YM practical before the exam?

[Walnut]

I have sailed my own boat around the Thames Estuary and South Coast for the last five years and have already passed the YM theory. Do you think that I can skip the 5 day practical and go straight into the exam given that I can sail, provision a boat, give a safety briefing, navigate in fog... and read the yacht master book from the library again. Or am I being a bit over confident?

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[tome]

Difficult to say, but the advantage of the course is that you will be taught a lot of the routine stuff which you probably haven't practiced for years (sailing onto moorings, man overboard, blind nav etc) and in a way which gives you confidence to do it correctly in the exam.

In the end, only you can answer this question unless you can get someone who has done it (ie YM) to assess you.

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[ChrisE]

There is another alternative, try contacting a reputable sailing school ( I used Southern Sailing) and get a YM instructor on your boat for a day or so to give you an assessment. I did this before taking mine and after a day he took me to one side and said that I was marginal. I took this as a hint and did the 5 day course and passed at the end. I have to add that the five days were one of the most enjoyable times I've had on a boat and included becoming incapacitated with laughter as one of the crew tried to haul up the jib with the halyard having a turn around the pushpit

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[Benbow]

I don't know if you need it or not. But I have to say I really enjoyed the 5 day prep I did with Southern; basically it was a group of people keen to learn and enjoying pushing their skills to the limit. The exam itself was then a total anti-climax. I would suggest that you would benefit from the experience whether or not you need it.

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[marklongstaff]

I did the 5 days before my Yachmaster exam and found it very usefull - also went on an exam as crew a few months before to see what it was all about!

ML

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[Peppermint]

Re: Why not

The idea behind the YM thing is that a safe & able sailor can pass it. That's why there's no real sylibus or real exam.

I did do the prep, with Southern Sailing, and enjoyed it very much. The fact is the prep was much tougher than the exam. I didn't learn much much about the job but I did have a few things I'd forgotten awakened and get shown a few more efficient ways of going on explained. We also had the testing explained which was useful. Some of us thought that mistakes meant failure which is not the case. We also wrote a cribsheet of a few things we couldn't remember reliably, things like times of weather forecasts not which way was port or starboard, this was taped up over the chart table. We told the examiner about it it, he had a look and said it was fine.

I wonder if doing the test as the only candidate with a crew of your mates might not be a little bit tough.

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[tcm]

i agree: going straight for ym is a bit like knowing loads and loads of history and then going in for a history exam: one needs to know the syllabus, and the 5-day course beforehand covers that syllabus.

oh, and the other thing is that just becos you already have the theory exam - the examiner during the practical can (and will) ask any theory he/she likes - it's not "off-limits" as one mite think.

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[RupertW]

I owned a couple of boats and had sailed for about 15 years before I decided to take the YM theory, then exam - and that was only because I wanted to take a year off doing (semi)-professional stuff and thought it would look good on a CV.

I found 5 days doing Coastal skipper practical (in the Canaries with Clubsail) then 5 days YM prep with BOSS very useful indeed - especially as I'd grown up with sailing rather than being taught it, e.g when had I last sailed up to a buoy or MOB? Was I used to a theory question (how exactly do GPS satellites communicate with each other and the box of tricks in front of you?) whilst organising a "novice" reefing the boat.

I had a few habits which were slapdash, learnt a few great new tricks, and also found out that there were ways of behaving which were considered normal and seamanlike, but that I had never thought were relevant to me.

In the end I think the week with Clubsail doing Coastal skipper stuck with me as really useful practical lessons which I've used ever since, but the BOSS YM prep was great for helping pass the exam confidently.

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