Long Range Certificate?

Saguday

Saguday

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Me: Zummerzet Boat: Plimuff
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Anyone do LRC courses on the East Coast?

Nothing round here in Zummerzet or Bristol, seems to be either Southampton or Scotland from what I can see.

If I have to travel I'd rather Go East, young man, at least I can sleep on me boat for free.

Does anyone else want to do this? Maybe there's enough to get a course on unless this has already been done???
 
Try Lowestoft College. I did mine there a few years back. Then they asked for some previous experience, got you to pre-read the course and slotted you in to a professional course for a few days but I understand now they have courses tailored to yotties.
 
Cool... I'll phone them today and post back with course info

They charge £210 + VAT according to their site - the other places are all around £350...!

5 days I think though, and I suspect during the week, wheres the others sometimes do over weekends to lessen the impact on a work week.
 
Just by way of an update I've called the college twice and talked to the nice admin there - she's trying to get the lecturer to call me but he's apparently booked solid with back-to-back courses at the moment.

I've mentioned there could be at least 4 of us up for this and she agreed that might be a reasonable incentive!

Will update when I hear back from him.
 
OK, just by way of an update.... :D

General stuff: the GMDSS LRC is a 3 day course plus 1 day for exam. The course teacher is not allowed to be the examiner (unlike SRC) so someone else comes in on day 4 to do the testing. There is an optional 4th day for Satcomms but this is not needed for Iridium/Globalstar/Inmarsat-M etc as these are not GMDSS.

I've talked to Chris at Lowestoft, who's willing but *very* busy, booked up until Feb next year but I've put a placeholder in with him just in case. It's not expensive here, about £220 plus VAT plus examiners costs (£95 plus travel).

Anyway Chris also put me on to Ian Waugh (who's in Dumfries) and East Anglian Sea School, who used to teach it but don't now but who also recommended Ian Waugh!

So I spoke to Ian at length (he's a very nice chap) who teaches LRC and lots of other stuff and travels around the world to do it. Option here is that with enough people he could come down and do a special class if we can provide a venue (which I'm sure is possible). Class sizes usually 4-8 with 6 being tops as far as Ian is concerned. Nice options here are hiring a clubhouse room somewhere or even use someone's boat for 3 or 4 days (curry and beer permitting). A boat with an SSB would be even better. Ian said his UK SSB is a bit long in the tooth for teaching so I am going to explore if a nice retailer or certain manufacturer of said equipments could loan us one for the duration...

However, a bespoke course is going to be expensive: estimate is around £1800 including accommodation & meals for teacher. With 5 people this would work out at about £366 each. On top of this is an examiners fee of £95 each plus his travel expenses, although this could be small if he's local. So £450-500 each plus beer, curry and somewhere to sleep for those of us not local - could be less if we had 6 of course.

If there's me, Morgana, FullCircle, CPD and Jomo we're pretty much there provided we're all willing to swallow the cost! :D

An alternative suggested by Ian is North West Kent College in Gravesend - EASS mentioned this as well and said they were very cheap. Ian said they may well put a special course on if there was enough of us. Travel and somewhere to stay costs for us though on top of this.

There are courses in Southampton for £350 each plus examiners fee but by the time you add travel costs and B&B it's probably a close call between this and getting Ian down or going to Kent.

So that's where I've got to. I'm going to contact Gravesend and see what's what there and then report back.

Neil
 
Hi John, noted - that's six which is the maximum we can have for a class I reckon.

That brings the price down for a custom class as well if all of us can make it. I haven't contacted Kent yet, will do so next week and see what they say.

CPD & FullCircle, are you interested in this?

Neil
 
Morgana said:
Neil,

The Lowestoft option still looks very appealing price wise at the moment!

Price will be a key consideration for me.... I have an expensive year coming up with various birthdays, anniversaries and boat essentials in the plan!
Click to expand...

Moi Aussi.
 
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