YachtMaster Coastal Course

[SteveyC]

Morning !
I’m thinking of doing my YM Coastal practical in the Solent this Summer. Has anyone had experience or recommend any companies ?

cheers ?️

 

[lustyd]

Just to clarify - you mean taking the exam? There isn't a YM Coastal course from what I can see

 

[SteveyC]

Yes. Taking the prep then followed by the exam. There are a few companies doing it..

 

[dehlerdave]

There used to be a coastal course which reduced the mileage requirements. Has that now disappeared?

 

[st599]

There's a Coastal Skipper Practical course which, if you've got the mileage, you can tack a Yachtmaster Coastal Exam on to the end of.

Last year the RYA allowed certain courses to sleep on shore, to manage the Covid risk. Not sure if Coastal was one of them.

If I were the OP, I'd ring a few companies (Flying Fish, Sunsail, Fairview, Solent Boat Training are all names I've heard from club members) to see what their summer plans are. Meeting with people outside your household indoors may be a bit later in summer than being allowed to meet outdoors, so you may want to aim for the latter half of the summer.

Not sure what the viability of a milebuilder passage will be this year. At the moment you couldn't sail to France to do it as they're not accepting non-essential travel from the UK.

 

[SteveyC]

There used to be a coastal course which reduced the mileage requirements. Has that now disappeared?

its 20 days 12 night hours and 400Nm if you’re coastal skipper(which I am ). Fancy the YM ticket now but not sure who to use ..

 

[Graham376]

its 20 days 12 night hours and 400Nm if you’re coastal skipper(which I am ). Fancy the YM ticket now but not sure who to use ..

I used Hamble School of Yachting 20+ years ago. Did the 5 day YM prep. practical course, followed by exam at weekend. Everything including food was included in price. RYA/MCA Yachtmaster Offshore Preparation & Exam | RYA Training Courses (hamble.co.uk)

 

[Fimacca]

solent boat training were good when I did a powerboat course for work. we were given bunks overnight on a bav 42 they had just bought.
apart from that the instructor kept yelling (nicely) faster, go faster at me..........he was only happy at 35 knts......
he knew I was a slow sail lover who was startled to go faster than 7 knots !

 

[rotrax]

HSY are a good and reliable company.

Reccomended.

I took Coastal Skipper Practical in 2008. Studied at home the Theory using the excellent RYA Yachtmaster textbook that included exam questions and answers.

Some time later IIRC, perhaps for image/sounding better, CS became Coastal Yachtmaster.

 

[laika]

I'd suggest having a chat with any prospective schools to ask how many people per boat and what the split is on the prep week with people doing other courses. When I did a "prep week" many years ago I was on a boat with 3 dayskipper candidates and one competent crew. Comp Crew are fine (and good for practicing skippering skills), but I don't think DS are optimal for your prep week: You learn by watching others try/succeed/fail as well as by doing and if what the others are doing are things you already know well (e.g. mob or picking up a mooring under engine) then you're not getting optimal benefit when it's "their turn". That's just my opinion: others may differ.

 

[capnsensible]

Top tip time!

Many people enter into a prep week thinking it's gonna teach it all. It doesn't. For both Yachtmaster Coastal and Yachtmaster Offshore, you should be fairly well practised at everything on the Coastal Practical course. It's worth going over that syllabus that's in your logbook, if you have one, or on the RYA website.

Plenty of revision can be done ashore. Particularly if you have taken the coastal theory course. Going over it all again may seem tedious but it's worth it.

On the practical front, most candidates for the exam benefit from a couple of weeks sailing before the prep time, just to get familiar with basic sailing and navigation, doing all the things you learnt but mostly don't trouble with anymore!

Best Book Ever. Yachtmaster Handbook by James Stevens. A great aid in understanding how the exams work.

Hope this helps.

 

[Kwik Decision]

I second capnsensible's advice - the prep course is to polish your existing skills, not to teach you stuff from scratch. Things like col regs should be properly revised before hand.

I'd recommend Bacchus Yachting, based at Hasler, Gosport, to do the prep and exam with; both their instructors and boats are excellent. They would also only have YM candidates (both Coastal and Offshore) on the boat for the duration, so you would spend all your time preping for the exam. I am however biased, as I've worked for them. Oh and my wife did her YM Offshore with them a couple of yrs ago, and was delighted.

 

[st599]

And find a guide to RADAR if you're not used to it - it's now on the must know for YM exam list

The last group form our club to do it needed the newer Training Charts to complete their passage plan - a bit of a pain to get hold of.

 

[Kwik Decision]

The last group form our club to do it needed the newer Training Charts to complete their passage plan - a bit of a pain to get hold of.

Training charts for an exam? I thought examiners asked candidates to prepare real passage plans. Certainly been the case with exams I've been involved with, so I make sure the cross channel charts are on board...

 

[Sandy]

They would also only have YM candidates (both Coastal and Offshore) on the boat for the duration, so you would spend all your time preping for the exam.

I consider this a backward step. YM is about boat and crew management having everybody on board at YM level is not going to "exercise" your crew management skills as everybody will know how to do almost everything. Throw in a CC or DS and you have a mixed ability crew which in my humble opinion would give an examiner a far better understanding of your abilities.

Does anybody here just sail with YMs onboard all the time?

 

[st599]

Training charts for an exam? I thought examiners asked candidates to prepare real passage plans. Certainly been the case with exams I've been involved with, so I make sure the cross channel charts are on board...

No they were told that the passage planning was moving to the training charts so that people couldn't rely on local knowledge.

 

[Sandy]

No they were told that the passage planning was moving to the training charts so that people couldn't rely on local knowledge.

Interesting.

I struggled with the training charts. Seeing familiar coastlines and place names that had been chopped up and rearranged I found quite surreal.

 

[Kwik Decision]

No they were told that the passage planning was moving to the training charts so that people couldn't rely on local knowledge.

I'm struggling to see what is wrong with a bit of local knowledge, it will be obvious to the examiner if a candidate has sailed into a port before, and they can tailor the questions accordingly. If I was being cynical, I'd say it was to encourage all candidates to do the RYA shorebased course first. Or not, because that would give some "local" knowledge...

 

[Gary Fox]

No they were told that the passage planning was moving to the training charts so that people couldn't rely on local knowledge.

Hmm... I wonder how much 'local knowledge' would actually help? I can see it being a psychological crutch, if a candidate happened to feel for comfortable being accustomed to the sights around him; but I don't see how it would help with managing the boat, or bucket overboard, or much else I can think of.
Like Sandy and KD I also think the made-up practice charts are pointless, and with all due cynicism, probably started as a brainstorming session/ joke in the pub, which got turned into a nice little earner for someone.

 

[Kwik Decision]

Interesting.

I struggled with the training charts. Seeing familiar coastlines and place names that had been chopped up and rearranged I found quite surreal.

They sound like the old ones, with a Scottish island just outside Dartmouth. The new training charts are completely fictitious, with the places named after RYA personnel.