Yachtmaster milage

[dom]

I suspect that there may be fewer requirements for charter fleets in the med than for individuals' "quality" pride and joys on charter with small companies in the uk

Interestingly the guys that chartered the Jeanneau 49 from Lymington sailed it over to Cherbourg; the boat was 3 Yrs old at the time and in full time charter vessel from new. This was apparently the vessel's first trip out of the Solent and the first time anybody had ever slept on it!!

 

[BlackPig]

Hi All I have been biting my tongue on this one but cannot any longer. My boat is 7.01m LOD so qualified for the old test specifications with or without the bowsprit. Has 4 6 feet births, tight but can accommodate 4 adults. 3 in the cockpit no problem. The (new) second crew can be bellow navigating, if the examiner wants to sit in the cockpit. The size was only put into question when Head office could not find an instructor in the Clyde. Edinburgh were still looking for an examiner for me, and only stopped when I informed them that Head Office "felt" my boat was unsuitable.

What hacks me off, is there were hard and fast rules My boat fulfilled them all and was rejected, by what seems the whim by one person.

What happened: I contacted the RYA Head office for a test. They set about looking for an examiner. They then asked if I could go to the south coast, I pointed out my boat was in the Clyde and it would not be possible to go to the south coast. I then contacted the Scottish office in Edinburgh and they put out an email looking for an examiner. I then got a call from the secretary at head office, saying my boat did not qualify. I checked that it did and called them back. I then spoke to the head of training. He then started to try and justify why even though my boat did meet the criteria he FELT that it was unsuitable as he had looked at photos on the web (No two Heard 23s are the same, some are open boats as was mine when first built, some have short cabins, some long etc).

The RYA had kept the old specification on the web site leaving it's customers to be miss led in preparing to do the test in there own boat or even buy a boat for the test. I asked them to who I should invoice for the cost of upgrading my boat to do the test. It was only then that they quickly changed the website.

What should have happened: If the RYA felt the criteria needed changing they should have consulted interested parties. Came up with new rules. Then advised people the rules would change in 12 months. Publishes the new rules and adhere to them.

 

[obmij]

Doing it in the Hunter (god forbid - I'm not that daft) would require very much better passage planning, especially weather forecasting and would be in a much more vulnerable boat. Were the Dyes' trips to Iceland easier for being in a Wayfarer?
Sure. It's being a paperweight at the moment. PM on its way.

Point taken - but you could go one further and set off for West Greenland in one of these http://tinyurl.com/orp5xar !

Whether this would be a seamanlike decision is another story!

Probably have to agree to disagree on this one.

Pm received btw. Cheers!

 

[jimbaerselman]

I suspect that there may be fewer requirements for charter fleets in the med than for individuals' "quality" pride and joys on charter with small companies in the uk

Oddly enough, not the case. A surprisingly large number of N Med countries require their leisure sailors to have qualifications. This shows in charter, where ICC is universally accepted as an appropriate ticket - in law.

([UK] sailing is probably a bit more "technical" than the ionian usually is in summer). I had a quick look at a couple of solent charter companies. Sunsail will rent their boats out with Dayskipper. Coastal skipper or equivalent experience required if going beyond chichester or poole. Hamble Point yacht charters want coastal or equivalent experience for over 36'. Both stated the "equivalent experience" thing.

Exactly. There is no UK requirement in law to have a ticket. So charter companies advise what experience levels they individually require, and qualifications are a short cut. If someone doesn't have a ticket, they'll ask what your planned itinerary is, and conduct what can best be called a quick oral exam. Errm . . . not of your teeth . . . if necessary extended to a 2 hour out and back with a staff member on board.

I always put this difference in approach down to natural selection.

Without tides, it's fairly easy to pootle out and back to a destination without hitting anything. So it's easy to become overconfident - and overstretch.

I guess the UK assumption is that anyone trying a first trip in tidal waters is likely to bump the bottom, be unable to understand why boats go sideways and not where they point, or meet a ferry. Salutory expereinces, all of them. So they dash off to find a book . . . or get put off for life!

Darwinian evolution . . .

 

[YachtAllegro]

Nope. There is nothing about sailing a small boat that makes you a better sailor / seaman than someone who does his time in a larger vessel... Small boat sailing is much more forgiving. It is slower, granted, and therefore may take much longer to build up the miles..but that's about it.

I have to disagree! About the only situation in which I'd say small boats are more forgiving is when coming alongside. Out at sea the small boat is a much greater challenge. Sailing my mirror dinghy from Plymouth round to Newton Ferrers required just as much seamanship - by which I mean awareness of winds, tides and seastates, boat handling, fallback plans in case things went wrong etc etc, as sailing a 44 foot charter yacht round the Hebrides - and I've done both. You tend to adjust your distance to the size of boat, leading to the oft quoted comment that a trip across the bay in a dinghy can by as much fun (and challenge) as a trip across the Atlantic in a 50 footer. And the corollory of that led to my original comment, that if, in a small boat, you've done the same distance as someone in a big boat, you're probably the better seaman.

Cheers
Patrick

 

[alteredoutlook]

I have to disagree! About the only situation in which I'd say small boats are more forgiving is when coming alongside. Out at sea the small boat is a much greater challenge. Sailing my mirror dinghy from Plymouth round to Newton Ferrers required just as much seamanship - by which I mean awareness of winds, tides and seastates, boat handling, fallback plans in case things went wrong etc etc, as sailing a 44 foot charter yacht round the Hebrides - and I've done both. You tend to adjust your distance to the size of boat, leading to the oft quoted comment that a trip across the bay in a dinghy can by as much fun (and challenge) as a trip across the Atlantic in a 50 footer. And the corollory of that led to my original comment, that if, in a small boat, you've done the same distance as someone in a big boat, you're probably the better seaman.

Cheers
Patrick

+1! Also, if you are just quoting sea miles for experience gained, then a sea mile in a smaller boat generally takes a longer to complete than a larger boat - and so you are actually clocking up more experience on a smaller boat

 

[Resolution]

There's no absolute answer to the small or large question, as far as gaining experience and skills go. For coastal passage planning a smaller, slower yacht is obviously going to need to pay a bit more attention to sea state, tides and weather. Navigation may also be harder with less instrumentation, although modern GPS kit is now so good and so cheap that even the smallest yacht will have one for passage making. On a bigger yacht there are probably a greater number of technical things to be understood - more electrics and electronics, pressured water systems and loo systems. Critically, above 40 foot almost all rope handling has to be done with a winch and the potential danger of mishandling a rope becomes material. Reefing big sails also requires more control. And of course once one is in harbour surely there can be no doubt that, for similar shapes of hull / keel bigger size brings bigger responsibilities (and costs!).
Far more relevant, IMHO, is the type of sailing which you are doing. You could spend decades racing small boats, know lots about sail trim and tides, but still know nothing about coastal navigation, sailing at night etc.

 

[awol]

What should have happened: If the RYA felt the criteria needed changing they should have consulted interested parties. Came up with new rules. Then advised people the rules would change in 12 months. Publishes the new rules and adhere to them.

I am with you on this. Trying to justify the goodness or badness of a particular length as a test or qualifying vehicle is a waste of time - it is up to the RYA/MCA to set the requirements for the ticket they issue/endorse. Ad hoc, screwed up, knee jerk moving the goalposts, though, is inexcusable and not worthy of the RYA.
Apparently they've done it again according to a letter in this (or last - I read them when I can at my club) month's YM. The rules for Ocean YM require a >600nm trip but if that is down the North Sea from god's own country to Europe it apparently doesn't count.

 

[Daydream believer]

They seem to be inconsistent on that page.

Look at the table and it talks about min 7m LWL up to 24m LOA.

Then at the bottom of the page it talks about boats between 7m and 24m LOA.

I would log it and claim as 7m. Go into a couple of Marinas and pay for 7m not 6.9 and you have documentary proof. If you really feel the need, get a bigger anchor & stemhead fitting or a bowsprit for an asymmetric or just rake your flagstaff a bit more so that she genuinely is 7m LOA and log her as a modified Hurley 22. (which she will be as I bet someone has changed her)

Just make sure you have some miles on other boats as well to show

As others have said, it's true experience that counts and you will get loads on a boat of that size.

LWL is not overall length on majority of boats

 

[lw395]

I am with you on this. Trying to justify the goodness or badness of a particular length as a test or qualifying vehicle is a waste of time - it is up to the RYA/MCA to set the requirements for the ticket they issue/endorse. Ad hoc, screwed up, knee jerk moving the goalposts, though, is inexcusable and not worthy of the RYA.
Apparently they've done it again according to a letter in this (or last - I read them when I can at my club) month's YM. The rules for Ocean YM require a >600nm trip but if that is down the North Sea from god's own country to Europe it apparently doesn't count.

Did a North Sea coastal passage ever count for YM Ocean?
I thought the criteria involved being continuously x miles from a safe haven or coast for y hours or something?
Or is the North Sea just too full of man made things to navigate by?

I get the impression the RYA has responded to people pushing the intention of the rules?

 

[mcframe]

There's no absolute answer to the small or large question, as far as gaining experience and skills go.
Far more relevant, IMHO, is the type of sailing which you are doing. You could spend decades racing small boats, know lots about sail trim and tides, but still know nothing about coastal navigation, sailing at night etc.

Bang on.

My little family boat is a 27' Solent bilge-keeler, but my pre-YM exam log book *also* has miles logged on:
36-footers in the Solent and on the Clyde,
32-footers in the Med, and on the East Coast,
A 42-footer in Devon,
An 80-footer x-channel,
Round the Solent in an 18-foot Foxcub,
A 45-footer South Coast cruises, several x-channel, and one 450 miler to South Brittany,
RTIs, JOG, Fastnet and Solent round the cans on 33-38 footers (& a 45 foot pilot cutter).

Jumping on a random school boat for the exam, with a new crew, wasn't too hard after all that.
(My five qualifying passages were on three different boats; none of them mine.)

Note: If you can sail straight, know which direction we should be going in, what the tide & weather are doing, and fix heads & engines, then IMO you're likley to be invited back, and might be YM material ;-)

 

[pagoda]

I find all this "one-upmanship" mileage lark quite amusing.

I've done about 5000NM since I started in 2009, most in my own 35 footer. I did coastal skipper 3 years ago, mostly to make SWMBO comfortable with my ability to to more interesting passages. I've done a couple of 300NM + UK-Norway passages in quite demanding conditions, but don't feel any pressing need to score the next level gong. I have no need to go remotely "commercial" so that's probably the clincher.
I fully expect to continue learning, but to set my own standards and try to maintain them for myself , family and friends' benefit.