RYA logbook - definition of day??!!

[roblpm]

Hi

I am just considering sorting out my messy collection of half filled in logbooks in case I get the urge to do my Yachmaster exams in a couple of years.

Previously it was easy for me, sailing on a mates boat for 10 days, did 300 miles...................

However now I have my own boat. So last night I skippered in a race, did 6 miles, was out for an hour and a half. Is that a day??!! Do the miles count? What happens when I take my son out and he wants to go home after half an hour? Is that a day?

I suppose it doesn't really matter as I will only need 50 days I think for the YM offshore which I should be able to muster in a couple of years from "proper" trips. So maybe I should add up all the miles including the racing but only count the "days" when I am out all day.

And what about nights?....................................

 

[Neil]

I thought it was 2500 miles, a number (?) of 5-60 mile trips and a certain No. of night hours? My last examiner for coastal said to bunch several small trips into one box to save space

 

[awol]

No need for tangible proof though an intimate knowledge of where you claim to have been will help. The examiner will suss out very quickly if you haven't got sufficient experience. If you have to scrape all your round-the-cans evening races into the total to hit the mark (!) I would opine that your experience is insufficient.

 

[[70521]]

Might be worth contacting the RYA to pin them down on what the consider a day.

 

[roblpm]

No need for tangible proof though an intimate knowledge of where you claim to have been will help. The examiner will suss out very quickly if you haven't got sufficient experience. If you have to scrape all your round-the-cans evening races into the total to hit the mark (!) I would opine that your experience is insufficient.

I wasn't really saying i need those miles but just really how to organise it. I will probably leave the racing out completely.

Ironically the racing actually provides much more experience in sailing manouvres, boat handling, spinnakers etc than I have ever gained drinking beer and floating around the Scottish west coast which will be what makes up my logbook! One tack all day, no tides to speak of, raise anchor, drop anchor, but 30 miles and a day for my logbook!

 

[trapezeartist]

Ironically the racing actually provides much more experience in sailing manouvres, boat handling, spinnakers etc than I have ever gained drinking beer and floating around the Scottish west coast which will be what makes up my logbook! One tack all day, no tides to speak of, raise anchor, drop anchor, but 30 miles and a day for my logbook!

I think you've just answered your own question. Going out for an hour involves getting off your pontoon or mooring, organising the crew, a passage plan (even if it's only a vague idea in your head), a bit of sailing and then getting back to whatever your boat calls home. Worthy of being called a "day".

 

[jac]

Think you have to take a pragmatic view.

A few hours on board where you have done 30 miles should count. After all if you got on board the night before, slept on board and then went out the following morning and did 2-3 miles you'd probably count it as a night on board.

 

[lpdsn]

It's a period of 24 hours - so I count Fri eve to Sun eve as 2 days. If you go out for a couple of hours then I still count that as a day. I also count days lying over in a port during a cruise, but don't count days spent on board doing maintenance (which for me is usually a weekend sleeping on board).

In the end the examiners are no fools. They expect a certain level of experience so if your log book looks borderline they'll probe. All you really have to do is to demonstrate the level of experience necessary to pass the exam - bearing in mind that exam nerves might knock some of the polish off your performance, it is better not to be scraping in at the limit in the first place. If you've exagerrated your experience it'll be obvious to the examiner, just like it would be to you if a new crew member was overstating his experience.

 

[Skylark]

If you're compiling your logbook, potentially at least, for the purpose of submitting it for assessment towards the mileage / hours / experience, I'd start by looking at the definition of a YM from RYA website:-

'A yachtsman or woman competent to skipper a cruising yacht on any passage that can be completed without the use of astronavigation’.

There is no doubt that racing around the cans adds significantly to skill but it's unlikely to help with a night entry into an unknown port in foul weather.

The intent of the requiremnt is for the examiner to see a breadth of experience and, as others have said, these guys are no fools; they're not there to trip you up but to assess you against the established criteria of competence.

I wouldn't worry too much about 50 days / 2500 miles (or what ever it is). It's not about having 2,501 or 50,000 miles under the keel, it's about having the competence born out of knowledge and experience, as assessed on the day. Good luck.

 

[SteveSarabande]

Half an hour is not a day, i mostly counted cruising miles, but had the occasional "skills and drills training" entry in the log.
I would add the racing, as long as they aren't too often.

More important is the variety of trips. 2000 miles of day sails from the same marina does not make a yachtmaster. You need lots of multi day trips, lots of overnighters and lots of cruising areas.

In my exam the instructor picked on a few places i had been to and asked questions about the place just to see if i had really been there.

 

[ghostlymoron]

A day was 24hrs when I last checked. If you're having to add parts of days together to make enough, you're stretching the rules. An examiner will soon tell if you're sufficiently experienced.

 

[awol]

Scottish west coast which will be what makes up my logbook! One tack all day, no tides to speak of, raise anchor, drop anchor, but 30 miles and a day for my logbook!

You are worrying me! Where outside of the Clyde can you sail 30 miles on the west coast without encountering tides that need consideration?

 

[RupertW]

You need lots of multi day trips, lots of overnighters and lots of cruising areas.

If only that were so. You don't even need to have ever skippered a boat to get yachtmaster. One of the standard routes to get the cert is the zero to hero style where you will never be in charge of the boat without an instructor there with you, with you "being skipper". Overnights can be 3 hours after dark before coming back to the same marina berth before last orders, and different cruising areas?? I think instructed sails from Solent to the Channel Islands over a few weeks is pretty common. Real skippering experience is gained when you are the most qualified and/or experienced people on board and have to make the hard decisions (without looking for that acknowledgement or slight nod as you talk through the options, and without knowing that if anything at all could harm the crew or boat then somebody competent will immediately assume command)

This is all fine (and I've had this discussion recently with sailing instructors) if the Yachtmaster cert is considered to be the basic introduction to the world of flotilla skippering or owning your own boat. It makes no sense at all to anyone who had previously considered it to be a significant cert showing that you were both knowledgeable and experienced.

 

[roblpm]

If only that were so. You don't even need to have ever skippered a boat to get yachtmaster. One of the standard routes to get the cert is the zero to hero style where you will never be in charge of the boat without an instructor there with you, with you "being skipper". Overnights can be 3 hours after dark before coming back to the same marina berth before last orders, and different cruising areas?? I think instructed sails from Solent to the Channel Islands over a few weeks is pretty common. Real skippering experience is gained when you are the most qualified and/or experienced people on board and have to make the hard decisions (without looking for that acknowledgement or slight nod as you talk through the options, and without knowing that if anything at all could harm the crew or boat then somebody competent will immediately assume command)

This is all fine (and I've had this discussion recently with sailing instructors) if the Yachtmaster cert is considered to be the basic introduction to the world of flotilla skippering or owning your own boat. It makes no sense at all to anyone who had previously considered it to be a significant cert showing that you were both knowledgeable and experienced.

Well i wasn't really making this point but now you have brought it up that is what I am thinking. Taking my 10 year old son out on the Forth with strong currents, 3 bridges and plenty of oil tankers effectively single handed seems a world away from the dayskipper course i did, plenty of crew, someone else ultimately in charge, marina to marina. Anyway I suppose people who dont own a boat shouldn't be excluded from learning how to do it, so i am not criticising the courses, just pointing out there are different ways of gaining experience.

 

[john_morris_uk]

If only that were so. You don't even need to have ever skippered a boat to get yachtmaster. One of the standard routes to get the cert is the zero to hero style where you will never be in charge of the boat without an instructor there with you, with you "being skipper". Overnights can be 3 hours after dark before coming back to the same marina berth before last orders, and different cruising areas?? I think instructed sails from Solent to the Channel Islands over a few weeks is pretty common. Real skippering experience is gained when you are the most qualified and/or experienced people on board and have to make the hard decisions (without looking for that acknowledgement or slight nod as you talk through the options, and without knowing that if anything at all could harm the crew or boat then somebody competent will immediately assume command)

This is all fine (and I've had this discussion recently with sailing instructors) if the Yachtmaster cert is considered to be the basic introduction to the world of flotilla skippering or owning your own boat. It makes no sense at all to anyone who had previously considered it to be a significant cert showing that you were both knowledgeable and experienced.

Turning up to your YM exam with only 'skippering' experience done with an instructor watching would be bending the rules. I've examined candidates from zero to hero courses and like all candidates some are good and some are weak. Most of the ones I've examined have had opportunities to skipper without an instructor on board. There have been weeks during their course where they've been given the boat with other trainees and told to go sailing.

 

[roblpm]

You are worrying me! Where outside of the Clyde can you sail 30 miles on the west coast without encountering tides that need consideration?

I was exaggerating. But with navionics on a phone there wasn't much "proper" navigation done.

And again before you suggest we were a danger to ourselves we had at least 3 electronic devices, paper charts and a skipper with 45 years experience of sailing out of stornoway and Arisaig. Im just pointing out that crewing on such a jaunt involves making sure my phone is charged, sunbathing and dolphin spotting! And that's what people seem to want to see in my logbook! Skippering a race in the forth takes a whole different level of skill and responsibilty!

 

[roblpm]

Turning up to your YM exam with only 'skippering' experience done with an instructor watching would be bending the rules. I've examined candidates from zero to hero courses and like all candidates some are good and some are weak. Most of the ones I've examined have had opportunities to skipper without an instructor on board.

Can you explain my original point which was how to structure my logbook? One entry for a seasons racing? One entry for a weekend trip away? Ive been out on my boat 40 times this summer so its going to be a bit unwieldy. What do you want to see??

 

[prv]

Anyway I suppose people who dont own a boat shouldn't be excluded from learning how to do it, so i am not criticising the courses, just pointing out there are different ways of gaining experience.

The problem is that the course syllabus assumes people will also be gaining that experience. Yes, perhaps do Comp Crew and/or Day Skipper with little experience as a way of getting into it, but then the syllabus assumes you'll go away and sail for a few years before deciding to come back for Coastal Skipper. Then do a fair bit more until you think it might be time to try for Yachtmaster, performing in the exam based on your accumulated years of varied experience, not just a series of learned responses from a few months of intensive training.

The Zero-to-Hero courses meet the letter of the rules, but not the spirit.

Pete

 

[john_morris_uk]

Can you explain my original point which was how to structure my logbook? One entry for a seasons racing? One entry for a weekend trip away? Ive been out on my boat 40 times this summer so its going to be a bit unwieldy. What do you want to see??

Just try to be sensible. There are some guidance notes somewhere that say day sailing isn't supposed to count, but include it anyway as it adds to the picture. In reality I chat to candidates about their sailing experience. I don't go through their log book with a fine tooth comb (after all it could be a complete work of fiction!) but it's soon obvious whether someone has the relevant experience or not. I believe most other examiners take a very similar line.

A weekend trip or a two week trip is one entry.

 

[Spirit of Glenans]

There are definitions and rules in the official RYA Cruising Logbook. Haven't got mine in front of me right now, but I believe that a "day" consists of a 24-hour period spent on board during the duration of a passage. Mileage from passages only, is allowed, and a legitimate passage is only between two recognised harbours, so daysailing and racing do not appear to be loggable. I don't race but I've probably put up between 1000 and 2000 miles daysailing and instructing on small keelboats. I have never logged this, but I would certainly mention it to an examiner if I were to do a YM assessment