Day Skipper.

[Solitaire]

As of 2017 the RYA Day Skipper practical certificate will no longer carry the endorsement Tidal or Non Tidal. With this in mind, I was wondering how many people would want to do the course somewhere warm?

 

[wizzer]

It's usually quite warm in Falmouth ��

 

[Whitelighter]

This is good news....

 

[colhel]

If you've already done it somewhere warm, would you have the same qualification as those that have done it somewhere cold?

 

[Sailorsam101]

I do not think this is good news. I have taken people sailing who did their courses in the med and when it came to mooring in Cowes with a strong tide they were lost and things got broken.

OK so for us with big engine the tide is not much of an issue for passage planning but when mooring it still is.

Big mistake in my eyes...this is only happening so that the RYA can get more royalties from oversea schools...nothing to do with improving skills in any way.

 

[Whitelighter]

its good news for me - i can get swmbo a ticket on our boat in the med rather than the cost of chartering something in the wet

 

[sarabande]

given the inherent and predictable risks of a DS having no experience of tidal streams, could the RYA be liable if a non-tidal 2017 DS has a pontoon bash ? It's eminently foreseeable that prangs will occur.

I suppose they could build an iphone app which simulates tidal streams and make that part of the exam. As BSM tried to do with car-driving simulators.

 

[jrudge]

I didn't recall that it had an endorsement - I just assumed it was a day skipper.

How much difference does tide make? If you move to tidal water then you can do some additional training.

Impact

- Anchoring
- how tide flows round a headland
- passage plan ( on a mobo this is not really that significant compared to a sail boat)
- reading a tide table
- wind over tide impact ( which in the med is not much different from wind over direction of waves)
- tide running through a marina when berthing - not much different from the generic boat control required taking a good wind into account

I dont see any of these as major issues that a boater could not get their head around when they needed it .

Also dont thing that med boating is all about flat seas and no wind. There are exceptions!

 

[Sailorsam101]

The tide makes a massive difference to the new boater...just as a Day Skipper would be.

My lady was at the helm on Sunday while i was bringing in lines etc outside Yarmouth. Tide was in fast flood and we were heading east.

I gave her a direction and told her to avoid the big yellow buoy to the east of the pier. I looked up to see her pointing away from it but the tide taking us fast onto it. I shouted for her to turn..she did a bit but not enough...i shouted again...she froze...i had to lean over the windscreen and go hard stb to stop hitting the thing. She didn't have a clue what happened and how dangerous it was...she is not interested in learning such things..so guess who is doing the balloons and string from now on...all the time.

She is great on the boat and thinks she could take it out on her own..no way..no a chance..she can't and won't learn rights of way etc.

So to sum up...with tide at slow speed...where the boat is pointing is not where you are heading...and this takes times to master. A skipper who has never seen this or been in charge totally when in a strong side tide will get a big shock.

So YES the tide does make a difference...unless you don't mind hitting things.

 

[kashurst]

Unless they tell newly qualified DS's to stay out of tidal waters it's idiotic and dangerous - what is the RYA thinking!!!
Getting a non-tidal DS is already easy in the med. Its easy, stay in the blue bit, stay of the brown bit and give everything not flying a UK ensign a very wide berth. Oh yes- fishing boats always have right of way at all times.

 

[Sailorsam101]

I have taught many day skippers to sail over the years and the biggest thing they struggled with was the nav and mooring in strong tidal conditions.

Oh well...another RYA master stroke...people should think back to what happened around 2005 with RYA sailing schools...!!!...does anybody on here actually know what went on?

 

[jrudge]

This is sounding rather like the PBO forum!

 

[SR4]

Anyone who has rowed a boat on a river shouldn't have too much difficulty coming to terms with tides after a bit of reading. Heading, track etc is simple stuff.

Like any qualification, it really needs experience to make it useful. Without experience it's just another bit of paper. Maybe the simple solution would be to recommend (during the course in non-tidal waters) that students undergo some local instruction if planning to operate in tidal waters. The theory would have been covered anyway.

 

[paul salliss]

I do not think this is good news. I have taken people sailing who did their courses in the med and when it came to mooring in Cowes with a strong tide they were lost and things got broken.

OK so for us with big engine the tide is not much of an issue for passage planning but when mooring it still is.

Big mistake in my eyes...this is only happening so that the RYA can get more royalties from oversea schools...nothing to do with improving skills in any way.

Could not agree more, all a bit pathetic, why would anyone see that a warm training course is worth sacrificing a tidal qualification for, the tide in the UK affects practically every trip it, and most berthing situations, it is essential to understand this, why are people so feeble, put on a warm jumper and do the learning in the Uk , also a trip abroad does not gaurantte warmth, I owned a property in Spain for a decade had many a cold rainy day there as well.

 

[superheat6k]

Could not agree more, all a bit pathetic, why would anyone see that a warm training course is worth sacrificing a tidal qualification for, the tide in the UK affects practically every trip it, and most berthing situations, it is essential to understand this, why are people so feeble, put on a warm jumper and do the learning in the Uk , also a trip abroad does not gaurantte warmth, I owned a property in Spain for a decade had many a cold rainy day there as well.

A very retrograde step IMHO. Dayskipper is the very foundation of boat handling, and tides in the UK, where after all the RYA is established, are a nautical fact of life. As I am now apparently a Gold Member I will be voicing my view to them that dumbing down like this to suit a few is not the way to progress forward.

Smacks of external EU 'We must all be the same' pressures and PC nonsense.

 

[l'escargot]

Perhaps we should have a Windy Day Skipper and a Calm Day Skipper too? You can't hope to teach all eventualities in a short course, sometimes the best you can do is to teach the theory, impress on people the dangers and hope they will go out there and improve their skills sensibly? I doubt whether many people are confident and competent in all tidal conditions on completion of the Day Skipper course.

 

[superheat6k]

Perhaps we should have a Windy Day Skipper and a Calm Day Skipper too? You can't hope to teach all eventualities in a short course, sometimes the best you can do is to teach the theory, impress on people the dangers and hope they will go out there and improve their skills sensibly? I doubt whether many people are confident and competent in all tidal conditions on completion of the Day Skipper course.

With respect I think you are missing the point. Dayskipper also requires a minimal time / distance afloat, which means the person will likely have experienced a variety of weather. No matter what day he goes out, in the UK he will experience the effect of the tide.

 

[l'escargot]

With respect I think you are missing the point. Dayskipper also requires a minimal time / distance afloat, which means the person will likely have experienced a variety of weather. No matter what day he goes out, in the UK he will experience the effect of the tide.

I think you may have missed my point too. The wind can have just as much effect on a boat as the tide, possibly more so on some motorboats but if someone does a course when there happens to be no wind, they get signed off just the same. People will do courses on neaps as well as springs, in places with low tidal ranges and high tidal ranges. You really can't hope to cover every eventuality - or give people more than a small taste of all sorts of situations - in a short course. Certainly Day Skipper doesn't make people competent or experienced in all aspects of the course. Surely making people aware of hazards, letting them experience as much as possible and then sending them off to put what they have learnt into practice in order to gain experience is how it works?

 

[MapisM]

Smacks of external EU 'We must all be the same' pressures and PC nonsense.

I always thought that sooner or later I'll read that the EU is to be blamed for some bad weather.
Well, your comment is not yet there, but almost...

 

[grumpy_o_g]

I think you may have missed my point too. The wind can have just as much effect on a boat as the tide, possibly more so on some motorboats but if someone does a course when there happens to be no wind, they get signed off just the same. People will do courses on neaps as well as springs, in places with low tidal ranges and high tidal ranges. You really can't hope to cover every eventuality - or give people more than a small taste of all sorts of situations - in a short course. Certainly Day Skipper doesn't make people competent or experienced in all aspects of the course. Surely making people aware of hazards, letting them experience as much as possible and then sending them off to put what they have learnt into practice in order to gain experience is how it works?

Day Skipper course/exam doesn't teach you to handle any specific conditions - it teaches the basics and also teaches you to assess the conditions and whether or not you, your craft and your crew will be capable of coping with them (at least it's supposed to). The trouble is you can usually gradually work up to more extreme weather conditions, etc. (with the odd grey hair moment along they way). If you've passed a course in the Med though you could be a very competent sailor experienced with some very nasty seas and winds, able to cope with Med moors, etc. and then come over to Poole Harbour. You then go out on a glorious sunny day in a F3 and quickly get added to the list of people that have ended up under the chain ferry.