Yachtmaster Practical exam

[CPD]

Looking at doing mine soon and would be interested in hearing of first hand experiences - the best bits, the worst bits, the bits they particularly look out for, the most difficult bits, the bits you wish you had done differently on the day, the bits you wish you had revised more, the bits you thought they went into more depth than expected etc etc etc. Will be doing a 4/5 day prep immediately before the exam. Thanks as ever /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Cornishman]

The most useful tip I can give is: play the game.

Because the time the examiner has is limited to probably no more than 12 hours, there has to be a certain amount of scene setting into which you must play your part. An example: You might well start by leaving a marina berth under power and proceed towards the open sea. After maybe about 5 or 10 minutes the examiner introduces your first emergency situation of engine failure. Whatever you do, such as hoist sail quickly, you must go to either a nearby mooring or anchorage and sort out why it failed. This will test your ability to react to the situation and picking up a mooring or anchoring under sail all within the first quarter of an hour of the exam! It might also cover the part of the exam dealing with engine failure problems.
Hoisting sail and carrying on towards your destination is not the thing to do because you are continuing the passage with a defunct engine. See what I mean?
PM me for more tips if you like.
Retired Examiner.

 

[webcraft]

My biggest surprise was being told to get three hours kip then get up to listen to the shipping forecast and draw a synoptic chart. I wasn't ready for that and didn't have a proforma handy, so spent most of the three hours making one up instead of kipping. Turned out to be a joke anyway as the UK was surrounded by half a dozen weak lows and making any kind of prediction was pretty much impossible, but I gave it my best shot and the examiner seemed happy.

So - make sure you have a couple of proformas with you just in case.

- W

 

[capnsensible]

Hiya, I can offer some tips from the perspective of someone who has been fortunate to run a lot of prep courses, so you know I'm not waffling!!
Heres some ideas for the time you have left prior to the exam that will hopefully help.
Try and buy or borrow a copy of the RYA Instructors handbook, G27/04 or its latest version. In there you will find a chapter on the conduct of the exam. It is comprehensive, unambiguous and tells you and the examiner exactly how the test must be run, terms of reference, effectively. I always get candidates to look at this, plus the Appendix with the exam check list. Then when you know what its all about, it may help you relax a bit!!
As a Yactmaster should be capable of planning and executing an offshore passage up to 150 miles from harbour, try giving yourself some examples from any charts, pilots, tide atlases you can lay your hands on for practice. Try picking areas you are less familiar with and introduce all elements you can think of to the plan. On the prep week, you can discuss with your instructor how to tweak the result to a seamanlike plan. The plan shouldn't take more than an hour if you know your stuff, with practice. As a boat owner, you probably do this masses and routinely in local waters, just stretch yourself a bit!!
Lastly, get as much up to speed as you can possibly endure with The International rules. Everyone has a good go at lights, shapes and sound signals, but don't forget the steering and sailing rules as well. Examiners expect, obviously, a good working knowledge.
I wish you the best for your exam, most people approach it, justifiably, with a fair ammount of trepidation. Once the first excercise or two are completed, relax and enjoy the day! Good luck.

 

[doug748]

I am not a Yachtmaster and never will be, but I did once attend a Yachtmaster preparation. I hated most of the tuition stuff and knew within two hours that I was not interested in taking the exam. Later the instructor decided I had no chance of passing and I fully agreed with him. His approach was to give you a exam of his own over the first day and only then offer tuition if you "passed". For example do be prepared to give an above or below deck crew briefing right off the cuff, ten mins for a quick look round the boat first.
You will be off to a flying start if you have sailed/chartered lots of different, fully crewed boats, and/or have followed the RYA route. You will also be ok (of course) if you are very good. If you are an ordinary joe, who has just knocked around a bit and mainly sailed your own boat, short handed, and especially if the gung ho, derring do approach gets up your nose; you might find things more difficult. Consider the possibility that you might not get on with all of your new messmates, bluntly some might be a PITA.
Another approach is to think about doing the prep and setting out not to do the exam, be prepared to act as crew for the Yachtmaster tests of the others. Take everything in. Then go away and take the exam on your own boat with mates acting as crew. That way you won't fail doing things you are not familiar with using kit you have never seen before. Hpefully the crew will be on your side as well!

 

[Skyva_2]

RAFSA has a good exam guideline worth reading:

http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafsailing/offshore/offexg.cfm

 

[sailduck]

Only tip I would add to this is that it's not just about your sailing skills. Don't forget to look after your crew - talk to them, brief them, feed them. The examiner is basically looking to see that you can run a yacht - just be yourself and do what you would normally do on a weekend out.

 

[Koeketiene]

[ QUOTE ]

Another approach is to think about doing the prep and setting out not to do the exam, be prepared to act as crew for the Yachtmaster tests of the others. Take everything in. Then go away and take the exam on your own boat with mates acting as crew.


[/ QUOTE ]

That's pretty much what I did - RNSA prep, then own boat exam (wife & kids crew).
They all knew where everything was and what to do. Had gone through everything with them the week before. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
All done and dusted in just under 8hrs - and that included the debrief & the 2hrs we stopped for lunch.

Prepare your passage thoroughly - provide alternatives should the weather change, be aware of the state of tide at all time, buoyage, lights & dayshapes.

My advice:
- preparation is half the battle
- don't overcomplicate matters
- try to remain relaxed

 

[oceanfroggie]

Be confident and assertive with the examiner, remember your the boss, and just relax and do things your own way, but be frank and honest. Two tips, feed the examiner well, and brush up on sound signals,shapes, colregs and lights. Skipper the boat as you normally do and relax, and don't fall into the old trap of doing everything yourself, deligate. I gave a safety briefing to crew before the passage which included the plan, and treated the examiner as crew, courtiously but no grovelling. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif Boat handling is generally a given as most folk are good enough at that. Make the passage enjoyable for all including the examiner.

 

[graham]

Like you doug most of my sailing has been on my own or short handed and I never did dayskipper or anything. decided to do Yachtmaster a few years ago and was successfull first time after 5 days prep with southern Sailing.

My examiner was very keen on col regs and expected some not easy boat handling in tight spaces.



As mentioned dont forget to look after the crew and examiner by detailing someone to make food drinks etc at regular intervals.

Also if you make a mistake or perform poorly on one exercise dont give up.If you do well on the rest of the exam the examiner may be sufficiently impressed to pass.Im sure I wasnt one of his star candidates but did well on most of it and got what I wanted.

He also commented that he enjoyed doing an exam with people who were trying to get the boat sailing well and not spending hours at the chart table.

 

[peterb26]

[ QUOTE ]
...brush up on sound signals,shapes, colregs and lights.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was blinking hopeless on remembering these before my exam - which is why I set up my little Marine Lights and Shapes Website.......

Much to my disgust, on my exam the examiner said "Now I'm not going to ask you anything about lights and shapes as I know you've done them all on your site and probably know the lot".

He then proceeded to "dig and delve" in other theoretical areas /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[Skylark]

Take a look at the syllabus within your G15 logbook. The examiners role is to check that you have appropriate knowledge, experience and capability to skipper a yacht, aligned to that syllabus. He (or she) only has a very short time to check as much or as little as he feels necessary. Credit him with the fact that he will assess your strengths and weaknesses very quickly, after all, that's his role.

Be yourself is the best advice I can offer. It's a safe bet that some basic sailing skills will be assessed. MOB and picking up moorings under sail. I had a scenario of a stranded yacht requiring a tow. I enjoyed the blind navigation best.

I have a university education and a reasonably responsible job. I couldn't beleive how much self-imposed stressed came with the exam. I did it in The Clyde and typically had all 4 seasons in one day. We finished the exam (2 of us with 1 additional crew) at about 03h00 in a F6 squall. It's a great feeling to hear the words "let me be the first to congratulate you".

Go for it! Good luck.

 

[emnick]

Thank You a great web site, I will await the at anchor sounds and signal as this is what I find most difficult, once again thanks

 

[somerset]

I would echo the post that suggests that Examiner and crew are well fed-v.important.Don't try to 'micronavigate' the last thing the Examiner wants to hear is the sound of your size 10's pounding up and down the companionway as you try to work out your position to nth degree.Know your Coll.Regs,Lights ,Shapes and Sounds by heart.Be confident in your ability to calculate tidal heights.Best of luck!

 

[SailorFrank]

I took the exam with Tom Cunliffe (and passed) a while ok - my advice is to not change the way you do things normally, Tom digged and found holes in my knowledge but he was interested is if you could skipper a yacht. I really enjoyed the two days

 

[peterb]

I've been on board (insurance requirement) for well over 100 exams with probably a dozen different examiners. And I've seen a dozen different examining techniques. Some of them insist on taking well over the RYA recommended time, others will take much less. The shortest time I've seen was one examiner (now dead) who arrived on board at 0730 and departed at 1530, having examined three candidates.

The funny thing is that although their techniques were so different, their standards of pass or fail were remarkably similar. They all tested boat handling, under sail and engine. They all tested knowledge of Colregs (theoretical and practical). They all tested the three main navigational techniques (where am I, how do I get to where I want to go, and where have I got to) (fix, course to steer, EP). They all looked at crew-handling.

Where do people fail? Assuming they are reasonable sailors, usually by trying to be too clever, trying a technique that they are not familiar with because they think the examiner will like it. Behave normally, do what you would normally do, enjoy the trip and you'll almost certainly pass.

Incidentally, of all the examiners the fairest and most searching was probably the one that made his mind up most quickly.

 

[KenMcCulloch]

I used to sail quite regularly with a couple of examiners. They both told me that they can usually tell whether the candidate is likely to pass or fail by the time the boat leaves the harbour/marina. Is the departure delt with in a planned and efficient manner? Does the skipper show an awareness of wind and tide in manouevring out of the berth and past a few million pounds worth of other people's parked boats?

One lesson from my experience would be to have a chat with the examiner about the terms of reference, his/her expectations in respectr of various situations, for example if a MoB is to be simul;ated are you expected to do that under sail as a matter of course? I didn't get that briefing or ask for it, and when the man flung a horseshoe lifebuoy in the Clyde and I picked it up in about three or four minutes under sail all I got for my trouble was a hard time for not using the engine! I don't think my experience was very typical though; I passed but did not end up with a very positive or respectful view of that particular examiner.

 

[somerset]

Got the same bo#####ing from my examiner re MOB undersail when it would have made far more sense to do it under engine but thought as I had spent the last 5 days doing it under sail that was what was expected of me.I think the point made in the post about examiner needing little time to sus a candidate out is true.When people came on my boat SWHMBO could give a very accurate critique of their ability based on their first 10 minutes aboard.But then she is always right.....

 

[iain789]

After about 30 years sailing experience starting with dinghies, working my way up via keelboats and crewing various other people's yachts including some long distance racing, then owning my own boat, and chartering quite a few yachts in different parts of the world, with a detour in the Grey Funnel line and a watch keeping ticket for one of Her Majesty’s war canoes, I decided to do the decent thing a few years ago and go for my Yachtmasters.

The 5 day course was great, the two other candidates were great, the instructor was great. She told us that I would have no bother passing, and that the others should be OK if they polished up their presentation. When it came to the test (on the Clyde), the examiner had me so stressed, that I screwed up badly. To this day 10 years on I don’t know what happened, but I still can’t enter Rothesay Bay without sweating.

Anyway, I failed, and my enjoyment of sailing vanished for a while. It took some years before I was confident enough to skipper a boat again (and I am not an unconfident person). Since then I have done a Transatlantic, own a nice AWB, and have regained my enjoyment of my hobby. But I haven’t tried the Yachtmaster again, nor will I.

The point of this tale? I don’t know. Make of it what you will, and good luck on your wee test.

 

[Woodentop]

I recall reading an article by Tom Cunliffe where he explained why he failed a YM candidate. The student could sail and do everything but during 8 hours no-one had anything to eat or drink. He was failed because "he could not manage a boat". All he had to do to convert his fail into a pass was to have said "Fred, put the kettle on and make a sarnie". But he was failed because his crew went without food or drink.

On mine, I backed out of the berth and reversed up the alley, then for some reason I could not get the boat boat to do a 90 degree turn so I slid neatly into a 270 degree turn while he wasn't looking. Then, when he told me to speed up, I said "I think that RFA tug is going into that berth." "Toot Toot" it went so I swung the tiller over, went to port and throttled up; thus proving a grasp of COLLREGS as we passed green to green, close and at at speed.

The YM exam is simply; can you MANAGE a yacht on a passage. (and demonstrate all the skills that might be needed).