Day Skipper Practical in the med

Thank you all for your suggestions. I have done the shore based day skipper course, so just looking to do the practical. I have no real plans for any locations, I'm just looking to get the qualification to hire a boat in any location for a weeks family holiday. As such it seems I should get the tidal to cover all bases. So any good suggestions for somewhere not to far, warm and tidal (by the RYA's clarification). I'll look into Gibraltar, thank you.
 
TheCharteringClasses said:
If it takes 2 days to go from non-tidal DS to tidal-DS how come the tidal-DS course is the same duration as the non-tidal-DS course?
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I think it is all to do with RYA politics. A few years ago there were only the two DS courses - Tidal and Non-Tidal. Someone who had already passed the non-tidal course had to take another full 5 days of training in order to upgrade to a tidal certificate. We and several other schools in the Med thought this was unfair to our students as the non-tidal course covers most of the same syllabus as tidal. From memory there are only three parts of the syllabus that are different. What happened was not so much that fewer people learnt in non-tidal areas (which I think is what the tidal schools hoped) as that very few people who did a non-tidal course bothered to upgrade.

I am guilty of being one of the prime movers in getting the RYA to reconsider its position on this. Some years ago I got together a sort of petition both from non-tidal schools and from tidal ones who were interested in offering a shorter upgrade and the RYA eventually introduced the 2-day upgrade.

I don't think you can cover either DS syllabus in less than 5 days and I think that, if the tidal was longer than that, fewer people would take it. Most non-tidal schools spend more time on parts of the syllabus such as anchoring, Med mooring etc. than would be the case in a tidal area ... and, of course, it usually means there is a bit of slack in the non-tidal syllabus to allow for swimming off the yacht in a blue bay once you have mastered anchoring :)
 
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