Kipper Sailing Online Coastal Skipper course?

nedr

nedr

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I'm intending to start an online Coastal Skipper Theory course. Most of those available seem to be basically a rebundling of the Navathome course, but I have found one (www.kippersailing.co.uk) run by John Corden that looks rather different: the man has obviously taken the trouble to develop his own material. Does anyone on the forum have any experience of this course? Is it as good/ better than others? Advice gratefully received.
 
Camelia said:
Not used Kipper Sailing, did mine through Chichester Maritime http://www.cmonline.co.uk and enjoyed the materials and the feedback from the tutor. Still pop them an e-mail now and always get a reply.
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I have not looked at the course but John Corden is a first rate instructor so I am sure it will be comprehensive.

Most online courses are nav at home based. The support when you get stuck is the issue especially at Coastal/YM level.


Otherwise look at firstclasssailing.com who have a different and excellent product [I did used to work for them!] , but my real advice would be if you can go to a live class, do. You will get much more out of it.
 
I'm looking to do my Day Skipper online. My husband did his Coastal/Yachtmaster with First Sail Training (it was a Navathome Course) and really liked it - he thought the support was excellent so I guess it varies from school to school. The big appeal of online / distance learning is that 1) I won't have to travel, 2) I can choose when to study and 3) as I've been sailing for too many years to count I hope that I'll be able to go through some of the basic stuff quite quickly.

However, I think I'm going to try the Kipper Course so will come back and post a review once I've finished. I'm looking to do my practical soon so need to get cracking. Thank goodness for the long winter evenings!!!
 
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CruiserJ said:
I'm looking to do my Day Skipper online. My husband did his Coastal/Yachtmaster with First Sail Training (it was a Navathome Course) and really liked it - he thought the support was excellent so I guess it varies from school to school. The big appeal of online / distance learning is that 1) I won't have to travel, 2) I can choose when to study and 3) as I've been sailing for too many years to count I hope that I'll be able to go through some of the basic stuff quite quickly.

However, I think I'm going to try the Kipper Course so will come back and post a review once I've finished. I'm looking to do my practical soon so need to get cracking. Thank goodness for the long winter evenings!!!
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Hi,

Old post I know - but did you every take the Kipper Course? I'm trying to decide between this and the Navathome as well and would appreciate some feedback from someone who actually used it.

Thanks


John
 
Hi John,

Yes, I did sign up for the Kipper Sailing Day Skipper and to be honest I was a bit disappointed. Their website promised a lot and to be fair there are some aspects of their course that were good, particularly the admin / record area they have.

The main gripe that I had was with the course itself. Although there a few bells and whistles in the form of quizzes where you match answers to questions by moving tiles about, the course is effectively a series of videos of PowerPoint presentations with a narrator. The slides themselves were quite good but for me it was just death by PowerPoint and it also made it difficult to go through the course at the speed I wanted to - there were some bits of the syllabus that I knew quite well and wanted to skip through quickly and other bits that I wanted to take more time over. For me the video format didn't really lend itself to that very well and I also got very tired of the narrators voice after a while - it also made it a bit antisocial when I was working through the course in front of the TV with my laptop on my knee!

The other thing that I really didn't like were the way the course exercises (which I think are set by the RYA and are standard across all training centres) were handled. You worked through these on your own and then watched another video which had the answer. The Kipper Instructor didn't have a clue how well I was doing with these - or indeed whether I'd done them at all - he just knew if I'd watched the answer video. When my husband did his online course (Navathome based) his instructor got a copy of his answers and would email him with helpful comments or offers of assistance.

It's only my view, but after comparing my experience with my husband's I'd steer clear of Kipper and go for one of the Navathome courses. He went for one of the training centres that run the courses on behalf of Navathome (who are based in Gibraltar) - it's the same course but cheaper and often with more added bits and pieces included in the price. When he was looking around it came down to a choice of two... in alphabetical order - Commodore, First Sail Training. He opted for the latter and wasn't disappointed but given the courses are the same I guess it comes down to who has the best offer on the go.

I hope this is helpful and sorry for not updating the post as I'd planned!!
 
Thanks CruiserJ - extremely useful and helpful summary. I was very close to buying the Kipper course but I'll give it some more thought.

Gladys/Larry - I've been looking in to evening classes because I would quite like the additional value from attending these - both social and educational. At the time of my original post I hadn't found anyone running one in a sensible distance of where I live. Since that post however, I have been contacted by Terrance Lee at Excel-Yachting in Maidstone who is considering an evening class over the winter. This has come from a Google search though - so I any references/alternative suggestions appreciated. I live in Sevenoaks, Kent by the way - that well known land locked mecca for sailing ;)

Cheers
John
 
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