YM Exam Report

don\'t you just hate it

when someone comes back from a YM telling tales of all the horrendous things they were asked to do. i'm glad i didn't read any of these posts or tom cunliffe's articles before i took mine, i'd never have dared try.

what has happened to the exam, it seems a bit unfair to me that jimi gets all these nasties thrown at him when i had no night sailing, no blind pilotage, no finding hidden buoys.

i'd be interested in a straw poll of other candidates. did they put you through the mill or did you have an easy time of it?

and how is the exam regulated?

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well that is no bloody fun
you'll be saying next he made you have the sails up rather than just motoring there.

<hr width=100% size=1><font color=red>Ok brain let's just do this and I can get back to killing you with beer.</font color=red>
 
he probably had a a hand held garmin strapped to his life jacket with EPIRB painted in big letters on it.

btw
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what is that?

<hr width=100% size=1><font color=red>Ok brain let's just do this and I can get back to killing you with beer</font color=red>
 
that blarney appears when you edit a post. It is a new bug that kim's lot have invented, and have moved around the code such that instead of (or as well as) the code executing that line of instruction, it prints it. Now, if they used a search to find that text in the source code they could fix it. But they haven't got all the source or they havnae done the search. The print buffer needs flushing before permitting the edit.

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ohright
beats me why they have changed it
anyway
best get some work done

<hr width=100% size=1><font color=red>Ok brain let's just do this and I can get back to killing you with beer</font color=red>
 
YM Instructor

I also wondered if some of the YMIs here could throw some light on that as well.

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Mine too, sort of ...

>> Are you saying that tag doesn't make the text flash on and off in luminous green? It does on my PC. Must be something wrong with yours.<<

Funny though, comes out looking more like <font color=green>envious green</font color=green> on my PC, Observer.

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Re: YM Instructor

It really isn't that different from a YM exam. Except that it lasts a week and that you are tested on teaching ability as well.

And, of course, a higher standard is expected. It's no good saying to a course "Now I'll show you how to deal with an MOB" and then missing him. You have to be able to get it right virtually 100% first time.

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Re: don\'t you just hate it

Yes you are right to feel this way, and there has been a bit of an imbalance in the way some examiners approach the exam.
There has been a bit of a crack down on weak examiners, a year or so ago one examiner went out with 4 candidates and returned after 4 hours with 4 passes.
This examiner lost his ticket.
I am not currently instructing but I am sure that imbalance still exists to some degree.
In my opinion how can you examine someone to Yachtmaster standard without doing some night navigation? Now some of this stems from people taking the exam in June and a lazy examiner who cant be bothered to work late to get the darkness.
As an instructor I used to take a YM ccandidate out for five days, often working until 2 in the morning to give everyone some hard night exercises, as a preperation for the exam and as valuable experience for themselves. Sometimes the candidate was (as jimi said) not much more than competent crews. Then to see them pass the exam because the examiner couldnt be bothered really used to p//$ me off!
I know Jimi's examiner well, he will have given Jimi a thorough but fair exam.
Jimi can be assured that he is a Yachtmaster and deserves the ticket.
Well done Jimi

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.yacht-links.net>http://www.yacht-links.net</A>
 
When I got my YM ( failed the 1st time !) the examiner said that the syllabus & the exam were the same for Co Skip & YM but the C/S was to a lower standard.
He said that, for him, YMs got each "incident" right 1st time and with panache - CSs were allowed a 2nd go.
On being queried on the RYA pass rate for YMs he gave a national average of , say 65% (I've forgotten the exact figure) and then went on to say that he had examined 100s of YMs , his pass rate was at or near the RYA figure, however , in his opinion the % of Real YMs ( whatever that meant ) was about 1% of those he had examined.
Interesting viewpoint of the standards that are set ......

well done Jimi.....

Stephen

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Re; exams

Remember 28years ago doing my Coastal Skipper (non-tidal) practical involved a passage of 20 miles or so including MOB, it was a sea fog on the day for all the journey apart from the start & finish, had no idea where I was other than dead reckoning estimate, no electronics of any sort. After an eternity I heard the fog hooter on a mark, examiner was asleep, quickly charted it as being half a mile upstream from where I planned to be, just as I had worked it out the examiner woke up and said where are we? Exactly here I said, brilliant he said. Just as well, it is one of the busiest shipping lanes around.

We had previously started at night and had to cross this shipping lane under sail, boats had no engines, weighing up the gaps between ships in a light breeze he asked when are you going, now I think I replied, maybe wait a while he said as bloody great ship steamed past about 90 seconds later! Great fun, great times.

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"Shure thing hon,..."

As the US friends say.

Next stage to becoming YMI is the commercial endorsement (well covered elsewhere in the forum), which needs the sea survival course and the medical exam.

Now, as YM (com end) you have to find a sailing school that will set you off as an instructor. The next rank to achieve is "Cruising Instructor" which can be granted to you by the principal of a school, after they have "taught you to teach". You can teach Day Skipp and Continent Crew courses only.

After 2 years as a Cruising Instructor you can then go on the Instructors assesment week. If you pass that then you are a YMI. or "Talking Backstay".

(Things change and I may be slighly in error, but that´s my current read of the situation).

(

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the good (?) old days

i took the YM (unsuccessfully) back in 1973 when it was run by the Board of Trade. It consisted of:

Test on Morse by flashing light (6 wpm) and semaphore (4 wpm)
Eye test using pinpoints of red white & green light
separate written papers in astro navigation, met, chartwork
oral exam with a master mariner
<font color=red>and not a single sea mile required!</font color=red>

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Re: the good (?) old days

<<Test on Morse by flashing light (6 wpm) and semaphore (4 wpm)
>>
Very useful. Did you pass out as a 'bunting tosser'?

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no...

i made a complete pig's ear of it.

i could send but not receive. like a lot of people when you think about it ;-)

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