Scotland and back

[Alcyone]

We did it. Both passed our day skipper!

Just for interest, or not as the case may be.

When we got to Oban we were surprised to find that we were the only ones on the boat doing the day skipper. The others were doing competent crew, so the 'tutor' explained that Louise and I would act as skipper for the whole week.

The boat was a 38ft Westerly, this is her at Ardfern:

First day, I was asked to plan a passage for 28 miles from Oban South to Crinan, through some serious waters if I got the tides wrong. Luckily I didn't. although with a big boat and a crew and myself knowing next to nothing it was very stressful. I had no idea which island was which, either, so spent an awful lot of time at the chart table and compass. Louise did the second passage to ardfern Marina where we spent the afternoon mooring in all sorts of berths.

That was the one nice day. From then on the weather steadily got worse. Day 2 sailing a square course in a force 5. The tutor then asked me to plan a 20 mile night passage from Easdale North into an unlit bay at 3am. It was blowing a force 6 and raining heavily, so I plotted the whole course into the GPS and, with the exception of a rock that nobody saw on the way into a competely black bay (which we just missed), we did it.

We then sailed North West into the Sound of mull, Louise really stressed, and I pretty upset that the 'tutor' said nothing unless we asked him how to do something, and then more often that not just answered with a question. The other girl, doing her competent crew ended up in tears at one point when he shouted at her for getting a sheet the wrong way aropund the winch. At this point, a force 9 was forecast and the Tobermory lifeboat was towing yachts off the rocks all day. The boat was well heeled over and we regularly beat 8 knots.

I was then asked to pick up a mooring in an extremely crowded Tobermory harbour by sail alone. I was tacking back and fore on 30m legs at one stage, £100K yachts all around, and very very stressed, but I did it.

The following day we sailed back South in a force 8, the bows regularly underwater in the big SW swells, into a tiny mooring called Puilldobraihn, or somesuch.

My thoughts? It was much, much harder than I thought, and every time I seemed to do something right, there was no 'well done' the tasks just got harder. There didn't seem to be any consistency - Louise was not asked to do things nearly as difficult as I, and the three people on the competent crew also felt that he made it much harder for one than the others.

Anyway, despite this, I'm extremely happy that we passed, and gained a lot of confidence in being out in such bad conditions. I'm a little surprised at the course content, the fact that there was no syllabus, and we were not told what was going to happen, nor how we were to be assessed. I certainly did not enjoy it.

 

[chrishelen]

Well done to you both,the bay should hold no fears for you after this,these courses are a bit hit and miss but you got the result you wanted,
see you on the water,
Chris.

 

[Carolwildbird]

That sounds really tough for day skipper... at least compared to when I did it. And your tutor sounds like a very bad teacher to me. I've met one of those.. not into teaching, but assessing/proving himself in some way.

Well done on getting through it, and i hope it hasn't put you and Louise off!

 

[Alcyone]

Thanks, both. I've spoken to a few other people who didn't seem to have to do as much as we did. It seems that some people only have to do a single passage.

I did read in the day skipper notes that the tutor will attempt to stress you, and push you outside of your comfort zones, and that certainly happened.

I'm not really qualified to asses his teaching methods, as I have no other RYA course experience to compare with, but I was a professional IT tutor for 15 years, and also a BSAC dive instructor for 10 years, so all I can say is, it would not have been my style of teaching. The other couple on the course said they would not be going for their day skipper course after seeing us do it, and that cannot be good.

But, as Chris says, we got what we wanted, and both feel a lot more confident. OK, the Sound of Mull is not the Bristol Channel, it's a lot more sheltered and the tides are not comparable, but being out in a force 8 and 9 with the boat heeled right over and handling it all was good experience.

Put us off? I run my own business, and it's going to be hard work actually dealing with my customers this week when I want to be on the boat all the time!

Cheers.

 

[graham]

Well done both.Sounds as if you had to earn it the hard way.Nothing wrong with being pushed a bit but no proffesionall instructor should be shouting at students,I still put the sheet around the winch backwards now and then,so what?

If the instructor cant teach in a friendly manner giving out praise for jobs well done and encouraging the weaker ones then he should look at a career change. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

[Alcyone]

To be honest Graham. I'm a bit half and half. I have no problem at all with being pushed, and if the truth be told, I do think maybe I was a bit more caopable than the others, and was maybe pushed a bit harder because of that. I have no problem with that either. I agree though that shouting at people can be counter productive, and in the case where the girl ended up in tears, I can't see that being helpful.

At the end of the day, the conditions were tough as well, and maybe we were all overtired, so I'm happy to take mostly positives from it.

The next step is to get the confidence to do things on our own, when there is no tutor there to get us out of trouble if we make a mistake. So, if weather and work allow, we'll be doing our first trip out of the bay this week at some point.

 

[LizzyD]

Congratulations to you both. I only did the classroom based Day Skipper and from the way your experiences read, I would have given up or been asked to leave the course if I'd had the kind of tutor you had. The man sounds like a right plank. Whether it's humans or dogs, you reward good behaviour with praise and positive comments. It's good for self confidence, self esteem, and encourages positive behaviour. Being sullen and making girls cry makes your nose bleed!!! It sounds as though YOU should have been paid the fee for going on the course and putting up with him.

Anyway, the outcome is the important thing and after reading your experiences, I would suggest your better prepared than me for what the channel can throw at you. Force 9? I'd be frightened of that in the house!!

Well done mate.


Lizzy D

 

[Alcyone]

Cheers. The force 9 was nasty. Listening to the lifeboat towing people in all day didn't help matters either, blown ashore, anchors dragged and boom injuries. Don't get me wrong, it was no fastnet gale, the Sound of Mull is well sheltered, but if we had a problem......

Anyway, we're back safe and sound, and the tickets are stamped and, I feel, well earned.

 

[Sneds]

Congrats and well done!
We would both love do the the DS practical (Mobo) and will get round to it when finances permit!
Your instructor sounds like a bit of an ar5e, SWMBO wonders if he has a small willy? /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif
Aren't you tempted to e-mail him and let him know your feelings?

 

[Alcyone]

No, I don't think I'll complain. I said after the course I'd wait until I got some sleep and then decide. Whilst I do think his teaching methods were, imo, suspect, we did both pass. I learned a hell of a lot too, though it was as much despite him as because of him.

I have, however been in touch with the other couple on the course. The tutor may have put them off taking sailing any further, and I think, probably, therefore that they might make some comment.

It is difficult. When I did my diving instructor exams some years back, there seemed to be a big variation in standard there as well. I passed, yet someone who I thought was a much better instructor than me failed. The odd thing was that we both made the same mistake.

 

[Wunja]

Rambling post warning
I think it depends what your targets are. Which could be:
Learn as much as possible;
Get a bit of paper to say you learned something/attended for the duration;
Have a holiday.
From the sound of it you achieved the first, which is what I would be after. Probably not the best technique for the other two.
If it was the second, then I would be concerned about the inconsistency of how hard the others were pushed. A qualification is about demonstating competence, but must also be about consistent standards: All day skippers are equal, but some (who have been to Oban) are more equal.
I also have a BSAC instructor qualification. Here the emphasis is always on progression. Start with something easy and make it a little harder with each practice. Any passing instructor must demonstrate this during their exam. Also I think BSAC training is more formula based briefing - exercise - de-briefing (something I missed on the RYA dingy course I did 2 years ago.) Perhaps teaching diving is not the same as teaching sailing and we shouldn't compare the two, it would be interesting to have an inside view on how RYA instructors are taught for a comparison.

 

[bluedragon]

The hardest (and least fun) week I ever had was "Day Skipper" way back in time. The instructor had no interest in teaching, just criticising. Fortunately I did know my stuff (and you obviously did also)...but there's no way it was a "course". CS and YM were in comparison actually easier I thought!! So don't be put off. You were probably unlucky. I don't know why you went to Oban specifically, but it is important to pick a school with a good reputation...we all used to hold Southern Sailing in high esteem in years gone by, and I did most of my later qualifications there. Any instructors that behaved like this would have been kicked out PDQ. Anyway...well done.

 

[Alcyone]

Well the reason I chose Oban was I like the area, and thought we'd get out and do some sailing whatever the waether, which is what happened. We also thought it would be part holiday, which was certainly not the case.

I think we had a similar 'tutor' to you.

VinceH, I think you are right on all points. In particular, I wanted the course to teach me as much as possible, and to an extent I did improve as I said earlier. I'm not that bothered about the ticket, but the insurance wanted it, so that's sorted too.

I may have a problem going any further anyhow. I'm red/green colour blind. It has never affected me at sea, but I understand that there may be tests at higher levels with those coloured dots and bits of string, and I always fail those. Ho Hum.

It would be interesting to know how RYA tutors are trained. I was certainly surprised to have no syllabus, and not to even have the course content and assessment criteria even mentioned, let alone explained, but as I said earlier as well, this was my first experience of RYA training.

 

[johnchampion]

Doesn't sound as though you had a very good time which is a shame and does not do much credit to whoever was the tutor, however there is a syllabus and it can be found in the RYA booklet "Sail Cruising and Yachtmaster Scheme - Syllabus and Logbook" RYA publication G15 04.

I was under the impression that Day Skipper does not have an exam as such but satisfactory completion means that you have been taught, and assimilated, I quote " pilotage, navigation, seamanship and boat handling up to a standard required to skipper a small cruising yacht safely by day in tidal waters with which the student is familiar".
As the emphasis seems to be on being taught rather than showing what you already know I don't think stressing people to the degree that seems to have happened can be helpful so well done to you both on getting through what unfortunately seems to have been an ordeal and not a particularly uplifting experience.
Incidentally I don't think there is actually a sight test for any of the RYA certificates but if you can't differentiate between red and green it may be prudent to have your own set of collision regs at night which would be along the lines of stay out of the way of anything! Mind you that's not a bad philosophy at any time.

 

[zlod]

I'm of pretty much the same opinion as johnchampion. I think Day Skipper is about being taught, covering the syllabus and then being sufficiently competent after that tuition to merit the certificate (and in my opinion, "sufficiently competent" isn't that high a level).

<< what follows is a bit rambling >>

From personal experience, I had found a vast degree of difference between sailing school instructors. The main problem I have had is that there seems to be a tendancy amongst them to always want to prove themselves right (one of them insisted that any green or red painted navigational mark was called a buoy: even one drilled into the sea bed - like Chichester Bar Beacon. I couldn't argue with him, but just had to pretend to defer to his enlightened knowledge).

I think too many of them can be too pre-emptive about what needs to be done ("ease the genoa sheet", "tack now"). Some of these decisions seem to me to be according to taste to an extent and I think it would often be a better learning experience for the student if the student could execute their suboptimal manouevre, see what is wrong with it and then do the thing that the instructor wanted in the first place (then you'd learn why one strategy was better than another). There are obviously some cases where you need to do exactly what the instructor says to avoid disaster.

I found the "shouting" thing difficult too. It's not productive and students don't want it or get anything from it. I've been shouted at a few times, but it's usually been in a high stress situation (force 8 etc.) when something needs to be done right. I can understand why the instructor is vexed, but at the end of the day, I'm a student on that boat because I positively want to learn something. Shouting isn't going to help: clearer explanation would. There's usually no lack of motivation on the student's behalf.

<< sorry if that was rambling >>

What I hope to do with sailing instruction from here on in is to find some good YM sailing instructor (with the right sort of attitude) in the Bristol area who can teach me from Coastal Skipper onwards in the local area. First things first: I need to get the work finished on my boat and then sail her round to Portishead.

If anyone has any suggestions about any good instructors in the area, then please PM me (or reply to this post).

 

[Alcyone]

On your middle point, that was exactly what I did. We were heading upwind into a 7/8 and I needed to tack. I said I was going to tack to avoid an island and he said I'd never pass it. I did it anyway, as I tried to think what I would have done if he wasn't there. He was right, and then some, but I felt I learned more from doing it my way and getting it wrong. I just had to tack a couple more times.

I accepted the shouting, and it was pretty mild shouting, tbh, as I'd read that the tutor would try and stress you. But I do agree strongly with your first point, which was I expected more teaching. I think the people who were doing ther CC would agree even more strongly, as they were expected to have no prior knowledge at all, which was true.

Ultimately, it's an opinion thing. I see a trainer as a facilitator. Someone who, using whatever methods, and probably a combination of methods, teaches the student as much as possible. I think this tutor was maybe limited in the teaching methods he employed, and I'm not sure everyone got everything they could have from the course.

Just my uneducated opinion.

 

[wotayottie]

Some of the tasks you were asked to do were Yachtmaster not Day Skipper. Your Instructor is not a good one if he allows the standard to creep up like this - though I must admit that it is difficult to pitch the courses exactly right and the RYA arent a great help in doing this. problem is that whilst some people respond to this macho instruction style, others are crushed by it

 

[bluedragon]

I spent a lot of time in and around around sailing schools at one point in time, and one thing I observed is that often the "new" instructors (or even those that didn't have their instructor ticket yet) were given Day Skipper / Comp Crew courses to run. The more experienced ones did CS and YM prep. This didn't necessarily mean a "poor" instructor...some newly qualified ones were very good, but if you've just passed a gruelling YM Instructor exam, there MIGHT be a tendency to apply those same criteria to a DS candidate?? Just a thought...