RYA Coastal Skipper Practical Sailing Course vs Yachtmaster Coastal

[sashat720]

Hello everyone,

what's the difference between

- RYA Coastal Skipper Practical Sailing Course

and

- Yachtmaster Coastal

in terms of skills and syllabus?

I know that the first is a course (the instructor can choose not to issue the course completion certificate) and that the latter is an exam with an independent examiner.
I also know that the prerequisites are different (miles, days etc.)

The reason of my inquiry is that I've just passed the Coastal Skipper Practical Sailing Course with a pretty tough instructor (said he "fails" 50% of his CS students) and I'm curios just how "far away" Yachtmaster Coastal is.
Again, by "far away" I mean skills and syllabus

Would love to have your input and experience on this one!

 

[CPD]

An instructor who fails 50% of his students should only be used by students who are happy to take the test twice. Get a new instructor.

 

[Buck Turgidson]

Coastal skippers start a new thread.
YM Coastal use the search function.

;-)

But seriously, all the info you need is in the RYA documentation.

 

[RJJ]

Hello everyone,

what's the difference between

- RYA Coastal Skipper Practical Sailing Course

and

- Yachtmaster Coastal

in terms of skills and syllabus?

I know that the first is a course (the instructor can choose not to issue the course completion certificate) and that the latter is an exam with an independent examiner.
I also know that the prerequisites are different (miles, days etc.)

The reason of my inquiry is that I've just passed the Coastal Skipper Practical Sailing Course with a pretty tough instructor (said he "fails" 50% of his CS students) and I'm curios just how "far away" Yachtmaster Coastal is.
Again, by "far away" I mean skills and syllabus

Would love to have your input and experience on this one!

I think you should ask the instructor if he thinks you're ready. I mean, there are three levels of people who know you and your sailing ability. (1) you know yourself (2) your instructor knows you (3) the rest of the world, including YBW, has no idea

 

[dolabriform]

I think you should ask the instructor if he thinks you're ready. I mean, there are three levels of people who know you and your sailing ability. (1) you know yourself (2) your instructor knows you (3) the rest of the world, including YBW, has no idea

The OP is not asking if he / she is ready, but rather how big is the gap between the two?

As I understand it, getting the course completion certificate requires one to complete the course syllabus to the satisfaction of the instructor, ie carry out all the tasks with assistance / tutoring / encouragement as needed.

The YM exam requires one to carry out all the tasks without any input from the examiner. One must complete all the exercises and theory with confidence and control.

So the gap for some people is quite large. It's the experience of sailing and running a yacht on passage that is required, along with the required theory knowledge. It's possible for someone who has read all the books, done the theory and been sailing long passages for many years to get a YM without ever taking a RYA course.

 

[Praxinoscope]

Looking back into my old RYA syllabus and logbook (G15/78) the requirements for each stage appear to be well laid out, dolabriform’s comment #5, ‘that someone who has read all the books and sailed long passages for many years‘ could pass the YM without undertaking the course is basically correct, and the RYA requirements as set out in my rather antique document to allow for this, I assume the requirements are still much the same, being for the YM Offshore.
Seatime:
50 days
2,500 miles
5 passages over 60 miles, 2 as skipper and 2 overnight passages.
Qualifies a candidate to apply and take the practical examination. There does not appear to be a requirement for certification from any of the shorebased courses to be held, but if one is intent upon going a YM surely backing up ones practical experience and book learning with attending a RYA shorebased course is a worthwhile exercise.

 

[goeasy123]

I have found the Practical Sailing Courses to be positive learning experience, even if you don't pass.

The YM (Offshore in my case) is more of a memory test in the theory course and a exercise in completing a specific set of tasks in the practical. With the required sea time and an inquiring mind you might consider doing a YM because you like the challenge of passing tests or something you want to do requires you to have a YM qualification.

 

[peter gibbs]

Hello everyone,

what's the difference between

- RYA Coastal Skipper Practical Sailing Course

and

- Yachtmaster Coastal

in terms of skills and syllabus?

I know that the first is a course (the instructor can choose not to issue the course completion certificate) and that the latter is an exam with an independent examiner.
I also know that the prerequisites are different (miles, days etc.)

The reason of my inquiry is that I've just passed the Coastal Skipper Practical Sailing Course with a pretty tough instructor (said he "fails" 50% of his CS students) and I'm curios just how "far away" Yachtmaster Coastal is.
Again, by "far away" I mean skills and sylla
Would love to have your input and experience on this one!

The badic

Hello everyone,

what's the difference between

- RYA Coastal Skipper Practical Sailing Course

and

- Yachtmaster Coastal

in terms of skills and syllabus?

I know that the first is a course (the instructor can choose not to issue the course completion certificate) and that the latter is an exam with an independent examiner.
I also know that the prerequisites are different (miles, days etc.)

The reason of my inquiry is that I've just passed the Coastal Skipper Practical Sailing Course with a pretty tough instructor (said he "fails" 50% of his CS students) and I'm curios just how "far away" Yachtmaster Coastal is.
Again, by "far away" I mean skills and syllabus

Would love to have your input and experience on this one!

The basic question to me is what value do you place on a certificate vs learning how to handle a boat safely in coastal waters.

A weekend out with an instructor taking you through all aspects, tutoring you, and giving you feedback, prepping you for the problems that can arise, will tell you directly whether you have yet acquired the skills and foresight to go to sea. Whether you want a piece of paper to signify you achieved a pass mark on a syllabus is something else.
Do acknowledge that even after years at sea issues arise in ways you do not find in books. Solid basic training will give you confidence to minimise impacts and get you to safety. So you need to know about how a boat works - not taught in standard nav courses.

Good luck

 

[Uricanejack]

Strange.
One would expect if you complete the course, you would be ready for the exam.
Probably best to take exam ASAP after the course, while everything is still fresh in your mind,
On a boat you have become familiar with.
I was under the impression most sailing schools arrange the exam at the end.

I don’t have any connection to RYA. I do instruct for other purposes. where I may be the instructor or the examiner.
Most of the time, I can be confident early on in a course, someone will be successful.
On occasions someone struggles. I don’t like to tell people they have failed. I prefer to tell people they are not ready yet.
If I’m telling someone you are not ready yet. I need explain why, which areas they are doing ok and where there are week and need to concentrate on.

On occasion I disagree with my boss, I don’t like to send someone for an exam I don’t think they are ready for. But budgets ect.

This goes for assessing someone as well. I have an agenda with standard requirements to be checked. I look on it as both a check out and a learning opportunity. So I go review each requirement at the end with the candidate. I go over areas of where they did well and areas of weakness with recommendations on what to work on.
I don’t stop an exam if someone dips a particular requirement, I will often show them the correct procedure and continue with the rest of the assessment.
I do this with both successful and unsuccessful candidates. It’s even more important I give detailed constructive feedback to an unsuccessful candidate. So they know what areas they need to work on.
At the end the candidate should understand what their areas of weakness are and should have learned something Useful

I also have to give a detailed report to my boss.

I don’t know the requirements of the course or exams the OP was taking. The OP should, the person to ask would the instructor.
If the instructor can’t give good constructive feedback. There is a problem with the instructor.

 

[RobF]

My experience is that there is a significant difference between the two with regards to the level of skills expected. On RYA coastal skipper, the instructor taught us particular things, and if we were then able to perform that thing to an acceptable level of competence then we would complete the course. On YachtMaster coastal, there is no course. If you like, you can attend a 'coaching' session where the coach (aka the instructor) will help improve the skills that you should already have.

I suspect that the reason why your instructor failed 50% of the RYA Coastal students was that these students had done their Day Skipper and then done minimal skippering / sailing since. I felt the leap in the course progression was biggest between RYA Day Skipper (skipper in daytime in , familiar waters) vs RYA Coastal Skipper (skipper in day and night time, in familiar and unfamiliar waters).

 

[alexincornwall]

Coastal Skipper is essentially a beefed up version of Day Skipper. Yachtmaster Coastal is a dumbed down version of YM Offshore.

YM Coastal candidates would normally attend a prep week with a Yachtmaster Instructor (YMI), who would make a recommendation, usually just after half way through the week, as to whether or not the candidate should go for the exam. YM Coastal candidates will be required to put together a dedicated passage plan for presentation after the exam. The exam takes the same format as YM Offshore (and often shared with Offshore candidates), but the examiners expectations would be more lenient. Errors such as an unintentional grounding, hitting another boat, or crash gybing would usually warrant an instant failure. There is no coaching in the exam and the examiner rarely gives any indication of their thoughts which makes it a more daunting process for most.

Coastal Skipper candidates would be assessed during a week long practical. A passage plan is formulated with guidance from the instructor and various exercises would be completed throughout the week. Coastal Skipper practical weeks are more forgiving and allow for more serious errors, assuming there are signs of improvement as the week goes on.

Coastal Skipper is certainly a softer option so a 50% fail rate seems pretty high to me.

 

[lustyd]

The reason of my inquiry is that I've just passed the Coastal Skipper Practical Sailing Course with a pretty tough instructor (said he "fails" 50% of his CS students) and I'm curios just how "far away" Yachtmaster Coastal is.

The CS practical course is just a course, not a qualification. It's on the instructor to get people through the week and give them their completion certificate. If your instructor fails to get 50% of people through the course, they ought to be highlighted to the RYA as needing training as they are offering very poor value to their students.

The YM is a certificate of competence, so the certificate indicates a pass in the test. This is different to completing a syllabus to a reasonable standard.

 

[capnsensible]

The CS practical course is just a course, not a qualification. It's on the instructor to get people through the week and give them their completion certificate. If your instructor fails to get 50% of people through the course, they ought to be highlighted to the RYA as needing training as they are offering very poor value to their students.

The YM is a certificate of competence, so the certificate indicates a pass in the test. This is different to completing a syllabus to a reasonable standard.

More likely is that the increasing problem of people booking courses above their ability and experience. You could blame, partially, the school admin for that.

Bear in mind that a coastal skipper course is modular. It's not failed. It means that the instructor sees that a student has not reached the required standards in one or more sections of the course. In these cases, the instructors debrief the student..who probably already knows....and agree how to progress. There are lots of variables. But if a student cannot, during the course, make the required standards, they will not be awarded a course completion certificate.

It's almost always a lack of experience. And at the risk of opening an old wound, not recognising the difference in experience between Day Skipper and Coastal Skipper.

Think of all the threads there have been on here dripping about schools 'giving away certificates'.

 

[lustyd]

I don't disagree, but 50% is a poor record no matter how you look at it. Either the school is missing something or the instructor is failing the students. A friend of mine is an instructor and has only had a couple of students fail to complete the course, both instances were very clearly unprepared and unengaged on the course. I witnessed one, and I'm surprised he made it to the boat by himself. I'd happily agree that 80-90% would be reasonable but 50% is very low.

 

[westernman]

The CS practical course is just a course, not a qualification.

Yes. But it entitles you to the ICC. International Certificate of Competence which is effectively a qualification.

 

[lustyd]

You're not wrong, but that doesn't really change the fact that it's not an exam. Capn is an instructor and explained the process pretty well, you get stamps or signatures in the book as you work your way through and show that you're not hopeless, but the instructor is there guiding you all the way and being an unusually helpful member of crew (aside from constant thowing of fenders overboard!).