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!

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

what are people's thoughts on the online RYA theory courses?

www.navathome.com.au

fishmonkey said..
what are people's thoughts on the online RYA theory courses?

www.navathome.com.au

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.

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

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 spent a week on with the Brisbane crew to complete Competent Crew, highly recommend them.

shaggybaxter 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.

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.

lydia 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.

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.