60 miles measured along the rhumb line from the port of departure to the destination, acting as skipper for at least two of these passages and including two which have involved overnight passages. 5 days experience as skipper. At least half this mileage and passages must be in tidal waters. All qualifying seatime must be within 10 years prior to the exam.
It is the 'internal conversations' and the ones you have with your Instructor and then your Examiner that provide the real worth And the reflection on those....
I can't remember where my RYA/DoT bits of paper are - but I can and do recall the comments and pointers, made years ago, by those crusty and gimlet-eyed characters - individualists all.
Surely you remember the saga of the Black Pig and the various lengths for boats for YM exams. IIRC it started as between 7m and 24m LOA, then changed to exclude boats like Rival or Contessa 32s, then somehow went back to 7-24m but now LWL, then the 24m returned to LOA, all depending on which RYA webpage you read . Meanwhile they changed the qualifying mileage requirements to >7m LWL without warning thus screwing up anyone who had accrued their 2,500 miles on any medium sized boat with overhangs and they've ended up with http://www.rya.org.uk/coursestraining/exams/Pages/Yachtmasteroffshore.aspx which still manages to contradict itself on the LOA/LWL dimension. All this because none of their examiners wanted to go for a winter sail on a wee gaff cutter.
