VHF course help
- Thread starter lustyd
- Start date
lustyd
Well-Known Member
It would be, if there was a clear path to assessment!
lustyd
Well-Known Member
Thanks unfortunately we’re Plymouth based with no sensible transport options (a train to Southampton would be hundreds!). Interesting that they also state £30 as the cost. Someone needs to sort this industry out as all of these links are extremely misleading.
lustyd
Well-Known Member
I imagine it would lead to a long and frustrating conversation. If they had the info, surely they’d put it online on the VHF exam page for customers to use?
Perhaps you could feed that back through contacts, you often defend the organisation here.
ylop
Well-Known Member
There's definitely clubs all around the country not following that as the only route. That doesn't mean they never run formal courses but they have regular "supervised" practice sessions which may or may not have a particular theme / plan etc. If you need to convince someone call them "skill consolidation sessions". If your club has a development officer I'd expect them to be talking to other clubs about this sort of stuff.
Correct - there is not a specific requirement, but rather the question is are your people competent and capable. The easiest way to show that is with the recognised qualifications. That alone might not be enough - First Aid is an obvious extension, but having participated in some club continuing development training that ensured they understand club procedures etc would seem logical to me. There is total inconsistency around the country whether PB2 or SB is the "expectation" never mind anything beyond that. If you think about it logically though no governing body can say "just wing it, if you've never killed anyone before it will probably be fine".
For most of those products the RYA gets nothing or virtually nothing from running a course. The dinghy courses aren't like the VHF course where there's a fee paid to the RYA. Your club can run those courses FOC if it wants to.
There is - they are called clubs! Individual clubs have different cultures, you don't have to stay at one you don't like. Some clubs like the structure of training, some are race focussed and some are downright chaotic.
Simple - turn your session into a "cruise", a "fun race" or a "come and try session". I honestly believe from what I've seen elsewhere its much more likely you appear in the RYA newsletter as an example of a great club than you get a letter telling you that everything should be formal courses. You need a little structure if you are going to have kids on the water without parents just so you know where they are, who to contact in an emergency, etc.
lustyd
Well-Known Member
Right. Booking her in with Plymouth Sailing School and I’ll keep my youthful looking photo and cert from 2007 
total £175 which is much more palatable.
Apologies, this thread was at the grumpy end of a lot of failed research. RYA need to buck up!!
total £175 which is much more palatable.Apologies, this thread was at the grumpy end of a lot of failed research. RYA need to buck up!!
capnsensible
Well-Known Member
Well I did post a link in #61.....
capnsensible
Well-Known Member
Enjoy your course!
Mark-1
Well-Known Member
TBH, that's exactly the kind of useful advice I'd be looking for. "We've checked and there has been no case where someone was convicted after sensible cursory checks on competence of Patrol Boat Crews so you're likely to be fine".
Is that true? I haven't checked but I'm pretty sure the RYA do take some payment, although I'm questioning that now.
Anyway, no major quibbles with anything you've written but it does all come down to "If you exclude the RYA from your Junior events all your problems go away." Which I wouldn't argue with. (In defence of the RYA WRT to volunteer Instructors, both PB2 and "Advanced Seamanship" can be done with very simple and quick assessments. But again, once you exclude all your best teachers and sailors because they tend to work full time you find half the candidates aren't confident enough to do it that way and if even one person doesn't feel able to do the quick assessment then nobody can for reasons of time.)
ylop
Well-Known Member
There is a course finder option on the website - it seems to be broken. Probably a call to RYA HQ would get you some suggestions but virtually all RYA Shorebased Schools will do VHF course/exam and if they don't most are likely to be very helpful and suggest where local is good.
But google will find you: RYA Courses – Horizons Plymouth who are a charity rather than a for profit school (price listed at £135 inc exam - but as a charity may be out of date!).
Sea Skills Training and Service in Plymouth (£160 "all inclusive")
Pick up the phone and talk to them.
ylop
Well-Known Member
Nobody is ever going to say that. Realistically, a "conviction" is only going to arise after some serious incident - you can be sure that if something bad had happened the boating community would know and if a prosecution resulted we would also know. BUT that doesn't mean there couldn't be a prosecution in the future - you mitigate that by having competent people less likely to mash a child and having clear processes for showing they are competent so if an accident does happen you can show its not general organisational incompetence. Moreover even if someone like the HSE did an inspection and issued an enforcement notice then I think the RYA would (a) be saying - you MUST do this (rather than we advise) and (b) would have made the "defect" very clear to all clubs.
Each RTC is required to have an operating manual - that should include a section describing what your local assessment and circumstances are. The manual is subject to review by the RYA at its inspections, if you don't do what it says in your manual you are asking for trouble in the event of an incident. If you are doing what you say but the process/rules you've created are a bit weak then the criticism will at least be shared by the RYA. Many clubs have their RTC Operating Manual Online - you can see what other clubs say they are doing / got away with telling the RYA they do: a quick google found one saying "PB2 + Club Safety Boat Induction OR RYA SB course"
That's my understanding - for youth sailing scheme courses, you pay an annual registration and inspection fee, not a per student or per course fee. You pay for certificates, log books etc - but we aren't talking serious revenue streams there.
Actually, I think it just makes them seem like they've gone away! If something bad happens I'd much rather be able to say "we are operating under the remit of our national governing body".
Mark-1
Well-Known Member
...and yet you can charter a RIB without PB2.
Seems plausible, and obviously certificates and log books are reasonable. I CBA to check.
Well races are, by definition, held under the remit of our national governing body. Which I've never really understood, what do they do if a non-affiliated club used the RRS? Send helicopters with missiles?
ylop
Well-Known Member
Good luck finding someone who would charter you a rib with no quals or other proof of competence.
That is exactly what they do. They have a fleet of apache’s sitting ready to go 24/7 just in case!
I have taken part in a dinghy race which was definitely not within the RRS. Toppers. Le monde start masts pre fitted but sails furled booms, rudders etc loose on top. Run down beach, rig boat, launch, sail round two bouys. Paddling etc allowed. Contact acceptable! Back to beach. First back to the dinghy shed is the winner.
Similarly: Dodgy ball (capsize if the ball hits your sail). And an elimination race with marks round an area to sail in close quarters, penalty turns required if their was a collision, eliminated if you leave the marked area. The marks are moved slowly closer together. Variations where you have to tack or gybe when a fog horn blows etc…
Silly fun stuff that builds boat handling capabilities, confidence etc - I am sure the RYA would approve even though it’s not in any official scheme.
st599
Well-Known Member
A non-affiliated club can't technically run a race under the RRS as the RRS requires the organising authority to be affiliated to a governing body. Whenever I've been on the organising committee for a regatta, the insurance required compliance with RRS, so the club had to be affiliated to be covered.
(RRS also requires boats to be entered by members of the RYA or an affiliated club - so presumably there may be a similar requirement for racing insurance)
mjcoon
Well-Known Member
Are you implying that if the examiner does not pass you he does not get paid? ;-)
capnsensible
Well-Known Member
barca nova
Active Member
yes
barca nova
Active Member
You obviously know the official rules and regs, though why the RYA stick to them I do not know. It would have been easy for them to run a simplified syllabus, and issue their own "radio ticket". Yes it wouldnt be an official licence but since Ofcom doesnt even try to enforce licencing, why does that matter? It would at least ensure that larger numbers of sailors would bother learning how to use the SRC radio. My experience of teaching the SRC course was that the major issue wasnt knowledge of GMDSS etc, which is largely irrelevant to the leisure sailor, but difficulty in getting their minds round what to say with mike in hand. Mike fright - odd when they rabbit away on mobile phones
The normal propagation distance of vhf from a small boat off the british shore doesnt cover most of those countries. And the interference problems that we get ( french fishing boats aside) are mostly down to people no having done any training at all because of such issues as cost.
This is a case where bureaucratic purity is getting in the way of a realistic system.
barca nova
Active Member
I used to do it FOC for fellow club members as indeed I did for the YM theory courses. The members obviously paid the RYA for the course materials etc.
dgadee
Well-Known Member
It is a rip off. And not needed.
I have had mine for 20 years and sailed abroad to Turkish waters and never once been asked to show it.
I organised the exam. 20 people, done in much less than a day, and the examiner went off as happy as Larry with his takings. I seem to remember only 3 or 4 training rigs. Most of us never touched them. Didn't do us any harm.
