First for a Yachtmaster Theory Exam?

[benjenbav]

I noticed you made the front page on ybw.com too.

http://www.yachtingmonthly.com/news/519276/royal-navy-pilot-passes-yachtmaster-theory-in-afghanistan

Congratulations all round. A really good use of time, I'd say.

 

[john_morris_uk]

While I appreciate your feelings about you your military appointments, having been a mere soldier myself, I am a little confused by your RYA positions.
Maybe things have changed since I retired from being a Yachtmaster Examiner, but in my rather long teaching and examining experience those who taught shore based theory courses were known as tutors and there was only one exam in the whole system which was the one conducted for several hours at sea by an examiner. Results of courses were achieved by, in the case of shore based theory, a series of assessment papers. Students on practical courses were continuously assessed by the instructor.
Have things changed that much in the last five years or so?

I am not sure what the exact position is - I know that there were lots of authorised tutors at one point - and there is some fuss about those who teach in local authority colleges having to hold certain qualifications but I can only recount what has happened to me.

In 1991 when I qualified as a Yachtmaster Instructor this allowed you (as it does now) to be the principle of a Sea-School. To teach the shorebased course you needed additional RYA approval and when I was asked to run a course at my unit I contacted the RYA and this approval was given to me by Alison Noice - and I suppose somewhere in the archives at RYA HQ they made a note that I was ok to teach shorebased courses. I was subsequently invited to be an examiner and you know much of the rest.

Back on the subject of theory, I have only taught theory to a few people over the years and spend more time examining practical exams than instructing. The theory course now has a series of revision papers and then some formal exam papers to be attempted under exam conditions and which are time limited (typically an hour and a half for each paper). The papers cover IRPCS and the pass mark is 80%. The other papers are marked more on the ability of the candidate's understanding and knowledge of the subject than an outright score and pass mark. They are still graded according to a marking guide. I taught and assessed the course as an approved RYA Instructor. Gareth is not a 'Yachmaster' - he has only passed his Yachtmaster shorebased exams.

That's a bit of a fleshed out history of my years of undetected crime as a makee learnee yachtsman, and hopefully explains what I was doing and how and why. Hopefully it makes sense.

 

[Major Catastrophe]

I am not aware of being on Youtube - that's a new one on me!

I thought I'd told you in a pm - I don't recall making it public on the forum. If I did, I didn't mean to - and I didn't think the news would be published until I was back in the UK...

Oh yes, maybe it was in a PM. Anyway, I never told anyone...walls have ears.

 

[sarabande]

Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in S America...

I think I remember a story of someone who took a Mirror plywood kit (for the bigger yacht) and built it beside the Lake.

Grrr, what was the name of the plywood kit yacht that Bell Engineering sold ? I went round their factory in Leicester and very nearly bought one to ship out to Dubai. Rather like an E-boat.

 

[Cornishman]

Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in S America...

I think I remember a story of someone who took a Mirror plywood kit (for the bigger yacht) and built it beside the Lake.

Grrr, what was the name of the plywood kit yacht that Bell Engineering sold ? I went round their factory in Leicester and very nearly bought one to ship out to Dubai. Rather like an E-boat.

I recall helping to build four GP 14s from Bell Woodworking kits when a student at Welbeck College way back in 1954/5 The sail insignia for the GP14 was, and probably still is, a bell.