Yachtmaster Coastal and Dayskipper at once?

[Marlin]

I've been away from yacht sailing for a while since my dad sadly sold his Moody. I've got 1400nm in my log so plenty for YM Coastal but a fair way short of the requirement for YM Offshore. I have been dinghy sailing meanwhile and learned a lot about boat handling. I had hoped to get Offshore but unable to increase my mileage before my existing log entries expire for YM purposes. I don't actually plan to use the YM commercially, but never say never, though meanwhile I just want to be able to charter. As and when I charter though I am likely to do so with unqualified crew, so need the charter firm to accept my qualification as good enough alone rather than topping up points with Comp Crew or similar also aboard.

I have a friend from my dinghy club who wants to sample yacht sailing and potentially charter also. He's no yachting experience but has Dayskipper theory. He's a very experienced and competent dinghy sailor, plus a professional engineer so has a head for figures and mechanics, so I am sure he will have no troubles, but he's adamant he wants to do Dayskipper rather than Coastal Skipper.

I've approached a couple of training schools but they are saying the RYA discourage mixing Dayskipper and Coastal Skipper. What's less clear is the mix of Day Skipper and YM Coastal. It seems some schools consider CS and YM Coastal as equivalent - is that right, particularly with regard to chartering?

Any suggestions of a school which might be flexible with YM students concurrent with DS? Pretty flexible on destination.

 

[john_morris_uk]

I've been away from yacht sailing for a while since my dad sadly sold his Moody. I've got 1400nm in my log so plenty for YM Coastal but a fair way short of the requirement for YM Offshore. I have been dinghy sailing meanwhile and learned a lot about boat handling. I had hoped to get Offshore but unable to increase my mileage before my existing log entries expire for YM purposes. I don't actually plan to use the YM commercially, but never say never, though meanwhile I just want to be able to charter. As and when I charter though I am likely to do so with unqualified crew, so need the charter firm to accept my qualification as good enough alone rather than topping up points with Comp Crew or similar also aboard.

I have a friend from my dinghy club who wants to sample yacht sailing and potentially charter also. He's no yachting experience but has Dayskipper theory. He's a very experienced and competent dinghy sailor, plus a professional engineer so has a head for figures and mechanics, so I am sure he will have no troubles, but he's adamant he wants to do Dayskipper rather than Coastal Skipper.

I've approached a couple of training schools but they are saying the RYA discourage mixing Dayskipper and Coastal Skipper. What's less clear is the mix of Day Skipper and YM Coastal. It seems some schools consider CS and YM Coastal as equivalent - is that right, particularly with regard to chartering?

Any suggestions of a school which might be flexible with YM students concurrent with DS? Pretty flexible on destination.

YM Coastal is the new name for the old Coastal Skipper.

And yes, the RYA don't allow schools to run DS students on the same boat as YM Coastal students. Mixed courses are a thorny subject and a source of much angst.

 

[Topcat47]

Interesting! it's been a while, but my CC and DS courses were both mixed, i.e. Both were run concurrently together with students of both crewing the yacht. My Coastal Skipper was also run with a YM. How times change.....

 

[prv]

Interesting! it's been a while, but my CC and DS courses were both mixed

I think mixing Comp Crew with Day Skipper is normal - after all, the prospective skipper needs a crew to lead. Presumably you can also mix Comp Crew with Coastal. It’s trying to teach two flavours of skipper at once that’s apparently not on.

Pete

 

[dom]

I think mixing Comp Crew with Day Skipper is normal - after all, the prospective skipper needs a crew to lead. Presumably you can also mix Comp Crew with Coastal. It’s trying to teach two flavours of skipper at once that’s apparently not on.

Pete

Never even knew there were two flavours!

 

[rotrax]

First Mate did her DS practical at the same time and on the same boat that I did my CS practical.

There was one other DS candidate and two CC's.

Because we had a great Instructor/Examiner and were all mature-youngest was 30-it all worked out fine

I think I passed in the first morning.

The Instructor asked me for a passage plan into the Yealm from Plymouth with a 2.5 metre draught boat. The tidal calculations were as bit tricky, but otherwise straightforward.

She liked it, and that seemed to be that. I was used-watched and listened to by the Instructor for a short while-to help the CC's with their knots, symbol recognition and sail trim.

The instructor dealt with the DS candidates herself.

It worked very well.

 

[[70521]]

Any suggestions of a school which might be flexible with YM students concurrent with DS? Pretty flexible on destination.

I retook my DS as I had been away from sailing for a couple of decades with Plymouth Sailing School. At the time they were happy to run YM and DS on the one boat. OK, it was January and perhaps customers were few and far between. Since then there has been a change in ownership and Simon Jinks of Searegs is now in charge and things may have changed.

I actually liked being onboard with YM candidates onboard it gave me a clear view of the standard that I need to aim at and being part of a crew that is working under exam conditions is very different to a normal trip out. Saying that I did have a lot of "ancient experience", we were just moving to cardinals back then, and as part of the day job I deliver training.

I don't agree with the RYA's policy of splitting the training into two segments, from what I've seen YM is all about crew management and being able to manage a crew with mix abilities is a good way of evidencing to an examiner that you have that skill.

 

[laika]

I did what was advertised as a "YM Prep week" to find myself on a boat with 3 DS students and a CC. The instructor was excellent and dealt with it as well as he personally could have but I think it was profit-over-quality on the part of the sailing school management who schedule it as it didn't work well. Part of what you get from a multi-person course is watching others doing the same exercises as you and learning from their successes and mistakes. By a YM prep week you should already be comfortable with boat handling under motor so watching others picking up a mooring or doing MOB with the motor on doesn't give you as much as watching others doing the same manoeuvres under sail. As the only YM candidate on a full course, YM-level stuff is only being done 20% of the time.

I recognise of course that the OP is asking about the coastal skipper course which is somewhat different to YM prep and I don't recall ever doing. I can see that CS and DS could work on a small course if the CS and DS were friends, especially if the DS was happy to be stretched a bit. You don't want to be the only 6th former in a large class of 2nd years though

 

[iLens]

Your friend would miss out if he tried to do his DS on the same boat as your YM. Both courses have lots of practical navigation and boat handling, but the YM tasks are obliviously more challenging and take longer. Even if you could find a school willing to take you both, there wouldn't be enough time for the instructor to set tasks for both of you and the other YM student(s) on board.

 

[lpdsn]

I don't agree with the RYA's policy of splitting the training into two segments, from what I've seen YM is all about crew management and being able to manage a crew with mix abilities is a good way of evidencing to an examiner that you have that skill.

I'm inclined to agree. Having a competent first mate makes a skipper's job considerably easier, so a YM Candidate having a couple of YM Candidates as crew is going to have a far less testing time than he would with a couple of novices as crew. However I guess their thinking is that it must disadvantage the DS Candidates.

 

[SimonFa]

I suppose the issue with having DS and CS on the same course is that the CS needs a 60m trip and that's dead time for a DS who needs to concentrate on sailing tasks linked to known waters. My CS course was 2CS and two CC which worked quite well.

I went on a school boat out of Falmouth for fun which had a CC and CS, the CC didn't enjoy it because we went to Salcombe, SPP and back to Falmouth, that was more than she'd bargained for and left as soon as we got back. My CC on the other hand was with a CS, and two crew who were YMs along for the ride. We went Swanick, Poole, Weymouth, East Cowes and Solent stuff. I loved it and it got me hooked. I reckon if I'd done the standard CC course nobbing around in the Solent for 5 days I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it.

 

[lpdsn]

I suppose the issue with having DS and CS on the same course is that the CS needs a 60m trip and that's dead time for a DS who needs to concentrate on sailing tasks linked to known waters.

That's not normal. The CS should've got the 60m trips in beforehand rather than during the prep week for the exam.

 

[SimonFa]

It was the week course with assessment, not the commercial ticket exam. Also, I've just checked and it doesn't say 60nm on the week assessment but at the time I'm sure there was something about skippering and nav for long passage.

 

[lpdsn]

It was the week course with assessment, not the commercial ticket exam. Also, I've just checked and it doesn't say 60nm on the week assessment but at the time I'm sure there was something about skippering and nav for long passage.

Ah, OK, that one. I guess they did change the name of the exam to avoid confusion so my fault for mixing them up. The exam isn't commercial though. I did it when it was CS and have never gone for commercial endorsement.

 

[SimonFa]

Ah, OK, that one. I guess they did change the name of the exam to avoid confusion so my fault for mixing them up. The exam isn't commercial though. I did it when it was CS and have never gone for commercial endorsement.

I think we’ve just summed up why there’s so much confusion around this title..