RYA Survey To Shape Future Direction

[benjenbav]

Maybe you should tick the “other” box on the opening question, and then you can see the rest of the questions. I don’t think it’s particularly leading.

Well, I tried that. But it became clear that what the survey meant by “other” was “other water based activities” and since my only involvement with water in 2025 has been drinking it and taking the occasional shower it wasn’t long before I got stuck again.

 

[SaltyC]

I too completed the survey, I have stayed out of discussions so far as they appear polarised. What frustrates me personally with many surveys is the 'closed' questions, where you are led down a route and the conclusion they want which is incorrect. YES, open questions take more analysing but are more realistic.

One of the striking statistics to me was the RYA has 100,000 members 25% of whom are 'Instructors'. Although not all are making a living from instructing, many are volunteers within clubs, I feel the latter group are being pushed out with increasing costs and requirements / costly revalidation. Previously the strength of the RYA training was the volunteer instructors giving their time to encourage participation at reasonable cost.

When one opens the RYA magazine all articles appear to be aimed at the Green Blue, inclusivity etc their appears to be a political undercurrent.

My experience is the sport is open to all, you need to make the move. I read an article from the Greg City Academy, their first Fastnet, in Cowes, they didn't think they would 'fit' yet everyone was helpful and welcoming!!

A case of you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink??

I will now retire to my Nuclear Bunker.

 

[lustyd]

Previously the strength of the RYA training was the volunteer instructors giving their time to encourage participation at reasonable cost

Often said of BSAC too, but unfortunately it leads to very variable professionalism with instructors, with some very good and some empire building within clubs. RYA would do well to switch to a fully professional model with more accountability.

 

[SaltyC]

Often said of BSAC too, but unfortunately it leads to very variable professionalism with instructors, with some very good and some empire building within clubs. RYA would do well to switch to a fully professional model with more accountability.

Unfortunately I disagree, with dinghies we regularly had people who had obtained qualifications in the Med from commercial operators. The ability was way below what our club would certify.

Yes professionalism varies, but that is not volunteer / paid instructor dependent.

Are Yachty qualifications the same?

 

[Mark-1]

Although not all are making a living from instructing, many are volunteers within clubs, I feel the latter group are being pushed out with increasing costs and requirements / costly revalidation. Previously the strength of the RYA training was the volunteer instructors giving their time to encourage participation at reasonable cost.

That was my main freeform response to the questionaire. I feel I'm on the front line of this, they're killing sail training.

I and some other parents agreed to become instructors, purely to help keep junior events going in the club. It took NINE days of qualifications. Few people have that kind of time. I didn't really.

It's ridiculous. If our club change our junior activities away from RYA content we'd no longer need quals and have enough volunteers overnight. However, I don't think that will happen, I think they will just take the easy path and stop doing junior activities.

And of course they suffer at the other end too. I can't remember when the first of my quals expires but assuming my own kids are no longer participants in junior events I'll have a cast iron excuse not to volunteer. That's literally the RYA giving me an excuse to stop volunteering in the hope they'll get £60, or whatever.

At a time when there's a dearth of volunteers any obstruction to volunteering is existential.

When I started sailing about the same age as my youngest, there were no obstructions to sailing or volunteering whatsover. I turned up, sailed, did rescue duties, did RO. Guess what, we weren't short of any of those roles.

 

[SaltyC]

That was my main freeform response to the questionaire. I feel I'm on the front line of this, they're killing sail training.

I and some other parents agreed to become instructors, purely to help keep junior events going in the club. It took NINE days of qualifications. Few people have that kind of time. I didn't really.

It's ridiculous. If our club change our junior activities away from RYA content we'd no longer need quals and have enough volunteers overnight. However, I don't think that will happen, I think they will just take the easy path and stop doing junior activities.

And of course they suffer at the other end too. I can't remember when the first of my quals expires but assuming my own kids are no longer participants in junior events I'll have a cast iron excuse not to volunteer. That's literally the RYA giving me an excuse to stop volunteering in the hope they'll get £60, or whatever.

At a time when there's a dearth of volunteers any obstruction to volunteering is existential.

When I started sailing about the same age as my youngest, there were no obstructions to sailing or volunteering whatsover. I turned up, sailed, did rescue duties, did RO. Guess what, we weren't short of any of those roles.

Completely agree. It also gets worse when you volunteer on 'Big' boats, commercial endorsement, Medicals etc all add to cost with no return. Perhaps a bigger barrier than the perceived inclusivity????

 

[Mark-1]

RYA would do well to switch to a fully professional model with more accountability.

You might well be in luck, I suspect between safeguarding and the difficulty of volunteering, formal junior training in clubs will be gone very soon and only kids with plenty of cash will be able to do formal qualifications. Which would suit me fine, parents get their kids sailing far, far quicker than the Youth Sailing Scheme does it, and getting the kids together sailing is far more important than getting the qual IMHO. (It's mostly the same course repeated four times to increase sales to Sailing Schools, the pace is glacial.) On the other hand AI/DI looks good on a teenager's CV and we shouldn't overlook that.

Unfortunately I disagree, with dinghies we regularly had people who had obtained qualifications in the Med from commercial operators. The ability was way below what our club would certify.

Yes professionalism varies, but that is not volunteer / paid instructor dependent.

IME, the stand out best instructors are the people whose full time day jobs are teaching, they are staggeringly good. I'd be amazed if the pro Sailing instructors could come close in ability, and I doubt sailing instruction pays enough to recruit someone with 20 years full time teaching behind them, whereas clubs have those people by the dozen and they're often the only ones with enough holiday to do the quals.

I have no figures to back it up, but I reckon a sailing school that's taken a few hundred quid off someone never fails anyone, wheras a club can fail anyone who's not good enough, because a) They don't need trade, and don't care about a bad review. b) The kid can just come back next week and prove they've improved enough to tick the missing boxes. (Which is ironic. The only RYA quals that anyone seems to regularly fail are YSS 1-4. I've never known anyone who failed YM, PB2, AI, DI, DS, Safety Boat.)

 

[Mark-1]

Completely agree. It also gets worse when you volunteer on 'Big' boats, commercial endorsement, Medicals etc all add to cost with no return. Perhaps a bigger barrier than the perceived inclusivity????

Really good point, no perhaps about it IMHO. My club gives free places on all our junior events to local kids who "wouldn't normally get the chance to sail". I wonder how many pro Sailing Schools do that?

That's in addition to providing RYA products to members at a fraction of the price of sailing schools.

Can't get much more inclusive than that.

 

[RunAgroundHard]

It costs £550 to renew a YMI instructors endorsement every 5 years, paid directly to an RTC that supplies the boat, which includes the RYA fee. It’s cost £170 for a private doctor to perform the ML5 medical, again every 5 years for the commercial endorsement. That is not erroneous to maintain accreditation. These are 2025 costs, there will be better deals. There is insurance above that for 3rd party liability. Time wise a weekend at sea and a couple of hours with a doctor, every 5 years. The renewal costs are not a barrier to participation when spread over 5 years. It’s low cost to provide a voluntary service, spread over 5 years, especially if sailing with some great organisations on their large boats, to help people. Sailing doesn’t get any cheaper.

 

[Mark-1]

It costs £550 to renew a YMI instructors endorsement every 5 years, paid directly to an RTC that supplies the boat, which includes the RYA fee. It’s cost £170 for a private doctor to perform the ML5 medical, again every 5 years for the commercial endorsement. That is not erroneous to maintain accreditation. These are 2025 costs, there will be better deals. There is insurance above that for 3rd party liability. Time wise a weekend at sea and a couple of hours with a doctor, every 5 years. The renewal costs are not a barrier to participation when spread over 5 years. It’s low cost to provide a voluntary service, spread over 5 years, especially if sailing with some great organisations on their large boats, to help people.

They could ditch the medical straight away. We're not talking about an airliner pilot or a taxi driver. Nothing terrible is going to happen if a YMI drops dead on the job.

 

[RunAgroundHard]

They could ditch the medical straight away. We're not talking about an airliner. Nothing terrible is going to happen if a YMI drops dead on the job.

They can’t, if you mean the RYA. The commercial endorsement requirement is driven by the MCA.

You don’t need commercial endorsement to volunteer. Only to operate commercially.

For many organisations you don’t even a YM to volunteer.

 

[doug748]

To sum up, a lot of people see the RYA as little more than a government quango which as lost it's compass and original function. Much like the National Trust and BBC.

I join every 5 years to renew my ICC and thus, no doubt, am counted as a happy member. I am not.

.

 

[st599]

They could ditch the medical straight away. We're not talking about an airliner pilot or a taxi driver. Nothing terrible is going to happen if a YMI drops dead on the job.

Commercial endorsement for people being employed at sea is a requirement of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, not the RYA. MCA requires the medical.

(I wish my ML5 cost £170, as it's a private item, GPs can charge what they like)

 

[ylop]

My experience is the sport is open to all, you need to make the move. I read an article from the Greg City Academy, their first Fastnet, in Cowes, they didn't think they would 'fit' yet everyone was helpful and welcoming!!

I think that actually IS the point of the RYA’s inclusivity stuff - it’s not primarily about changing internal behaviours it’s about changing external perceptions. If whoever Greg City Academy are thought they wouldn’t fit in - then presumably thousands of other young people never give sailing a thought / would never approach a club because THEY think it’s not for people like them.

One of the striking statistics to me was the RYA has 100,000 members 25% of whom are 'Instructors'.

That is a surprising statistic until you realise that ordinary club members are not required to be RYA members but all Instructors are - so you get this strange bias towards people who need to be a member.

Although not all are making a living from instructing, many are volunteers within clubs, I feel the latter group are being pushed out with increasing costs and requirements / costly revalidation. Previously the strength of the RYA training was the volunteer instructors giving their time to encourage participation at reasonable cost.

Nothing to stop your club subsidising their training / revalidation / membership fees and distributing that cost amongst your members who benefit from that expertise. Across three different sports clubs that has been common - and I’ve never heard a single person question it. Coaches, instructors, first aid courses, safety boat training etc would all be covered - usually with some sort of “agreement” that you put back in a certain amount of effort in return - although I’ve never known that be enforced other than a “moral” obligation.

I and some other parents agreed to become instructors, purely to help keep junior events going in the club. It took NINE days of qualifications. Few people have that kind of time. I didn't really.

Flip it round. Imagine a non-sailing parent sends their child to your training and something tragic happens. Can you imagine the headlines if it was, “Mark qualified to be an instructor with just one day’s training”.

It's ridiculous. If our club change our junior activities away from RYA content we'd no longer need quals and have enough volunteers overnight.

But depending on what you plan to as “non RYA activities” you might find yourself with regulatory, insurance etc headaches - if your club isn’t operating within the structures provided by a national governing body.

IME, the stand out best instructors are the people whose full time day jobs are teaching, they are staggeringly good. I'd be amazed if the pro Sailing instructors could come close in ability,

I’ve been taught by teachers and by non-teachers. Largely I agree but I’ve dealt with great very experienced professional instructors who were not teachers and teachers who weren’t great instructors (or certainly not with a very different demographic from they normally teach).

and I doubt sailing instruction pays enough to recruit someone with 20 years full time teaching behind them,

There’s lots of people quit teaching and it’s not usually in pursuit money.

whereas clubs have those people by the dozen and they're often the only ones with enough holiday to do the quals.

Many large blue chip companies are now pretending to have a social conscience by giving staff time off to volunteer - I know someone who got time (from a major UK bank) to qualify as a coach in another sport! Time is definitely a problem but a sensible approach would not be to ask you volunteers to go from 0-qualified instructor in 1 year. A progressive development programme might need say 3 days a year for 3 yrs after which you are actually quite good… difficult to blame the RYA for many clubs lack of forward planning, and succession management! I bet you’d be less likely to just walk away when your own kids grow up if there was a clear transition planned for the next generation.

The only RYA quals that anyone seems to regularly fail are YSS 1-4. I've never known anyone who failed YM, PB2, AI, DI, DS, Safety Boat.

I thought the whole point with most of those was you didn’t fail, you just didn’t get the certificate until you met the standard. It was made clear to me that you may be told to come back and do another day (or more) if you hadn’t completed the entire course satisfactorily - I know someone who had to do that with PB2 and someone who didn’t meet the “prescreening” for ADI (ie they were told to go away and do another season of sailing before reapplying). DS candidates who exaggerate their experience are sometimes award CC instead.

 

[fredrussell]

Someone should send the Rarified Yotties Association a link to this thread - plenty of useful thoughts herein for them to ponder.

 

[seeSimon]

Commercial endorsement for people being employed at sea is a requirement of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, not the RYA. MCA requires the medical.

(I wish my ML5 cost £170, as it's a private item, GPs can charge what they like)

It may be worth investigating the MCAs STCW medical, the ENG1?
Cost of this is capped by MCA at £115. That said, due to the continuing decline of the UK MN it can be difficult to find a listed "shipping doc" away from tradional base ports. MCA publish lists of approved doctors.

However, The ENG 1 generally requires a higher standard of medical fitness (orientated to "real" commercial operators often in deepsea trades) so that can be problematic, particularly for the older person. Dispensations and associated trading area restrictions are possible .

Seafarer medical certificates.

 

[rotrax]

To sum up, a lot of people see the RYA as little more than a government quango which as lost it's compass and original function. Much like the National Trust and BBC.

I join every 5 years to renew my ICC and thus, no doubt, am counted as a happy member. I am not.

.

Why do you think it is a Government 'Quango'?

It is the Governing Body for watersports. Separate from Government.

 

[flaming]

It is the Governing Body for watersports. Separate from Government.

This seems to be the biggest issue from the cruisers. They don't see what they do as a sport, and resent the activities of the RYA that are involved in supporting the "sport" part of being on the water.

 

[ylop]

Why do you think it is a Government 'Quango'?

It is the Governing Body for watersports. Separate from Government.

Presumably because the government seem to “abdicate” a certain level of responsibility to them to run training etc… anyone complaining about this presumably wishes for the inevitable alternative - regulation by a genuine QUANGO funded by mandatory payments and answerable to nobody!

 

[RunAgroundHard]

This seems to be the biggest issue from the cruisers. They don't see what they do as a sport, and resent the activities of the RYA that are involved in supporting the "sport" part of being on the water.

I don't think that is true as a rule, the sport part. The resentment is surprising and I have come across quite a few sailors who despise the RYA for whatever reason, in Scotland, but it's never to do with a sport definition. I seams to be focused around elitism, Royalty and whatever perceived class based angst the individual suffers from. However, the RYA are fairly invisible to most cruisers except, perhaps through affiliated clubs. Also the majority of the racing that I have taken part in from clubs, the RYA was never a presence in any form. I also observe that the majority of marinas that I visit have no information from the RYA or about the RYA on display. As a governing body, they could better advertise themselves and their support, but this is a chronic issue with them, an inability to project their image beyond clubs and racing. As for RYA Scotland, who are they, ethereal creatures that blow away in the wind.