lustyd
Well-known member
You mean the certificate of completion? All that says is that you completed the week and did everything in the book once - nothing to do with competance, skill or proficiency and therefore the course is fine as it is.
Day Skipper v Yacht Master
- Thread starter dufour27
- Start date
You mean the certificate of completion? All that says is that you completed the week and did everything in the book once - nothing to do with competance, skill or proficiency and therefore the course is fine as it is.
Flying Penguin
New member
Why is the current minimum wrong? My take on it is that everyone going on the course should have some experience. OTOH, someone who has a few season's dinghy sailing under their belt will be very good at some bits. Someone who has a few seasons motor cruising under theirs will be very good at others. I think there is a risk of saying "yes we need a bar" but then setting the bar too high. My feeling is that we just need to weed out the ones with no practical experience at all.
And yes, I think compulsory shore-based certificates would be a great idea... but I would say that, wouldn't I
I didn't say it was wrong, I don't have any particularly strong views either way, I was more curious as to what the various instructor types round here thought it should be, given there are regularly comments that it is too low.
I've actually got mine starting tomorrow (to those who read my other thread - it got uncancelled, but some good ideas for cs
), and although I have more than the bare minimum by some way (and yes Tim, the shore based too ), I don't have the 5 years of race crewing and a childhood spent round dingies* it seems some would ask for....*in fact my only experience of dinghies as a cub was enough to put me off sailing for 15 years!
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alant
Active member
Googling DS practical, will up details such as http://www.rya.org.uk/coursestraining/courses/sailcruising/Pages/Dayskipper.aspx
However, some schools still do not specify these requirements -
"RYA Day Skipper
We run three day skipper training courses:
Day Skipper Theory
9 Day Fast Track Day Skipper
Day Skipper Practical - see below
The RYA Day Skipper Practical Sailing Course is designed to teach students to assume full responsibility for the yacht and its crew. These responsibilities include supplies, engine maintenance, sail selection, passage planning, watches, navigation, pilotage and weather forecasting.
Duration 5 Days
Pre-course experience RYA Day Skipper Theory or a Basic Navigation and Safety course, plus some practical sailing ability"
T
timbartlett
Guest
No you didn't say it was wrong, but I'm afraid I took the way the question was worded to mean that "leave it as it is" was not an option!
Flying Penguin
New member
Selective quoting again Tim?
Well we can discuss the vagaries of Internet communications ad nauseum or you can accept my clarification that I felt a number of instructors thought it should be higher...
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Nostrodamus
New member
Can someone tell me why anyone should shell out lots of money to take a Yatchsmasters practical exam. I can understand doing the theory courses but if you have your own boat what do you gain by a practical course apart from a depleted bank account and a piece of paper?
Now if you got a blue ensign at the end I might consider it.
Now if you got a blue ensign at the end I might consider it.
D
Deleted member 36384
Guest
The simplest answer is that some like to test their abilities, a more complicated answer is that there are egos that can only be satisfied by having superior qualifications than their current peer group posses. For others it's perhaps a plan to earn a crust from their yacht or offer their services in a commercial capacity.
Most folks are quite happy not to aspire to a Yachtmaster, probably are not even aware of it and if they are dont give a hoot.
Considering that the fee for the exam is "lots of money" is quite relative to an individual. For example bragging rights can carry significant value for the ego types, the fee may be amortised painlessly by those who wish to earn a crust and others may find confidence in proving a level of competence such that future loss never realises. Damn good value in my opinion.
Thank God we dont have a prescriptive, mandatory licensing scheme to sail in the UK. At least this way we can all be free to decide what level of competence we want by any method we choose.
Nostrodamus
New member
But each time we go out we test our skills and hopefully improve them.
If you own your own boat you will often do things beyond the YM practical course ie bad weather sailing, a genuine failed engine or even entering a foreign port.
Who would you rather have skipper your boat, someone with years of experience and no qualifications or a YM fast track course skipper?
If you own your own boat you will often do things beyond the YM practical course ie bad weather sailing, a genuine failed engine or even entering a foreign port.
Who would you rather have skipper your boat, someone with years of experience and no qualifications or a YM fast track course skipper?
lustyd
Well-known member
You mean the YM Practical exam, or the coastal skipper course? There is no YM course available apart from practice weeks. These are not a course, just a week of practice on a charter yacht.
D
Deleted member 36384
Guest
Ahh the fast track issue, that's a whole discussion in itself. I will let anyone skipper my boat who is competent as decided by me. It is clear to me that there is a certain mind set that is more important that direct experience.
Captain Calamity with 1000s of sea miles I would not let near my boat; the adventure seeker who pays to crew on a RTW yacht, would not skipper my boat; the chap who has been sailing all his life in coastal environments on a regular basis and is considered a safe pair of hands, I would allow to skipper the yacht; the fast track yachtmaster I might after he / she demonstrates a few things to my satisfaction; the person who just cruise with their family locally and has day kipper, I might after I make an assessment; a racing crew who have only raced round the cans on the owners boat, no (but they would not want my tub anyway).
You are probably aware that determining competency is never just a matter of qualifications or milage. When someone goes out sailing they dont necessarily improve their competency by experiencing various situations. In fact it is quite possible to reinforce knowledge that increases risk taking through ignorance i.e. the "but we always did it that way" attitude. At least training, and the RYA scheme, establishes a sound criteria by which to gauge oneself against. On a whole those who train regularly and keep their knowledge up to date are more efficient and safer.
Captain Calamity with 1000s of sea miles I would not let near my boat; the adventure seeker who pays to crew on a RTW yacht, would not skipper my boat; the chap who has been sailing all his life in coastal environments on a regular basis and is considered a safe pair of hands, I would allow to skipper the yacht; the fast track yachtmaster I might after he / she demonstrates a few things to my satisfaction; the person who just cruise with their family locally and has day kipper, I might after I make an assessment; a racing crew who have only raced round the cans on the owners boat, no (but they would not want my tub anyway).
You are probably aware that determining competency is never just a matter of qualifications or milage. When someone goes out sailing they dont necessarily improve their competency by experiencing various situations. In fact it is quite possible to reinforce knowledge that increases risk taking through ignorance i.e. the "but we always did it that way" attitude. At least training, and the RYA scheme, establishes a sound criteria by which to gauge oneself against. On a whole those who train regularly and keep their knowledge up to date are more efficient and safer.
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timbartlett
Guest
We could. But that would be a waste of time.Selective quoting again Tim?
Well we can discuss the vagaries of Internet communications ad nauseum or you can accept my clarification that I felt a number of instructors thought it should be higher...
I was not and am not spoiling for a fight, even though you seem to be.
You said you were not gunning for any particular answer, but you appeared to be ruling out the one answer that I believe was (and is) the most appropriate -- which is that there is "nothing wrong with the present requirements".
If I misunderstood you, then I am sorry -- but I see no reason why you have to be so argumentative about what was intended to be a helpful and perfectly civil answer to your question.
It's funny, isn't it, that several publishing companies commission me to write books and magazines for them, and almost all of them say things along the lines of "you make everything so easy to understand" -- yet a handful of people on this forum seem able to twist everything I write to mean something completely different.
T
timbartlett
Guest
Depends whether "years of experience" means lots of different boats in lots of different places and weather conditions with lots of different crews, or a couple of weekends experience repeated a couple of hundred times.
Re the "fast tracker" -- Think of a boat as a bus. How many years bus-driving experience did the bus driver have before he went on his bus-driving course? And how many more years was he required to have before he was allowed to drive a bus commercially? But do we question his right to earn a living by driving a bus? Do we ever stop to wonder whether the guy driving our particular bus knew nothing about bus driving a month ago?
PS The only reason I got a Yachtmaster was because I had been offered a job as a yacht skipper on the strength of RN paperwork, but getting it confirmed was conditional upon me being able to produce a Yachtmaster certificate before the start of the season (the 1979 season!)
Simondjuk
Active member
You gain the benefit of having honed your abilities such that you are comfortable performing numerous advanced tasks under a fair degree of pressure. For example, when was the last time you navigated your yacht, without electronic navigation aids, from below decks with no peeking out, over a number of miles, by no means other than passing heading changes to the helm which were calculated solely from speed, time run and depth soundings, in order to arrive at a specified point having avoiding any and all dangers along the way? When was the last time you were sailing downwind at 8 knots with the headsail poled out and you suddenly and unexpectedly had to recover a 'man overboard', knowing as soon as 'he' went in that failing to keep him in sight, stop the boat in the very minimum possible time, get back to him and stopped alongside, under sail at the first attempt was not an option? When was the last time you were required to short tack up a narrow channel, and bring the boat onto a fairly awkward berth under sail and using the emergency tiller? They're just a few of the things that a YM candidate is likely to be required to demonstrate the ability to get right first time, everytime.
With the slight difference of the failed engine being a failed gearbox linkage suddenly leaving the boat stuck in astern, I encountered all those during my YM exam. If I'd not handled them all capably, I wouldn't have passed. Bear in mind also that these situations, and all the above exercises, were encountered over just the couple of days which the exam took, and you begin to see that it's quite an intense test, or can be.Nostrodamus said:
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webcraft
Well-known member
Well we can discuss the vagaries of Internet communications ad nauseum or you can accept my clarification that I felt a number of instructors thought it should be higher...
At the moment the pre-course requirements can be met by one Comp Crew course taken a year or more earlier, with no sailing since then and no theory course. Candidates with this level of experience tend to struggle during the week and take up too much of the instructor's time.
One thing is for sure - the requirement should not be any lower, which rules out that 'one weekend as a passenger' candidate mentioned in post #24.
- W
T
timbartlett
Guest
I don't think we disagree. OTOH, I would be wary of setting the bar significantly higher -- not least because it runs the risk of giving novices a ladder that is unclimbable because the rungs are too far apart.
If you consider the non boat-owner (the very person who most needs to be able to prove his competence to a charter company) starting out: if the experience requirement were much more than "has done a Comp Crew course", then he would be in a Catch 22 situation: he would not be able to gain experience until he had a DS ticket to charter, but he could not get the DS ticket until he had the experience.
I know there are ways out of this loop -- but they tend to be ways that are only open to those who have lived in a yachting environment -- club members, friends with boats, etc. -- who are least likely to have a problem gaining experience in the first place.
I believe it is precisely this kind of problem that the RYA were trying to address with the newish "essentials" course
webcraft
Well-known member
If you do that's great, but lots of people tend to essentially repeat the same voyage over and over again and never really progress.
If training and certificates are not for you that is fine, but they do help a lot of people to become better sailors and to get more enjoyment from their sailing. What I fail to understand is the regular abuse that gets heaped on the RYA Cruising Scheme on here.
- W
flaming
Well-known member
In my case it was because I was young.
I did Coastal Skipper at 18, and YM at 21. Not going to break any reccords on age, but frankly I was sick and tired of being patronised by people twice my age who'd been sailing for 2 years and had a Day Skipper when I'd been sailing my whole life. Probably a petty thing but being able to answer the next patronising "on my Day Skipper course...." type comment with "I have a YM" was quite satisfying.
And quite apart from that I learnt a shed load on both courses - definitely came out of the process a much better sailor with more techniques "in my locker" than I started.
At the time I had no intention of using my YM commercially, but it has become a useful fall back at times since.
Flying Penguin
New member
Merely pulling your leg Tim. I have no interest in a point scoring post dissecting match, life's too short
Anyhow, thanks for your thoughts, it's the route for the non 'boating since I was a wee nipper' types that I was curious about.
Barnacle Bill
Active member
I think it helps to remember that there is no requirement to do any course before someone is allowed to skipper a yacht.
Also, the instructor doesn't have to give a course completion certificate at the end of a course. When he doesn't, it's not a failure or a waste of time: the student should go away a) understanding why, and what he needs to do next to improve, and b) having learned a great deal in the 5 days.
Most schools run mixed ability courses e.g. Comp crew and DS on the same course and there are considerable advantages to this - so a DS candidate who lacks skill or knowledge in certain areas is rarely a huge problem, particularly if you have a chat with them to re-align their expectations part-way through the course.
The ideal minimum? To be a successful DS candidate, he has to be able to explain to his crew what he wants them to do, and how to do it - so crewing experience (however gained) is necessary. Also he has to have prior knowledge of essential theory (however gained). IMO the best thing about the RYA system is its flexibility - not everyone is the same, has the same basic ability or amount of time to devote to yachting so flexibility is essential.
Also, the instructor doesn't have to give a course completion certificate at the end of a course. When he doesn't, it's not a failure or a waste of time: the student should go away a) understanding why, and what he needs to do next to improve, and b) having learned a great deal in the 5 days.
Most schools run mixed ability courses e.g. Comp crew and DS on the same course and there are considerable advantages to this - so a DS candidate who lacks skill or knowledge in certain areas is rarely a huge problem, particularly if you have a chat with them to re-align their expectations part-way through the course.
The ideal minimum? To be a successful DS candidate, he has to be able to explain to his crew what he wants them to do, and how to do it - so crewing experience (however gained) is necessary. Also he has to have prior knowledge of essential theory (however gained). IMO the best thing about the RYA system is its flexibility - not everyone is the same, has the same basic ability or amount of time to devote to yachting so flexibility is essential.
Simondjuk
Active member
On the subject of fast track courses, and whilst being fully aware that they can turn out a variable quality of pass holder (some establishments seeming to teach candidates only how to pass the exam, whilst others teach them to be an accomplished all-round skipper), some of the very worst skippers I've had the misfortune to sail with have been those most keen to deride the process with sneering 'zero to hero' type comments.
Conversely, I've sailed with a few people who having owned their own boats and sailed for decades to a more than competent standard, have chosen to do a fast track course and reckon it to have been the most intensely rewarding and beneficial period of learning in their entire sailing career.
Conversely, I've sailed with a few people who having owned their own boats and sailed for decades to a more than competent standard, have chosen to do a fast track course and reckon it to have been the most intensely rewarding and beneficial period of learning in their entire sailing career.