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

[Uricanejack]

Well done
Nice to hear the result.

 

[benjenbav]

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.

Very well done. It's a very good point that you and others make about having an instructor help beforehand.

For me, the most valuable preparation for the exam was securing a frank assessment of my strengths and weaknesses and then putting some effort into strengthening the weaknesses.

As an example, one of my strengths was also a weakness: my background was knocking about in boats in one form or another for quite a considerable number of years and generally actually or effectively on my own...So, I wasn't too shabby at missing underwater and dockside obstructions or at failing to get lost but, frankly, I was a bit hopeless at delegating to a crew. I worked on that...

 

[jwilson]

When I took Yachtmaster Offshore, as it was then, none of my own small boats had ever had a log. Or an echo sounder. Or an inboard engine. I'd sailed a few other boats with these expensive luxuries, but most of my sailing and navigating had been singlehanded in small boats. I had no formal paper record, but had listed most majorish passages. The practical section examiner passed me, saying I was bloody awful at manoeuvring under power, but could certainly sail. I think I'm still much the same - too much open waters and moorings, too little practice in marina berths.

The stressful bit about Yachtmaster for me was going to Cardiff Department of Trade to be examined on chartwork, when I got a three hour test involving a full size chart opened flat and questions like "You are steaming at 12 knots......" and needing to show answers derived from traverse tables. And tested on Morse, following a colour blindness test.

 

[awol]

Well done on passing but ....... what would be the point of the forum without a "but" ........ are you really saying that without a couple of hours tuition you might not have passed? Or, as it was a Certificate of Competence you were seeking, you were an incompetent skipper up until your pre-exam tuition and that, if you were to forget the pearls of wisdom bestowed your instructor, you would return to incompetence?

 

[BelleSerene]

Well done on passing but ....... what would be the point of the forum without a "but" ........ are you really saying that without a couple of hours tuition you might not have passed? Or, as it was a Certificate of Competence you were seeking, you were an incompetent skipper up until your pre-exam tuition and that, if you were to forget the pearls of wisdom bestowed your instructor, you would return to incompetence?

It's a good question! No, I didn't gain any fundamental competence in those few hours with an instructor: I don't think I could have done. But a few gems I credit her with, which (I'll never know but I guess) probably made some difference, were:
- using pictorial pilotage plans rather than line-by-line written steps
- easing tasks under pressure by preparing tidal curves for likely ports and pilotage plans in advance
- using transit lines and bearings on physical features to get around the place in the dark - in my case, the Solent which I know well so with one exception I have tended not to use transit lines in my normal navigation
- sailing confidently across shallows when I knew the height of tide permitted it, so the examiner could see I understood what was going on beneath the boat and differentiating me from those who, say, would always return from Cowes to Hamble by skirting or sitting in the shipping lane. So for example I did it over the bar at Hamble Point, over the Bramble Bank approaching HW and in pilotage after dark between the shallows there on the way back from Cowes.
- practising MOB under sail: frankly - and nothing I'm proud of - not something I had done before.

So yes, there is something of real skill there, but also something about letting the examiner see what I could do.

 

[GHA]

Another +1 on passing

I hopefully have my exam couple of weeks - how did you spruce up on lights, shapes and sounds?

Lights and shapes I'm not too bad on but awful with sound signals..

 

[ex-Gladys]

Another +1 on passing

I hopefully have my exam couple of weeks - how did you spruce up on lights, shapes and sounds?

If you haven't got it, Seaman's Guide to the Rules of the Road is very helpful. Something about the way they organise it that certainly helped me.
Lights and shapes I'm not too bad on but awful with sound signals..

 

[[163233]]

I hopefully have my exam couple of weeks - how did you spruce up on lights, shapes and sounds?

Lights and shapes I'm not too bad on but awful with sound signals..

The flash cards are very good, if a bit pricey.

"Vessel Lights" is a good android app for lights.

 

[BelleSerene]

Another +1 on passing

I hopefully have my exam couple of weeks - how did you spruce up on lights, shapes and sounds?

Lights and shapes I'm not too bad on but awful with sound signals..

As someone else has suggested, A Seaman's Guide to the Rules of the Road. It's a bit pedestrian but at least it applies a structure to learning it and it gives you repeat practice as you go through it. In fact, if you PM me and you're anywhere local you can have a copy of mine as I bought a second one for revision while I was sailing around the Channel Islands before my exam.

I actually found a couple of iPhone apps at least as helpful as that. Probably the best for me was Imray Rule & Signals, but I also have Rules of the Road by 'Safe Skipper', and Nav Rules on my phone. The Imray one is doubtless sufficient.

Of all of them, I would go with a decent iPhone app as the best way to get to the heart of what matters without all the clutter.

There's actually very little to the sound signals - the lights are far more involved.

It was clear to me that the Yachtmaster exam takes a very serious view of whether you understand the ColRegs, including lights, shapes and sounds. It's critical to understand when the normal, 'in any condition of visibility', rules are valid and when they go out of the window in favour of the 'restricted visibility' rules (rule 19).

A good trick was during the blind navigation exercise, when I was navigating us from the chart table in the presence of 'RYA fog' where the examiner and crew up on deck 'could not' see anything beyond 50m. He would appear in the companionway, tell me some sound signature he had ostensibly heard or lights he'd seen at some angle to the boat - 'just thought you might want to know' - and see if I correctly identified them and took the right evasive or stand-on action (which would of course entail me drifting somewhere my last calculation had not intended!) All but one or two of the encounters turned out to be imaginary; one was a tanker in the moving exclusion zone around the Solent Bramble bank. I believe a dangerous action or inaction would have failed me. It's all fun really - but you do need to know this stuff.

Good luck!

 

[lpdsn]

If you haven't got it, Seaman's Guide to the Rules of the Road is very helpful. Something about the way they organise it that certainly helped me.
Lights and shapes I'm not too bad on but awful with sound signals..

A very good recommendation.

 

[GHA]

As someone else has suggested, A Seaman's Guide to the Rules of the Road. It's a bit pedestrian but at least it applies a structure to learning it and it gives you repeat practice as you go through it. In fact, if you PM me and you're anywhere local you can have a copy of mine as I bought a second one for revision while I was sailing around the Channel Islands before my exam.

..........

Good luck!

Thanks for the kind offer, I'm a bit far south to pick it up.
I did find a load of saved Web Links and have a few apps so all should be fine

 

[Birdseye]

My experience was similar to old salt. Having not bothered to keep a log and not remembering much of what I had done, I simply made it up.

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.

 

[mattonthesea]

Well done
Nice to hear the result.

+1
Now you can add YMO to your signature