sail sail
Active member
Has anyone found any good YouTube channels to brush up on nav skills, or other RYA theory-type lessons?
What are the best YouTube Channels for learning/practicing RYA theory?
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wonkywinch
Well-known member
https://www.youtube.com/@CasualNavigationAcademy
Otherwise it's a paid course with someone like Navathome if it's plotting and nav you need to brush up.
Otherwise it's a paid course with someone like Navathome if it's plotting and nav you need to brush up.
Whaup367
Active member
YouTube is a shit place to learn stuff.
wonkywinch
Well-known member
Can't agree with that. I found it great for fixing obscure faults with my washing machine, car, network, lawnmower and even the boat. Someone somewhere has experienced the same problem and found the time to document it.
You Tube is like a Haynes manual/encyclopedia but with better and moving pictures.
Sandy
Well-known member
Can you provide any evidence for that statement?
A number of well known sailing people have done training stuff on YouTube. Duncan Wells comes to mind.
BobnLesley
Well-known member
YouTube's like everywhere else on the internet; including here: A valuable resource provided that you're at least skilled/competent enough to sort the wheat from the chaff and to know/accept your own limitations. Just this week I've rebuilt a motorbike gearbox for someone whose own attempts had been 'screwed-up by some idiot on YouTube'. Before completing the task I checked out the channel myself and found that its advice was fine save for a single minor and very obvious error in the commentary and that wasn't where the owner had gone wrong anyway; his rebuild had gone to rat-shit long before then.
jac
Well-known member
I would disagree wholeheartedly. A lot of manufacturers put regular material online showing how to use their kit, many places have pilotage guides and of course there is a boatload (sorry) of material of varying quality where one may need to be selective in choosing what lesson to learn where
Of course if your youtube viewing consists of hot babes in small bikinis in the tropics then it may not have the most educational content suggested via the algorithm
rotrax
Well-known member
First Mate and I educated ourselves at home using RYA 'Navigation' a brilliant book which has questions to be dealt with after each section and has the answers tucked away for self marking.
Once we were happy with our knowlege we took practical courses which reinforced what we had taught ourselves.
Once we were happy with our knowlege we took practical courses which reinforced what we had taught ourselves.
Whaup367
Active member
Of course not- this is the internet, it's just my personal and subjective opinion.
I get very frustrated trying to find useful information on youtube- there's a lot of superficial information, badly presented and lacking key detail, often aimed at newbies. If you want to solve a problem, often the video doesn't cover the issue you have, just the videographers experience which may or may not be relevant. It's not easy to determine the level of knowledge of the contributor.
Watching the videos is time-consuming, there's no index for important details and it's often hard to find if the information you need is covered, even by skimming the whole thing.
For broader information, the material is covered at a fixed pace (not adapting to the student)... skip ahead and you may miss something useful, watch it all and it's a waste of time. There's very limited opportunity to calibrate the teaching against a knowledge base or style of learning.
So it's no substitute for a good book or manual, and no substitute for an actual teacher/instructor/coach.
However, it's "free" and accessible so there is that.
Yes, and video is a very useful tool to introduce a topic, offer entertainment and supplement other learning. YouTube is a good place to store and access those videos but frustrating as a reference or guide to learning a topic.
Feel free to ignore my wingeing... I'm not chasing engagement, I am just venting because when I want to find out about something I usually get search results prioritising shallow video introductions that take ages to tell me bloody obvious stuff I think I already know, instead of referencing proper documentation that's out there somewhere but buried in advertisement-heavy chaff.
BITD, a Haynes manual had an index, pictures and diagrams, was comprehensive and was structured. You could flip to the part you needed and be confident that the important information was included.
baart
Active member
You may find the below websites useful -
Sailtrain: Training for RYA Competent Crew, Day Skipper, Coastal Skipper and Yachtmaster sailing courses.
RYA Dayskipper & Yachtmaster Shorebased Courses - Penzance Sailing Club
All videos from PZSC here -
and if interested in Colregs this may help -
Sailtrain: Training for RYA Competent Crew, Day Skipper, Coastal Skipper and Yachtmaster sailing courses.
RYA Dayskipper & Yachtmaster Shorebased Courses - Penzance Sailing Club
All videos from PZSC here -
and if interested in Colregs this may help -
Sandy
Well-known member
You need to be more selective in your viewing.
I could argue all the same points about books, magazines and even instructors.
YouTube is one of the tools that is useful to have. Used carefully, it is a great asset.
During lockdown I decided to finally get round to learning astronavigation and found
Really, useful to get my head round the basics and set out in such a way that the concepts were simple to digest. I had done astronavigation at school with the truly awful Mary Blewitt book, opinions will differ from me on that, and had been totally bamboozled. Needless to say I had not picked up a sextant in a very long time.
In the past I have sailed with a truly outstanding ocean skipper, both in terms of sailing ability and willingness to pass on their knowledge. On one passage I was recommended just one book. David Birch's Celestial Navigation: A Complete Home Study Course and am now 'competent' in the topic. Best not look up his YouTube channel as it leaves me wanting to slash my wrists, as he rambles on and on like ageing professor.
Apologies to the OP as the the scope of astronavigation is above what you are asking about.
ylop
Well-known member
Whaup367 - sounds like your problem is actually not knowing how to use YouTube very well! Certainly it is probably compounded by lots of content not being very well indexed etc - but it can be. Some content providers prefer to produce lots of small bits of content “sections of a chapter” in your book analogy rather than one giant video with bookmarks for the sections. But I’d say the problem is not YouTube being bad at teaching you stuff but you being bad at understanding YouTube is not a book! Given most RYA shore based stuff is an instructor at the front with some power point slides and then some practice problems for yourself I can’t see any reason why (other than commercial reasons!) that content can’t be on a YouTube channel. It’s a bit harder to force yourself to learn that way than in a classroom where some teacher-student interaction will hightlight if it’s going in. Indeed the online courses seem to be pretty much this, with a little bit of remote support. If you think you can learn from a book I don’t see why you can’t learn from a video except for the frequent lack of an index - but actually it would probably be a good exercise in learning / keeping concentration to build your own index (through note taking) as you watched so it was easy to jump back to the interesting bits!
B27
Well-known member
Youtube has gone to the dogs.
It is now a very slow place to find what you need.
There's some amusing stuff there and some useful stuff among the dross, but it can be hard to find.
For theory, I'd suggest getting a book or two and trying a few tests and exercises.
The best way to learn a lot of the theory is to get out on a boat.
Learn by doing.
And if you're aiming to pass the exam, you may find it works well to learn by doing a few exam-style exercises.
But different people learn in different ways.
It is now a very slow place to find what you need.
There's some amusing stuff there and some useful stuff among the dross, but it can be hard to find.
For theory, I'd suggest getting a book or two and trying a few tests and exercises.
The best way to learn a lot of the theory is to get out on a boat.
Learn by doing.
And if you're aiming to pass the exam, you may find it works well to learn by doing a few exam-style exercises.
But different people learn in different ways.
Dellquay13
Well-known member
I agree about YT being hard to quickly assess for suitability for your needs, or for concisely finding the germane parts. Give me a document with an index and a publisher who has had it fact checked every time.
GHA
Well-known member
lustyd
Well-known member
You’re drastically overstating the quality of books, manuals and instructors. As with YouTube when you get a quality one they’re amazing but I’ve had dire examples of all three. The workshop manual for my Volvo Penta, for example, is missing an enormous amount of useful information that I had to fill in using YouTube! I’m quite certain we’ve all bought terrible books too - Tim Bartletts celestial nav book comes to mind as it’s such a stark contrast from his navigation book which is excellent.
I won’t name any terrible instructors or teachers but I’ve had too many.
ImpImp
Member
Internet fora are populated by ignorant people who make bold statements on things about which they no little or nothing.
(Other crude generalisations are available)
