Sailing Qualifications - A Nonsense ????

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Woodentop

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I looked for a crew to assist on a passage (which I ended up doing solo) and got his comment from a potential crew member;

"I'm an RYA yachtmaster, been sailing my whole life but no ocean sailing to speak of."

Hang on. Is something missing here ?
 
Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

The opposite situation where someone has made a delivery trip or two and thus claims to be an old salt with 10's of 1,000s of miles is more worrying for me. Coastal sailing is far more intense than ocean crossing. Of course the skills required and experiences gained vary enormously with circumstances. But that applicant sounded good to me. You don’t describe the passage you were planning, but, taking him at face value, he appreciated that his ocean experience was lacking, which is more than many YM’s do.
 
Good Point

I would have thought that a YM had been out of sight of land at some point in his learning.

But, good point. I think you may be right.

I shall consider further and then either;
flush myself on the grounds that I am full of sh.t
or reduce you to tears with a blistering response.
 
Re: Good Point

Out of sight of land is not necessarily "ocean sailing". The English Channel, North Sea and Irish Sea can present conditions that are more demanding than the Atlantic sometimes, and there are certainly more "hard bits" to bump into but they are not Oceans. Many YM qualified people have never been transat.
 
I can't see anything wrong with that statement either. The RYA qualifications are at various levels, and Yachtmaster Offshore is not an ocean sailing qualification, that's the next level up.

A Yachtmaster Offshore qualified sailor could have spent all his life sailing the North Sea, Irish Sea, Channel, Med and Baltic. All of these can provide offshore sailing, none of them ocean experience though.

Sounds to me that he was being completely frank and honest, which would give me confidence.
 
Even Biscay isn't really ocean sailing as your only a day or two from land and there are loads of boats within VHF range. It's just a big bay coastal hop.

Now that will start a debate.....back to work now
 
I take ocean sailing to mean crossing oceans - not sailing round the edges. If that was the case we could all be ocean sailors. I can get out of sight of land by going a few miles south east of the Nab. Sounds like you turned down a responsible guy who was honest about his experience
 
Re: Good Point

I think you're confusing 'Offshore' with 'Ocean'. As said elsewhere, sailing coastal and Offshore can be far more challenging than crossing oceans. The biggest factor is weather. All the ocean sailors I know feel amongst the biggest challenges can be boredom and stowage!!!!
 
Your interpretation of your potential crews experience and qualification does not balance against the info in your profile --- RYA instructor and boat location - Coastal but usually ocean!!
 
Woodentop
I cant resist replying to your post and have the following comments.

From the level of experience you state you have I am truly shocked at your comment about being out of sight of land = Ocean! Where was your Ocean passage that you did single handed, accross Lyme Bay?

I did my YM exam in 94 where one of the students taking the exam had 33000 miles in his logbook asd a result of many Trans atlantic deliveries. (Mostly as crew, athough some as skipper!) He didnt pass his YM beceause he had no idea about tides and couldnt work out the access times for Beaulieu! Blind nav was a complete non starter.

Dont de value the YM qualification or insult those who participate and respond to you with honesty. From your background you should know better.

So go on, tell me, I am desperate to know, where was this "ocean" passage that you completed single handed??
 
Re: Ocean sailing. I\'ve never done any.

In thirty years of sailing my longest passage as skipper is Southampton to Largs. I quite often do 200-300 milers around northern europe. That gets you out of the sight of land pretty much.

Do I think that not crossing oceans diminishes me as a sailor? Well no I don't. Considerations for ocean sailing are pretty straight forward if you can sail and run a boat. Sitting around counting waves, mending things and oooooooing at sunsets for days on end doesn't press my buttons.

If your candidate had said he was an RYA yachtmaster ocean you'd have a point though.
 
I once had a guy doing day skipper, he had about 4000 miles but had only entered harbour twice. I realy should have checked his experience in more detail before relaxing as we went into Yarmouth on the first day of the course.
 
Re: Sailing Qualifications - A Nonsense ???? - YES

Taking the topic at its face value, rather than the way it has run, the answer is YES.

The previous posts support this view. In addition, there are thousands of extremely competent skippers and crew out there who have mastered yacht handling but never contributed one penny to the RYA money spinner of mastership - at any level. There are thousands who have crossed estuaries, bays, channels, seas and oceans, never come to grief nor caused grief to anyone else and haven't suffered the RYA wallet extraction.

OK, I agree that if you know nothing of sailing, the RYA schools, amongst others, will teach you. Giving you a pretty piece of paper is a real morale boost. Just like a driving licence and we all know how many licensed drivers can't drive!!!!!

----------------------------------------------------------
Employ a teenager whilst he still knows everything
 
dear slipknot,
I gotta pick up on something you said there mate, ''dont de-value the ym qualy''.
Sorry dude but I know quite a few YM's who I would'nt trust with a wheebarra, let alone my or your kids lives in a marina. Some folk have a high level of commonsense, despite no experience, some folk have little commonsense and 3 weeks experience, or '' a season ol ' boy'' wtf?, how many times did they/ could they go out in ' a season '. did their season consist of 1 force 5 run in up the Hamble ? several saturdays in the solent, gah. I have had to take delivery of so many of these peoples boats it aint funny, it is quite scary to think that these happily oblivious moondogs are out and about with their tickets gaffertaped to their mustos making dangerous decisions. Folk that have been lucky enough to have grown up with a family interest or boat and have spent donkeys years afloat that then decide to get their ticket are another breed entirely and I am not coating them off in any way, respect.
 
Like slipknot I took my YM exam a few years ago in the company of a guy who sailing experience was primarily crossing the Atlantic with an all girl crew. He'd logged all his mileage requirements in one trip. He had no idea of buoyage, tides, close quarters boat-handling, etc. After a week's refresher he took the exam and passed! So he's got a YM with ocean experience, but what does it prove?
 
youre takin my point of view and experience and play on words and attempting to turn it personal, - wont wash.
Prejudice - no - observing stupidity yes, if I seen it I cant talk about it? who are you? to tell me what I can voice my observations on, what are you one of these happy idiots?
The post above typifies my and the original posters point with a case example, I refrain from doing so, I will just keep ' helping them across safely and into berth'. while you will be sitting on your p.c deciding what the rest of should do,mug.
 
Hi Ghost
I genuinely agree with your comments, and sadly there are too many folk around that you describe. Perhaps the commercial pressures of schools encourage them to pass more than they should. However, it is still a voulentary scheme whiich despite its obvious drawbacks requires the indivual to be subjected to an assesment by an examiner. Like it or not, the YM qualification is pretty much all there is, and I dont think that dismissing it as worthless or undermining it, serves any constructive purpose unless some kind of alturnative is being proposed. I personally would prefer to see it harder to achieve in the first place and periodically retested. However.....

In the context of the original post the applicant pointed out "I'm an RYA yachtmaster, been sailing my whole life but no ocean sailing to speak of." How else could this individual describe his expeience in one sentence. Taking it at face value I would rather consider him as crew for a passage of any length in preference to someone who said "Yachtmaster. been sailing 17 weeks, never sailed anywhere really!

I am still curious what passage was being planned that instead of taking crew that was a "YM that had been sailing my whole life" chose insted to make the ocean passage alone?

Or have I missed the point?
 
Re: Sailing Qualifications - A Nonsense ???? Yep ...

I have recently had on board a couple of guys .... one of whom is known on this forum as Thomas1 ....

He is a newbie (terrible word that really) but he said it himself anyway. I and another experienced guy agreed that we would try to do the Cherbourg trip .... sadly conditions were against us and we changed to a memorable jaunt round Solent.

I had read a couple of posts ref. Tom before the trip and basically decided that I would decide for myself. If I was a Paper believer - I may have not decided so. But anyway ... Tom duly arrives, keen as mustard, kitted out and ready to do action.

I can tell you without reservation - that I would have Tom on any boat with me .... forget about tickets and fancy titles ...

The first thing is he admitted he knew nothing. First correct step.
Second he WANTED to know - second correct step.
Third if he didn't know he said so - third correct step.
Fourth he was not embarrased by asking in front of others - fourth correct step.

Now I don't know about you lot - but many I can think of fail on one or two of above ...

The fact that someone admits limits is a PLUS ... you then know where you stand and what to look out for ... The over-confident is a fool and will endanger others as fast as anything else.

Thomas1 .... you are always welcome ....
 
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