways to plan and execute a cross-Channel passage is typical of TC's common-sense approach.

 

[MADRIGAL]

Also RYA Navigation by Melanie Bartlett (it may well still say Tim on the cover) is excellent for people starting out.

Great little book to tuck in a bag and read on the train. I think mine is under Tim's name.

 

[Skylark]

Daughter has informed me she wants to get her Day Skipper (and presumably therefore ICC) to do a charter holiday.

Any suggestions of what might be the best text book to use as pre-reading ? Ideally something a bit more visual / inspiring than the dull old book I bought a while back.

Thanks

I’m of a generation that likes a book to be made of paper and instruction to be given by someone with a pulse.

How much sailing experience does she have?

The DS Shorebased and Practical course syllabus can be found within the YM Cruising Scheme logbook, G158. A good place to start would be a read through these.

The Shorebased course is fairly comprehensive. As an occasional freelance Shorebased instructor of 15+ years standing, I’ve concluded that pretty much everyone is different! Some people thrive during the course, others can struggle. Without knowing the ability of your daughter, I would caution against doing YM Shorebased instead of DS.

For text books additional to the course, the RYA book of navigation exercises is good and a book on weather plus a copy of ColRegs may be helpful. There are a lot of similar titles by many authors. A recently produced text book should by now have good supporting graphics / visual aids.

For the practical, the text reads something like “you don’t need to have done the Shorebased course (too many people stop reading at this point) but, you should have knowledge equivalent to”.

Since I retired from a real job, I became a CI then YMI and do occasional freelance. One of the main reasons that I recommend to the School Chief Instructor to issue an improvement plan, rather than course completion certificate, is poor Shorebased subject knowledge.

Are you considering the Clyde or further afield? There are a few factors to consider and I’d be happy to offer a view if it’s of use to you?

 

[Yorkshire Exile]

I found the RYA Day Skipper book sufficient and it has the great advantage that it sticks exactly to the syllabus as examined. Much easier than introducing other ideas and methods which can create confusion. Once she has passed the exam then she could expand her reading and will develop her own ideas.

 

[lustyd]

RYA Day Skipper book sufficient and it has the great advantage that it sticks exactly to the syllabus as examined

Since you mention exam I assume you're talking about the shorebased course. If so, the RYA Dayskipper book doesn't contain enough to pass the exam by a long way, I know because I recently took the exam and probably 50% of the questions were not covered by the book. I do agree that it doesn't cover anything not on the syllabus, but that's not a plus point. TC's Complete Yachtmaster covers everything the RYA book does and much more so is by far better value even for the DS Shorebased course. In addition to that you'd want the COLREGS which are examined, and probably a good almanac like Reeds for reference.

 

[Yorkshire Exile]

Since you mention exam I assume you're talking about the shorebased course. If so, the RYA Dayskipper book doesn't contain enough to pass the exam by a long way, I know because I recently took the exam and probably 50% of the questions were not covered by the book. I do agree that it doesn't cover anything not on the syllabus, but that's not a plus point. TC's Complete Yachtmaster covers everything the RYA book does and much more so is by far better value even for the DS Shorebased course. In addition to that you'd want the COLREGS which are examined, and probably a good almanac like Reeds for reference.

I was assuming she would take a course which includes the other materials.

 

[lustyd]

I was assuming she would take a course which includes the other materials.

The other materials on the course don't cover everything on the exam. The course requires further reading and understanding, and certainly in my case with Navathome many of the questions were unanswerable with the materials proved (which included RYA Dayskipper).

 

[ylop]

Why not just the YM one? The DS has the same content just cut down.

I've not compared the content of the two - but I think as Dunedin described it as pre-reading YM may be a little intimidating? The YM one is much thicker (as you might expect), but giving someone 500 pages to read as background is quite intense. I'd hope that he's actually edited the content assuming the DS version is someone who has virtually no prior knowledge and the YM might assume some real world experience.

 

[Yorkshire Exile]

The other materials on the course don't cover everything on the exam. The course requires further reading and understanding, and certainly in my case with Navathome many of the questions were unanswerable with the materials proved (which included RYA Dayskipper).

Ah, perhaps that points to the advantage of an in person course over an on-line one?

 

[lustyd]

but giving someone 500 pages to read as background is quite intense

Potentially yes, but if they have an interest in sailing there's nothing in there that's difficult or scary.

Obviously it's just my personal preference but given the price seems to be identical, and all of the DS content is in the YM book I consider the additional content a free extra rather than scary additional reading.

Happy to accept that some people prefer smaller books and additional purchases.

 

[lustyd]

Ah, perhaps that points to the advantage of an in person course over an on-line one?

That's not the only advantage. I strongly recommend against the online courses. I didn't need to do it, I got my coastal skipper done 15 years and thousands of miles ago. I signed up out of support for my partner and thinking I'd tick the box and get the cert. It took her 18 months and me 6 months, during which time we got very little support or encouragement and found the content confusing at best, with very ambiguous test questions. In a classroom that becomes a discussion point while online it becomes a stumbling block.

If the online courses offered any saving over the in person course I could understand it, but given the cost is the same I think it's worth spending a week with a professional even if that uses up holiday allowances.

 

[ylop]

If the online courses offered any saving over the in person course I could understand it, but given the cost is the same I think it's worth spending a week with a professional even if that uses up holiday allowances.

I haven't done DS online but my daughter did do Nav Essentials online. That was a bit of a test to see if she might progress to DS. She came to me, not the online support for help, and so I went to check what they had been teaching. The approaches felt very 2002 rather than 2022 (when she was doing it). So I would largely support your position BUT I think there are downsides to the classroom approach:

- Time commitment with no flexibility
- Location, I'm guessing there will be a once-a-year option close to me but otherwise a 100 mile round trip each day
- Not every instructor will be great, some might even teach the wrong answer!
- There will be other people on the course who may be very annoying; every tutor in every subject has encountered the person who tries to outwit the tutor or who dominates all the discussion with their particular curiosity.
- The pace (e.g. ability to rewatch a section) is set by the instructor not the student.

 

[lustyd]

I'd agree with all of that, but even so my recommendation wouldn't change. I ended up as support for my partner, partly because she couldn't work out how to get support!

 

[capnsensible]

I'd agree with all of that, but even so my recommendation wouldn't change. I ended up as support for my partner, partly because she couldn't work out how to get support!

Ring them.

 

[lustyd]

Ring them.

Apparently not obvious what the support number was or operating hours. I'd expect an online only course to have online support too which it may have but again not clear how to access.

Some people don't want to use the phone, my partner included. It's part of what makes the Internet so popular and inclusive.