Hi all,
Anna & I just completed this course, run out of the Solent. Boy, if we thought we had it sussed after a pretty solid 2 years sailing, a day with (former RSM) Terry showed us the error of our ways.
A really tough 7 days. Our highlight was running an overnight sail out of Chichester Harbour, down to Brighton and into the marina. All done under sail and with traditional chart navigation. EPs, DRs, transits ,dipping heights, the works. Anna took us in to Brighton marina, we put the boat to bed at 2am, having started the "drills & skills" at 7.30am. Then the harbour master wandered down and told us we'd need to turn the boat round! Anna was again at the helm and did it perfectly.
We had the most wonderful weather, sunny with a fair sailing breeze every day.
Were we knackered at the end, but if you want to know the possible light sequence for a safe water mark, I'm yer man! And when Terry debriefs you, tells you you've passed and shakes your hand, it's priceless!
There sure are a lot of boats here, we had ferries, dredges, hovercraft, fishing boats, a warship, cruise ships, the whole works.
Terry did have a good sense of humour. He quizzed us hard on the sound signal for a car ferry. After a few random answers and puzzled looks, he told us to listen to the approaching vessel. Of course, it's the sound of car alarms going off!
Cheers
A pretty tired Bristol!
Great work, well done.
Now if we could just get everyone else to take good training seriously.
Disclosure: RYA Yachtmaster Instructor
And remember if you thinking of doing a course or exam make sure you read up on the Local Rules.
In Moreton bay for instance, the City Cats display the lights of a hovercraft and car ferries carry the signals of a vessel carrying explosives while anything over 300 ton is deemed constrained by it's draft wherever it is in the port limits which is Caloundra south.
G'day Bristol,
Congratulations, well done to both of you! One thing about RYA training, you come out knowing a LOT more than when you start. And you wont pass unless they believe you are deserved, theses guys are serious when grading students.
I get to sail with three of them (including Lydia). It's educational just to spend some time with these guys.
Good on you mate.
Respect.
SB
Out of interest, the biggest RYA sailing school outside Southern England is in Brisbane.
I have no interest in it, but they often have UK instructors working there in summer (UK winter) and get UK students.
The guy who runs it is the chief instructor examiner for Australia.
And Moreton Bay is perfect sailing school territory.
Heaps of tide with heaps of range
Plenty of shallows and shipping.
The school boats draw more than 2.0m
And not too far between waterside pubs!
There is also the now world famous "Yachtmaster Valley of Death"
It is a three mile night time pilotage exercise under sail which highlights your shortcomings (and electronic navigation shortcomings) if you are not across everything.
You touch the bottom you start again (next year)
what are people's thoughts on the online RYA theory courses?
www.navathome.com.au
The RYA definition of a good yacht master is "a body of knowledge matched with a body of experience".
So I suspect Bristol just learnt a lot about the first limb and for that which he and his good lady get top marks.
So how ever you start you are on the way.
My own personal observation like all training, best to have the person beside you (not in front of you) but that is no criticism of the various on line courses.
Select to expand quote
Fish,
I like the idea of theory online and the RYA seems to have done it very well. I'm doing a RYA online nav theory with practical exercises at the moment as it's been a long time since I did a proper course on the subject, and its really good. Example: I had forgotten all about the IALA zone B for lateral markers (in the US, Phillipines etc they're red to starboard entering harbor)
Good theory, well explained and if you screw up the prac or a questions, you get to retry. But you can only fail x number of questions.
I went through the Brisbane RYA school, they brought up the online training, explained it all and registered me and gave me the practical kit with all the web details.
The website portal fyr is www.ryainteractive.org, (but nothing to see, its just a login)
I would recommend it definitely. The practical is still practical of course, but RYA theory online I find excellent. Can't speak for Navathome as I haven't used it sorry.
Cheers,
SB
Edit: I still rate human to human training over online, it's just the convenience. The SSSC course is a great example, the benefit is being in the room more than the theory.
Select to expand quote
I used Navathome for my RYA Yatchmaster theory (and the online courses leading up to that). It is a good platform and I would recommend it, but I do think ultimately it will depend on who is 'backing' it up if you have an issue and questions.
We actually did the combined Coastal Skipper with the Yachtmaster / Coastal Skipper theory. This course was structured with a certain amount of pre work using the navathome on line course, 2 days in the classroom with our instructor to go over navigation and any weak areas, then the 5 day Coastal Skipper practical. We now have to finish the remaining navathome sections and take the exam.
We found that the navathome is rather old fashioned from a technical point of view, still had a range of irritating spelling and other errors and was very clunky on Android devices.
The computer marking was quite frustrating. Sometimes there was no margin of error allowed in, for example, a course to steer. Getting the correct answer often depended on using particular words rather than getting a correct response.
Bearing in mind how long navathome has been around, we were not particularly impressed.
Still, we will persevere!
Cheers
Bristol
Great effort you two! And thanks Lydia for the info re the Yachtmaster course in Brisbane. I am currently doing the Coxswain course but would like to do the Yachtmaster also.
thanks for the feedback everyone. i will give the Brisbane mob a call and see what the difference is between the official RYA online stuff and navathome...
I did the old AYF inshore skipper's ticket years ago which doesn't really seem to be recognised any more and have been thinking of updating with one of the Yachtmaster courses but not quite sure which level to jump in on.
I think they do some down here in Melbourne out of Williamstown, does anyone have any experience doing any courses in this neck of the woods?
I spent a week on with the Brisbane crew to complete Competent Crew, highly recommend them.
Select to expand quoteFuturecruiser said..
I did the old AYF inshore skipper's ticket years ago which doesn't really seem to be recognised any more and have been thinking of updating with one of the Yachtmaster courses but not quite sure which level to jump in on.
I think they do some down here in Melbourne out of Williamstown, does anyone have any experience doing any courses in this neck of the woods?
Hi Future,
I think it's a shame the AYF,or YA, split from RYA in their training syllabus. The current YA courses are confusing to me, and I'm unsure what content they use now. Seems more geared toward non sailors if I can be that presumptuous.
Regards competency levels, I went and sat down with the Brisbane RYA guys and explained my history and what I wanted to do. They were really helpful and provided a lot of good advice on what theory and prac courses I should do and how.
I know there is an RYA school in Melbourne (unsure if there is only one in Melbourne?) where the principle is held in very high regard, ridiculous amount of experience/sea time and a damn good instructor.
Lydia, could you provide any more detail?
Cheers,
SB
Select to expand quoteshaggybaxter said..Futurecruiser said..
I did the old AYF inshore skipper's ticket years ago which doesn't really seem to be recognised any more and have been thinking of updating with one of the Yachtmaster courses but not quite sure which level to jump in on.
I think they do some down here in Melbourne out of Williamstown, does anyone have any experience doing any courses in this neck of the woods?
Hi Future,
I think it's a shame the AYF,or YA, split from RYA in their training syllabus. The current YA courses are confusing to me, and I'm unsure what content they use now. Seems more geared toward non sailors if I can be that presumptuous.
Regards competency levels, I went and sat down with the Brisbane RYA guys and explained my history and what I wanted to do. They were really helpful and provided a lot of good advice on what theory and prac courses I should do and how.
I know there is an RYA school in Melbourne (unsure if there is only one in Melbourne?) where the principle is held in very high regard, ridiculous amount of experience/sea time and a damn good instructor.
Lydia, could you provide any more detail?
Cheers,
SB
Thanks Shaggy, the AYF course was at least 25 years ago in Tassie and remember it being pretty useful back then but no idea what they are doing now.
I did a radio operators course a while back at Williamstown and pretty sure it was an RYA one, come to think of it I also did a Diesel engine course at Sandringham which was definitely an RYA course, so think there might be at least two around down here. Not sure if either were with the regular RYA instructor due to the more specialist subject matter though so any further recommendations or info about them from anyone who has done any longer courses down here would be appreciated. Sounds like it might be worth a chat with them to figure out what would suit best.
Hi Future,
I found the RYA school , it's called Yachtmaster. The principle is Gordon Syme. You'll be every bit as good as the piece of paper says, he has a great reputation. His students seem to love the bloke.
Cheers,
SB
Just a bit of history, about 15 years ago Yachting Australia was doing such a bad job with training that a number of big schools imported the RYA programme and offered them directly.
There were a far superior product.
What ensured in true bulls hit Yachting Australia style was a very bitter turf war even to the extent that those instructors with RYA tickets could not work in Australian yacht clubs.
Yachting Australia had to give up eventually and went on to adopt the RYA programmes and take a cut from them or be shut out completely.
The original bunch of RYA instructors in Australia either where examined in the UK or where examined in Australia by the chief RYA examiner from the UK.
That original bunch are still some of the best going around as RYA wanted to make sure their new instructors were really "A grade" for the job given the profile.
Thanks Shaggy, will look them up and make some enquiries. Have been keeping a log book for a while now and still have my exam papers from the last skippers ticket so hopefully we can figure out where I'd be best picking things up.
And thanks for the history Lydia, was wondering what had happened. All sounds a bit ugly as turf wars tend to be!
Select to expand quotelydia said..
Just a bit of history, about 15 years ago Yachting Australia was doing such a bad job with training that a number of big schools imported the RYA programme and offered them directly.
There were a far superior product.
What ensured in true bulls hit Yachting Australia style was a very bitter turf war even to the extent that those instructors with RYA tickets could not work in Australian yacht clubs.
Yachting Australia had to give up eventually and went on to adopt the RYA programmes and take a cut from them or be shut out completely.
The original bunch of RYA instructors in Australia either where examined in the UK or where examined in Australia by the chief RYA examiner from the UK.
That original bunch are still some of the best going around as RYA wanted to make sure their new instructors were really "A grade" for the job given the profile.
So that's what happened! About that time I was due to do the final practical [that I had to do for my Yachtmaster Ocean] and approached an instructor from the Pittwater area to do the examination.
I was told I would fail the first test. I asked why? He said that EVERYBODY fails the first time.
I told him he can stick his exam and the YA their whole certification program!
Hasn't made any difference to my sailing and I subsequently went and got my coxswains anyway.
The RYA scheme had a very different focus and did not flow from racing sailing which the YA did.
also the RYA courses where developed to what was seen as the boom area of sailing (not racing) which of course is what almost everyone here does, safe coastal cruising in boats they cherish.
But be warned there is usually a big skills uplift at the pointy end.
The blind navigation passage for the Yachmaster requires some thought.
Lastly, good RYA instructors are usually crafty bastards, so always watch for the trick up, as the better you get the more the challenges.
Here is one trick, if a good instructor hands you a hand held GPS, the first thing you do is check the datum as they will have moved the datum of the applicable one to usually the Japanese datum that moves everything way to the NW and you will be getting very confused.
BTW, unless things have changed the RYA courses should teach you to see the hand held GPS not a position locator but a hand held compass with a very accurate range finder. (think about it)
Intentional non-compliance as a training/testing method in complex real time safety related tasks is fraught with danger and thankfully in industries such as mine (aviation), it has long since been discarded! Even in the simulator, we don't deliberately throw switches or skip procedures to "trick" people up. There is absolutely no training value in doing stuff like that.
Disagree it is intentional non compliance as you describe it.
It is not a trick but an object lesson.
Who ever checks the GPS datum particularly in imported electronics or imported boats.
Very different to your industry.
No one throwing switches or missing steps.
It is about understanding the system people are relying upon.
Most people have not even scrolled through the different datum options to see they are there.
At least one very heavy grounding that was well written up by the master (all credit for doing so) occurred when a waypoint was set manually by Lat/Long on a GPS plotter set on a Eastern Europe datum.
The master wrote a very good article explaining the mistakes and explaining that usually he entered waypoints from the screen and not by direct input and the error had never had a consequence.
I should say most of the time this adjustment makes no practical difference but as they say "100% of your collisions happen within zero feet of your boat" so eliminate error where you can.
