Yacht master exam: mileage evidence; and nonworking ship's log

[BelleSerene]

I've finally taken the plunge and booked myself a Yachtmaster (Offshore) exam for a few weeks' time. Would be grateful for a couple of bits of advice.

1 For most of the past ten years I've used the log book only on major passages: cross-channel, over to Holland. Often not even if I'm sailing from the Solent round to London. I use a waterproof pocket notebook on deck and keep the usual sort of pilotage notes, tidal calculations, EPs in that. These days, I generally only transfer even those to the log book for the sake of a record. Life's just too short, and the say I sail I'm on deck keeping watch. Even when I mark up a chart across the channel I don't want to spend longer than I need over the chart table.

But now an examiner is going to look for evidence. I'm pretty confident that on asking me about what I've done and how, he'll realise I'm not b**lsh***ing and perhaps even give me credit for a practical, unbureaucratic approach. But will he? It certainly goes against the grain to spend some hours laboriously regenerating a log of major passages: that feels like faking it.

2 Secondly, the ship's log (Raymarine ST60 tridata unit) has been nonworking for some years. Every time you power off, it resets to 13,236 nm! So the log works on passage but frankly there's a safety issue there if I should lose power for a while. Ought I really to spend money on replacing the unit (no, it doesn't have an internal memory battery) before the exam - or not?

Many thanks!

 

[oldsalt]

For my Yachtmaster, I had no logbooks from previous voyages. No problem, I just supplied a list of voyages and approximate dates. The examiner will soon find out if you are BS-ing him by a few simple questions.

My boat had a broken depth sounder which only worked intermittently. Not perfect, but I explained the problem and showed what I would do to check depths etc. Again, no problem as long as I understood the issue. Why don't you temporarily wire up 12v of dry cells to the log prior to the exam?

 

[Martin_J]

Sounds like you have done enough and are feeling happy enough that you already have...

As to the trip log resetting.. We note our trip distance in the paper log every hour (or at least we try to whilst on passage). If it were to reset at any point then it would only be that hour that showed a discrepancy in the log. All the other hours sailed would be good so I'd not take it as an issue and you'd easily be able to work out the missing hour sailed. As oldsalt says - you've lived with it all this time. Concentrate on other things that you don't already know if you want to do something beforehand...

Enjoy...

 

[Martin_J]

As an additional thought.. You don't really want to start pulling out instruments now and potentially disturb other wires which then cause other issues (that you don't find out about until during your exam).

 

[oldsalt]

As an additional thought.. You don't really want to start pulling out instruments now and potentially disturb other wires which then cause other issues (that you don't find out about until during your exam).

Very true and good advice...

 

[Skylark]

As I understand it, the log is to demonstrate your breadth of experience. Typically to show a range of ports and harbours visited, sailing in a range of weather conditions and so on. It's not meant to show chart working.

The RYA personal sailing logbook serves as an example of format.

It shouldn't be too difficult to note your past 10 years of relevant experience from what you've written.

With regard to your log (distance) problem, in your own words you believe it's a potential safety issue so why not fix it? Surely an exam should be a catalyst for fixing broken kit.

Good luck with the exam.

 

[Gwylan]

Made a simple spreadsheet - where & whene started, arrived, via, time elapsed, who crew and 'comments' - like weather, bust thungs, events.

Your capacity will show in the first 10 minutes, whether you want it to or not!
Remember to disconnect the shore electricity!

I'd disconnect the log and have a good method of recording the distance travelled - simple, reliable GPS will do that and more for you. We record the distance every hour on the log in case we get the 'you have perfomed an illegal....' message.

 

[Bob Stay]

.... We record the distance every hour on the log in case we get the 'you have perfomed an illegal....' me ssage.

Who from? Illegal what? Qué? Do what?

To OP, YM examiner will soon extract your experience verbally in the absence of any book so don't worry.

 

[oldbilbo]

We can all spot bu*****rs, a mile off. So can the RYA's yottie Examiners - who are ordinary folk once out of their characteristic costumes ( no, some are extraordinary folk! )

It's likely you'll have been to a couple of places s/he hasn't, so s/he will ask you about 'em out of interest. And s/he'll probably ask you about a couple of places known well.... which makes sense, doesn't it?

Apart from a couple of oddballs singularly lacking in that department, all the RYA Examiners I've encountered in 40-odd years propping up a corner of a yacht club bar ( hey, that's ambiguous! ) have had sense in spades. As you might expect.

If you've been there and done that, in accord with the eminently reasonably guidelines on 'prior experience', then there should be no issues at all. May I suggest you consider what you know well, what you know not so well, and have a think about those areas.

When I 'stood up to be counted' a number of years ago, my close-quarters monohull boat handling was less than inspiring, for I'd been sailing multis for the previous dozen years, but I'd identified and worked on it. John Goode's PBO-published 'Handling Under Sail ( and Power )' series of booklets were - and remain - superb guides.

Beg, borrow or steal....! :encouragement:

 

[lpdsn]

+ 1 for just putting your experience down in a spreadsheet and printing that out as a log book.

My experience with the Coastal Skipper was that the examiner didn't look at the log book of any candidate and just made his mind up based on what he saw.

For the YM exam there was about an hour going through my log book and asking questions. It was almost a chat rather than a cross-examination but he was obviously checking my understanding of places and the things to consider when sailing there with his own understanding. He knew a lot more than you'd learn from just reading the almanac. Interestingly, he didn't ask about some trips and I guessed these were where I'd been somewhere he didn't know well.

So if you're not fibbing, don't worry about it. I'd say both were pretty astute and would've caught me out if I were bu!!$£**g.

Not sure about the instrumentation. I'd say don't worry. Make frequent log entries so if it does go down you can demonstrate to the examiner how you cope with it.

 

[laika]

I'd disconnect the log and have a good method of recording the distance travelled - simple, reliable GPS will do that and more for you.

Is blind nav still on the syllabus? Somehow I don't think they'd let you use GPS for that

 

[john_morris_uk]

Is blind nav still on the syllabus? Somehow I don't think they'd let you use GPS for that

Blind nav is still on the syllabus. If you haven't got a working log you'd better practice estimating speed through the water and mug up use of speed times distance tables? No guarantee you will be asked to do blind nav. 90% of what you are asked to do is at the discretion of the examiner.

+ 1 for just putting your experience down in a spreadsheet and printing that out as a log book.

My experience with the Coastal Skipper was that the examiner didn't look at the log book of any candidate and just made his mind up based on what he saw.

For the YM exam there was about an hour going through my log book and asking questions. It was almost a chat rather than a cross-examination but he was obviously checking my understanding of places and the things to consider when sailing there with his own understanding. He knew a lot more than you'd learn from just reading the almanac. Interestingly, he didn't ask about some trips and I guessed these were where I'd been somewhere he didn't know well.

So if you're not fibbing, don't worry about it. I'd say both were pretty astute and would've caught me out if I were bu!!$£**g.

Not sure about the instrumentation. I'd say don't worry. Make frequent log entries so if it does go down you can demonstrate to the examiner how you cope with it.

As an examiner, my advice is not to go overboard on log books. It's all self certification anyway. When I meet candidates I am required to check they have the relevant experience to take the exam. I usually have a chat about their previous experience and often don't look at their log book at all. (It could all be made up...). In twenty five years of examining, I'm struggling to remember a candidate who didn't name a port or three that I've sailed into. You soon know if they're trying it on.... It also becomes evident very quickly as soon as they start to take charge of a crew and drive the boat.

 

[marklucas]

As stated above, I didn't have a logbook, so simply bought an RYA one for the exam and stuck an Excel spreadsheet to the first page. The examiner was perfectly happy with this.

The examiner is not there to catch you out but to test your all round abilities - the most important of which is how to run a crewed boat. On that note, and as it sounds as if you will be doing it on your own boat, make sure you have a couple of trusted crew with you who know the boat and can complete requests competently (although it doesn't matter if things go wrong - it's how you cope that does).

If the examiner feels you are a little weak in one area they may ask you to demonstrate that aspect in another environment - close quarter maneuvering typically comes top of that list.

FWIW, I did mine on a shared boat with 2 other candidates - we only did 8 hours skippering each, and from a 6PM start on a Friday night we were all done and dusted by 7PM on the Saturday, ready for a celebratory dinner.

A couple of extra points: you will most likely be down below when the man overboard happens (this is to test when you come back up that you are still wind aware); don't be afraid to provide a spoken commentary occasionally e.g. you need to head to the leeward side of a channel to create enough room to tack and position for windward mooring - this is fine but mentioning it as you do it just demonstrates you have it all under control [bit like the commentary in an IAM test if you're done one].

Good luck and enjoy - you will learn something I am sure.

 

[mattonthesea]

As a lecturer, and so an assessor too, for 23 years, I was very impressed by the YMO assessment. If we got something wrong then the examiner would give us a chance to correct it (apart from the one who tried to take us down the jaws of a container ship)! And by wrong I mean not the way we did things but the way we approached things. So if you are happy in the way that you run your boat then so will they be. If you have a way of dealing with your log going off then that will be fine. Throwing breadcrumbs off the bow works. I keep several post-it notes to add rule markers so I can estimate distance run from speed and plot this as a sticky line on the chart. (make sense?)

One of the candidates had little tidal experience so had made up some to fit the criteria. In the exam, firstly he approached the destination directly and so ended up motoring because we were downwind and down tide. Secondly, he went downwind of the approach to drop anchor and thirdly he made the same mistake again when picking up a mooring under sail. That wasn't coincidental that he got the second two tasks.

Your log book is incidental. Your examiner will be able to 'hear' what is true in the chats. Don't be fooled; they are not just chats but a keen assessment of your knowledge and experience. They are also clever in putting you just out of your comfort zone. Imagine you have just done a boisterous channel crossing with a tired crew; then, for whatever reason, you have to alter course to a port that you have never been to. That is what I felt like towards the end of the assessment.

So if you have the experience and breadth of knowledge and the ability to do this then the log book and the instrument means by which you ensure it are not an issue.

Good luck and let us know

 

[Uricanejack]

A little bit of set and drift

On the off chance I was to give it a go on my own boat
A vessel with a log which gave up quite some time ago. Is there a minimum equipment list for boats to qualify
I don't have plotters and fancy gizmos requiring imput
I also have a pole but the spiniker is in the shed under lots of stuff
I suppose he might expect me to fix the port side light
And have a relatively new clean chart without to many coffee stains or mildew

Or I I charter a boat for the day knowing ahead of time what's on board might not be so easy unless it's a school boat used for exams regularly


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[prv]

On the off chance I was to give it a go on my own boat
A vessel with a log which gave up quite some time ago. Is there a minimum equipment list for boats to qualify

With the caveat that I am not an instructor and have never taken (or crewed on) a Yachtmaster exam...

I believe there is a minimum equipment list, but it's mostly about emergency gear rather than navigation etc. If you can sail and navigate your boat effectively then I would have thought that would be sufficient. Expect your methods to be probed a bit if they're unconventional, though.

I don't have plotters and fancy gizmos requiring imput

I imagine many instructors would see that as a positive

Not because they're luddites, but because it's easier to see whether someone can really navigate if they have to do it all by hand.

I also have a pole but the spiniker is in the shed under lots of stuff

Certainly no need for a spinnaker.

I suppose he might expect me to fix the port side light

Since that's a legal requirement, I expect it would come under the requirement for a "sound and seaworthy yacht" or words to that effect.

And have a relatively new clean chart without to many coffee stains or mildew

I don't know what the attitude is to chart currency. I update Ariam's each spring; my dad did his Yachtmaster Coastal in her earlier this year so I made sure I got them done before that. Although I'm sure corrections dated last year would have more than satisfied the examiner, so many boats don't seem to bother at all.

Or I I charter a boat for the day knowing ahead of time what's on board might not be so easy unless it's a school boat used for exams regularly

In the UK, a charter boat will by law have all the sorts of things that the RYA require. Certainly at least some examiners make a distinction between candidates on chartered boats and those on their own. My dad's examiner is known for testing own-boat candidates quite thoroughly on their boat's systems, what is connected where, how the battery system works, whether they understand their engine, do they have appropriate spares on board, etc. We see posts here where people ask about battery switches and suchlike, and it turns out they haven't the foggiest idea how their own boat works. That's not Yachtmaster-level seamanship, so it seems to me fair to test it. Whereas in a boat chartered the previous day, it's quite reasonable to have only a general idea how typical boat systems are arranged and not the quirks of this particular one (modern charter boats rarely have quirks anyway).

Pete

 

[marklucas]

As long as the examiner doesn't think it will sink then I think you will be fine e.g. he / she will still be alive afterwards.

Remember this an examination of your ability to safely and effectively manage and navigate a sailing vessel.

I once had to sail a 49' from Alderney to Gosport where all 3 GPS systems were dead and we ran out of fuel as the guage was broken (full). We still made it (although had to request permission from QHM to enter Portsmouth under sail). This is the sort of thing you need to be prepared for. Even sailed onto the pontoon.

Forget GPS and chart plotters for the exam. If you can't do it the old fashioned way then you can't do it.

 

[BelleSerene]

Forget GPS and chart plotters for the exam. If you can't do it the old fashioned way then you can't do it.

The ship's log has nothing to do with GPS.

 

[BelleSerene]

Thanks to all for the advice which was very useful.

I did the exam aboard Belle Serene last week. I took the advice to make a simple table of the main passages I'd done and everything else just lumped into annual mileage, together with distances run, number of qualifying passages and number of nights at sea. The examiner questioned me on details of a couple of passages, and this one-pager sufficed perfectly well. And as for the log, I explained the boat's quirk and that for safety's sake a log that worked while the electronics were on was fine and that in the event it stopped working I'd just have to do distance run by time and speed - which I had to use a lot of anyway in the blind navigation exercise!

It was a searching but rewarding day, and I'm delighted to say I passed.

I don't think I would have done - certainly not decisively - without a day's tuition from an excellent instructor beforehand: having just some experience of the kind of blind navigation ('RYA fog'!) and night pilotage exercises, and some hints from an existing examiner, was I felt invaluable.

I got what I wanted from the exercise - which was more learning and pointers to things I could do differently in future.

Many thanks to all for the advice.

 

[lpdsn]

It was a searching but rewarding day, and I'm delighted to say I passed.

Congratulations.