Is it RYA practical worthwhile if you did thoery and have expierience

[Kurrawong_Kid]

Yes - definitely!

One of the joys of sailing is that you never stop learning. Practical experience is great, but broadening your horizons and sailing on different boats with different people is one of the best ways of ensuring that you continue to develop your skills - which is what the courses are all about.

Pete

+1. Found the practical preparation course very good. In strong winds the exam. was demanding, but fair, and I thought the examiner's final verdicts (he passed one of the candidates only at Day Skipper) to be correct. Rated experience more valid than some of the shore based course content.

 

[maxi77]

Some will benefit some won't, I did exactly that because I needed the bit of paper for a charter. I enjoyed it thoroughly learnt a lot and got my bit of paper and became friends with my instructor. I can understand others will not enjoy it as I did, that's there way and that's fine

 

[awol]

I did the YM theory and was disappointed that I didn't learn more. It did make me memorise lights and shape (the esoteric forgotten now, but I know where to find them), just as the VHF course made me memorise the phonetic alphabet (still remembered and used), but my overall impression was frustration at continually calculating courses, tidal heights and flows to a pointless degree of resolution.
I regularly resolve during the winter to sit the Offshore practical, even sometimes set up the crew, but never seem to get round to booking an examiner. Maybe this year?

 

[Mark-1]

If you are a charterer, rather than an owner, then its virtually an essential to have the practical certificates from what I've seen.

I've chartered regularly in the UK, Greece & Sweden. I don't have any certificates and haven't needed any to date.

 

[dt4134]

... but my overall impression was frustration at continually calculating courses, tidal heights and flows to a pointless degree of resolution.

The chartwork on the practical is completely different from the theory. you can even do it using a blunt pencil

 

[NornaBiron]

Great post.

thank you

 

[Uricanejack]

I googled 'CYA' and the top of the list of results was the Wikipedia page for Cover Your Ass.

...which is broadly speaking what its all about!

Its the first thought came to my mind as well.

 

[oldbilbo]

There's a wheen of difference between them wot does an RYA course in the expectation of a Certificate at the end, and them wot goes looking to learn as much as poss.

I have it on good authority that a half-decent Instructor will pull out all the stops for someone who truly wants to learn from him, and is there to 'hoist in' as much knowhow as (s)he can..... Isn't that why we do it?

 

[LittleSister]

my overall impression was frustration at continually calculating courses, tidal heights and flows to a pointless degree of resolution.

I think that if you do your nav to a pointless degree of resolution on the practical exam you will fail - fairly certainly if it's at the cost of not doing something more important. Sort of why it's called a 'practical'. You need to be able to do the detail and accuracy for those rare situations that demand it, and to know when you just need a rough guess.

 

[LadyInBed]

However, I lost respect for the whole process on account of the examiner...

I had a couple of 'interesting' experiences doing two delivery trips with a YM examiner (power and sail).

First - to bring a boat round from Suffolk Yacht Harbour to Cowes for Cowes week.
Ran out of fuel crossing Thames estuary so he decided to go into Brighton to fill up, but we stood 2Nms off the coast because he wouldn't close till he could identify the entrance through his Bins.
You might say that that was prudent, but we did have a GPS so he could have tapped in a WP at the entrance to to get a distance and bearing.

Second - to deliver a boat from Faversham to Arhus in Denmark.
He wouldn't sanction the use of the Radar going up through the N Sea oil fields at night (before AIS) and the same going up the R Elbe to the Kiel canal in rain and mist as per Rule 5.
I suspect that he didn't know how to operate it!

Why did I do the 2nd trip after the first experience?
I gave him the benefit of the doubt and I didn't want to miss out on a trip to Denmark

 

[jwilson]

I think that if you do your nav to a pointless degree of resolution on the practical exam you will fail - fairly certainly if it's at the cost of not doing something more important. Sort of why it's called a 'practical'. You need to be able to do the detail and accuracy for those rare situations that demand it, and to know when you just need a rough guess.

From experience I have known two candidates for a YM Instructor qualification be given a similar fairly simple "get the boat to there" task. The one who glanced at a chart and gave a rough compass course to steer, then eyeballed the rest, later passed. The one who then went to the chart table and spent five minutes drawing lines, eventually failed.

There were a string of other tasks as well over several days, some very difficult, made much more so by deliberate actions by the examiners.

EG - an MOB exercise with an big burly ex-RN diver in wetsuit very convincingly playing dead, spreadeagled face-down in the water. We absolutely HAD to put someone else in the water to get the pretend MOB re-attached to the boat, and just after starting to hoist the very heavy MOB in via a spinnaker halyard one of the examiners (playing as crew) then deliberately put a riding turn on the winch....

It certainly generated some stress. Some of this was also produced by the very significant CVs of the examiners.

There are no doubt some bad instructors, but on the whole most I have met are pretty good.

 

[gregcope]

I have recently passed a YM Offshore.

I did it for the Piece of Paper. However the Practical Course and Exam are a great learning experience. If you already think you have lots of experience the instructors can push you even further which is great to learn and build confidence.

Yes it is expensive, but also good fun (if you have the right attitude and instructor) and you will learn loads.

 

[pipemma]

I think it also depends on the type of experience - there's a saying, "practice your faults long enough and you will perfect them".

 

[mjcoon]

Probably right. When I did my Day Skipper, the instructor started barking orders at me too fast for me to keep up. I told him I wasn't a "bl**dy octopus" and only had one pair of hands, and carried on as best I could. He told me afterwards he wanted to see how I reacted under stress.

There was a terrific TV play called "The Knowledge" by the late Jack Rosenthal in which only part of the test was the routes around London, but also whether the candidate could remember them and cope with traffic while arguing with a stroppy (and possibly drunk) passenger. I suppose skippering could be similar...

Mike.

 

[Sailfree]

I have found the few examiners and instructors I have met are v good.

I am mindful that the pass rate for YM is high but for instructors is 50%.

I like to think the 50% weeds out the bad ones.

On my YM exam he quickly established our level of competence and set demanding tasks making them interesting but also a further learning experience. SWMBO was crew and enjoyed them so much it made her want to further practice her skills.

I would like to believe that he quickly established that we were competent YM's so used the exam to further our knowledge but the truth may be the converse that we were just managing to scrape through each task!!

 

[mcframe]

Whilst I would always value a practical qualification over a theory one if I was chartering out a boat, you cannot get YM practical without the theory. Whilst one might not be able to knock out a secondary port tidal height in 3 ms after 10 years since the theory, you will at least have the nous to know where to look for the answer or to just apply common sense.

A friend claims to have been asked to plan to take the boat into Bembridge on his YM exam:

"Nah, we'll never make it in on this tide, not enough water."

'OK, if you leave now, then where and when will you run aground?" ;->

 

[Sybarite]

This question caught my attention when a similar question was raised by a poster on another thread.
I was just curious what people think. I have never done an RYA course. At one time it was just a night class.

Is taking the RAY practical worth while if you have already had practical experience sailing before you did the RYA theory course.

It occurred to me there might be a very different response from those who have never taken the practical course and those who have.

I would think even someone with quite a lot of general sailing experience would still learn something useful on a practical course. And the instructor might also learn something from a student with sailing experience.

The cost has always dissuaded me but I fear that some time in the future I will need a bit of paper which says I'm ok to be let loose on a boat - either in home waters or if I go further afield.

 

[Allan]

Many Yachtmaster™ candidates choose to book themselves into an RYA training centre for some tailor-made tuition to prepare them for the exam, but this is not compulsory.

After reading the above I got together with three friends and we did our own training and practise before taking the Yachtmaster™ exam. We all passed. I am convinced that, for me, this was a better way to do it. I don't think it would suit everyone.
Allan

 

[Tomahawk]

A friend claims to have been asked to plan to take the boat into Bembridge on his YM exam:

"Nah, we'll never make it in on this tide, not enough water."

'OK, if you leave now, then where and when will you run aground?" ;->

I wonder how you would fare if you said... "No.
We are not going into Bembridge as there is not enough water and I am not wasting my time doing calculations for nothing.. "

Would you fail for not carrying out the task as requested
Or pass you for making clear and unambiguous decisions?

 

[marklucas]

I wonder how you would fare if you said... "No.
We are not going into Bembridge as there is not enough water and I am not wasting my time doing calculations for nothing.. "

Would you fail for not carrying out the task as requested
Or pass you for making clear and unambiguous decisions?

I very much doubt you would be failed for that - there is a clear reason for countermanding the request, and subtle follow-up, OK show me you're right afterwards. If your calculations proved that your earlier decision was totally wrong, it was a learning experience.

It is a well known instructor / examiner technique to request a candidate takes the boat into, say Lymington, at low water - it's 50 / 50 whether run aground unless they know the channel well, but with the safety of a rising tide. And what better way to demonstrate techniques for getting off the mud!