RYA Day Skipper Practical (on own boat)

[jamiepyoung]

Hi

We (2 of us) want to do our RYA Day Skipper on our own boat.

The cost we've been quoted by our local RYA school seems a lot given that it our boat etc.

Can anybody recommend a skipper who could do with us at a more reasonable cost? Anywhere on the South Coast really.

Thanks

 

[Deleted member 36384]

The RYA Day Skipper Practical Course can only be run by an RYA Approved Sailing School, who will appoint an RYA Instructor to deliver the course on your boat. You cannot hire an RYA Instructor independent from a sea school to run the course on your boat. The sea school is accountable for the quality of the course, verifying that your boat is suitable to take the course on and is the authority that issues the course completion certificate.

You can hire a skipper or an RYA Instructor to deliver own boat tuition which could follow the Day Skipper syllabus, but there will be no course completion certificate issued and it would not be endorsed by the RYA, you could not receive any documentation that used the RYA logo or inferred an equivalency to the RYA syllabus. IIRC, the RYA instructors have insurance via the RYA but if they are not running courses via a sea school, then that insurance will not be valid. So this is something that you need to check if you decide on own boat tuition with an instructor operating independently.

 

[lpdsn]

Hi

We (2 of us) want to do our RYA Day Skipper on our own boat.

The cost we've been quoted by our local RYA school seems a lot given that it our boat etc.

Can anybody recommend a skipper who could do with us at a more reasonable cost? Anywhere on the South Coast really.

Thanks

Maybe they just don't want to do it and have set a price to avoid getting the work. Try a few other schools.

 

[Petertheking1982]

Hello. I work at a sea school and our set rate for own boat tuition is £199 per day. So for a 5 day Day Skipper Sail it would be £995 (not including fuel, mooring fees, food, travel expenses, ect). We can teach up to 5 people during the same week doing a variety of courses (competent crew, day skipper). So if there are a few of you it is cost effective. Alternatively we charge £449 (including fuel, mooring fees, food, ect) to do a Day Skipper on our school boat. So if just one or two of you more cost effective to do on the a school boat. Hope this helps to give you a comparison with what you have been quoted. If you want more information feel free to PM me.

 

[nigelmercier]

... You cannot hire an RYA Instructor independent from a sea school to run the course on your boat ...

Yes you can, but there is more paperwork involved.

 

[southseaian]

Hello. Alternatively we charge £449 (including fuel, mooring fees, food, ect) to do a Day Skipper on our school boat. .

This price is typical of that charged by RYA recognised sailing schools in the UK.
With five days fully inclusive accommodation on an expensive boat and food included It represents an absolute bargain.
Plus you get one to five instruction from a qualified instructor.
Compare this with prices paid for courses run for school teachers or in industry and you would s big, big difference.

My understanding is also that stated above. That only RYA recognised practical schools can award course completion certificates (Comp Crew, Day Skipper etc) and that individual instructors cannot.

 

[capnsensible]

Yes you can, but there is more paperwork involved.

What paperwork is that?

 

[Twister_Ken]

Hi

We (2 of us) want to do our RYA Day Skipper on our own boat.

The cost we've been quoted by our local RYA school seems a lot given that it our boat etc.

Can anybody recommend a skipper who could do with us at a more reasonable cost? Anywhere on the South Coast really.

Thanks

Found much the same (one DS, one YM). Worked out cheaper to do it on a school boat (plus, met a couple of interesting people).

 

[southseaian]

A freelance instructor who worked on occasion for a friendly and perhaps less commercial small sailing school might do private own boat Day Skipper courses but the certificates would bare the name of a sailing school.
This might be considered a fiddle but (depending on the integrity of the instructor) the certificate would show completion of a successful Day Skipper course.
Bigger commercial schools intent on profit (which is difficult in this business) like own boat tuition as they can charge £195, or whatever, a day and pay an instructor £55 to £115 a day.
With the Day Skipper practical course there is no exam as such. The certificate is awarded for successful completion of the five day course. Most people completing the course will be awarded the certificate. The cert suggests that a person is capable of skippering a boat in local waters, by day, of which the person has a prior knowledge. The instructor, an RYA Cruising Instructor or RYA/MCA YachtMaster instructor, will make the decision to award the cert with reference to the Sailing School which they are working for.
Really in my view Sailing Schools maintain the quality of the yachts used whilst instructors are responsible for the quality of teaching. Most instructors work for a number of schools.
The RYA Day Skipper Cert can be used to obtain an ICC which is required for some areas including Greece.

Own boat tuition can be dodgy, I've had to be rescued twice doing own boat including a serious fire. Schools are supposed to check out client's boat but........

 

[Jungle Jim]

Is it worth considering going straight to yachtmaster?

As I understand it the day skipper exam is a week long session but the yachtmaster is a day long exam with no issues about being conducted on your own boat. As you already sail your own boat I would not have thought it would be difficult to accumulate the experience required as quite a lot of it appears to be sailing from A to several B's safely under varying conditions.

The experience and qualifications you need for the course are here:

http://www.rya.org.uk/coursestraining/exams/Pages/Coastalskipper.aspx

I've done the Day Skipper theory, read loads of books on the extra bits that the Yachmaster covers and been lucky enough to put it all into practice with a very patient skipper who lets me loose in his Bavaria (under supervision of course, but still a brave man indeed!). As the skipper will let me use his boat for the course and be my crew for the day this is a route I am considering.

 

[lpdsn]

Is it worth considering going straight to yachtmaster?

If the OP is good enough, and knows he is, yes. I got the impression he though DS was the right level for himself.

Whilst I'm the first to say there's a lot more to be learnt about sailing after YM, there's a lot to be learnt beforehand too. It's an awful lot more than YM theory and a few thousand miles. I know this forum is a hotbed of those that think they could just walk a YM exam after several decades sailing, but have you noticed how many of them actually do?

 

[nigelmercier]

What paperwork is that?

Dunno, the school deal with it. Boat inspection I think.

 

[southseaian]

To be awarded the Day Skipper practical course completion certificate requires attending a five day course. Previous experience can be as little as five days afloat.
The RYA Yacht Master exam lasts for around 8 hours per candidate. It requires 2500 miles underway over at least 50 days with the completion of five off shore passage of over 60 miles two of which at night and two as skipper.
Whilst the YM may be considered easy by some it is a vastly different qualification to Day Skipper.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Another consideration - on a school boat there are likely to be more than two of you, plus instructor/examiner. Having extra staff available makes a lot of the tasks far easier to complete successfully.

 

[capnsensible]

Dunno, the school deal with it. Boat inspection I think.

Day Skipper practical course completion certificates can be awarded by a recognised training centre. An independent instructor is not an RTC. There is no paperwork to allow that.

The RYA website will clarify this for you.

 

[Jungle Jim]

To be awarded the Day Skipper practical course completion certificate requires attending a five day course. Previous experience can be as little as five days afloat.
The RYA Yacht Master exam lasts for around 8 hours per candidate. It requires 2500 miles underway over at least 50 days with the completion of five off shore passage of over 60 miles two of which at night and two as skipper.
Whilst the YM may be considered easy by some it is a vastly different qualification to Day Skipper.

The Yachmaster Coastal pre-requisites don't seem to be so demanding. This is from the RYA link

30 days, 2 days as skipper, 800 miles, 12 night hours (if you hold the Coastal Skipper course certificate this is reduced to 20 days, 2 days as skipper, 400 miles, 12 night hours). Half the qualifying sea time must be conducted in tidal waters.

 

[Dab]

The Yachmaster Coastal pre-requisites don't seem to be so demanding. This is from the RYA link

30 days, 2 days as skipper, 800 miles, 12 night hours (if you hold the Coastal Skipper course certificate this is reduced to 20 days, 2 days as skipper, 400 miles, 12 night hours). Half the qualifying sea time must be conducted in tidal waters.

When written like that it does look a lot less demanding that Yachtmaster Offshore, but this just shows you the minimum time you should have in your log book. If you then take a look at the syllabus, you will find that it is exactly the same as for Yachtmaster Offshore, but you are allowed to be a bit less polished in the delivery of some of the evolutions. If you have spent most of those 30 days and 12 night hours family sailing short hops in the Solent, I think most people would find passing the exam a challenge. You also need a recognised First Aid qualification and VHF radio Short Range Certificate. I couldn't find the syllabus on line on the RYA website, if you have a RYA Cruising Logbook it is in there, otherwise you could scroll down to page 5 of this link:

http://www.southern.co.uk/downloads/RYA-FullSyllabus-Sail.pdf

 

[southseaian]

In my experience of preparing hundreds of Yachtmaster candidates those who fail are those who fudge their experience. Examiners don't generally award the Coastal YM to those who don't make the Off shore standard.
Candidates with the required experience usually pass. A typical sailor who has say 5 or 6 seasons around the English Channel with a few cross channel passages (genuinely )as skipper will usually sail through the 8/10 hour Off shore YM exam.

 

[Twister_Ken]

will usually sail through the 8/10 hour Off shore YM exam.

Ba-boom!

 

[Talulah]

Ba-boom!

A good grounding in the subject is needed. Those with only a light grounding probably need to try again but harder.