Coastal Skipper

Simon B · 23 August 2006, 08:25

Esteemed Comercial Fora Members,

I've done RYA Day Skipper and have been building up my experience in hours. A couple of friends have decided to do Coastal Skipper in terms of a RIB helsman would I see value in doing Coastal Skipper or would I be better going to do my intermediate assessment and then Advanced PB?

I did like Day Skipper, it made for weekly practice which is more suited to my forgetful nature compared to one off type courses.

havener · 23 August 2006, 10:04

Depends really what your end goal is. Without knowing that, it's a bit harder to say!

Simon B · 23 August 2006, 10:34

My end goal is to be a good helsman of dive ribs between 5.5 and 7.0 metres. This may involve being able to carry out a night passage. I dont really know the differences between Day and Coastal. I've been quoted about £200 for it at nightschool over 35 ish weeks. It was mainly a value for money type question.

havener · 23 August 2006, 10:40

In that case I'd go for RYA PB Advanced, which includes night passage work. However make sure your nav is up to speed beforehand, although if you've done Day / Coastal skipper it should be fine.

Best of luck!

Simon

Rogue Wave · 23 August 2006, 11:26

Any theoretical knowledge you obtain really helps when you get out on the water, and it's a long winter so I'd consider the coastal skipper theory at night skool

What do BSAC have to offer you as training to the best of my knowledge the RYA doesn't have a diving section on their courses at all. Failing that go for the Advanced RYA ticket

Simon B · 23 August 2006, 11:39

Rogue,

Agreed, I liked Day skipper, my mate who did Yachtmaster said the theory side to Coastal was more of the same from Day skipper.

BSAC do their own "Skill Development Courses" which on the boating side of things equate to RYA Level 2. I have often wondered if there would ever be an RYA run divers type qualification as they do with safety boat.

Advanced PB is the ultimate goal, I was wishing to gain clarity on what Coastal Skipper entailed in terms of its usefulness to RIB handling

Searider · 23 August 2006, 12:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simon B

Rogue,

Agreed, I liked Day skipper, my mate who did Yachtmaster said the theory side to Coastal was more of the same from Day skipper.

BSAC do their own "Skill Development Courses" which on the boating side of things equate to RYA Level 2. I have often wondered if there would ever be an RYA run divers type qualification as they do with safety boat.

Advanced PB is the ultimate goal, I was wishing to gain clarity on what Coastal Skipper entailed in terms of its usefulness to RIB handling

Coastal Skipper/Yachtmaster theory (it's the same course) won't add anything to your RIB handling but will get you up to speed with your navigation. IMO Day skipper level navigation is pretty basic.

I would suggest doing the night school Coastal Skipper / Yachtmaster over the winter so that when you spend lots of money on the practical element of your Advanced PB your nav will be up to speed and you can spend more time on the fun stuff.

Simon B · 23 August 2006, 13:14

Cheers Searider,

There is going to be an open day soon at my local RYA providing college, I'll pop down and see them then next year do Advanced PB.

Paul Glatzel · 24 August 2006, 07:54

Simon

From reading the post and replies i think two distinct areas are being considered as one.

Coastal Skipper: I take it that you are referring to Coastal Skipper/YM Theory rather than the practical course. In terms of the difference between CS/YM and dayskipper whilst the subjects covered are broadly speaking the same the depth to which they are covered should be very different. For me one of the key aspects of this course when i did it was the discussions that ensued with the Instructor about being a skipper of a vessel with responsibility for others on long or difficult passages and the examples he was able to discuss and give lessons from what he had experienced. In short with this course (and others for that matter) you should be looking at the Instructor/School closely as whilst it may be that one outfit does it cheaper than another then if you do really want to get the best possible return the person instructional style/approach, their approach and experience will make a big difference.

Intermediate Assessment: If you mean an assessment for the Powerboat Intermediate Course then there isn't one - and indeed there isn't actually much point to one either even if it did exist. Has someone said this can be done?

Advanced: A great course but there is no requirement whatsoever to have Intermediate before you go for the advanced.

By all means throw further questions and i'll do my best to answer

Regards

Paul

Paul Glatzel · 24 August 2006, 07:57

And by the way...........

Some schools (including night classess) teach Dayskipper & CS/YM Theory courses together - in my opinion this is not advisable

Paul

Simon B · 24 August 2006, 09:44

Paul,

Yes I was referring to Coastal Skipper theory, the school, my local one, is a well established school Malcolm Pearson is still involved with it (he did the little Reed's pocket book) they have separate classes for the separate courses. However, they are heavily sailing orientated with few students being powerboaters.

I believed, though this now seems incorrect that RYA also did a direct assessment for intermediate, you turn up with or without boat and then get assessed, if this isnt actually required sounds like advanced course would be more appropriate when I'm suitably experienced.

Being honest I could also probably brush up on proper navigation, its got a bit easy with our new chartplotter. So unless the open day covinces me otherwise I've almost talked myself into it.

tim griffin · 24 August 2006, 19:18

Hi Steve

My advice would be to go to your open day and discuss with the tutors ask what is the general mix of the class , sail to power ratio is the instructor a Sail or Power Yachtmaster does he have any experience of high speed navigation and motor cruising or fast boats

I find when I am teaching it is our sailing friends who make up most of the class for CS/YM

A great book on the market is fast powerboat seamanship by Dag Pike ISBN 0-07-142209-9.

If you want to test your self then you can buy navigation exercises or go on the CS/YM course it will go into greater depth than your Dayskipper course and there are alot more subjects covered .
The requirements for your APB are the ability to navigate to the level of Day Skipper .
I would suggest if you can find a school near you' find out if they run night nav courses or navigation refresher courses as this will give you an idea as to what to expect and your current ability.
I have not heard of direct entry for the Intermediate course .
I am suprised that some tutors can run a Day skipper and CS/YM course at the same time.
I think the courses run by schools may not be cheaper than the correspondence type courses but you do get some great discussions going and interaction among the group and make some new cruising buddies .
What ever you decide good luck with it .

John Kennett · 24 August 2006, 20:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by tim griffin

I find when I am teaching it is our sailing friends who make up most of the class for CS/YM

But you can have some fun with them on the weather routing exercises when you plan to run back from Alderney early when there's going to be no wind. Confused the hell out of the instructor on my course, until I pointed out that the question didn't specify what sort of boat I was using!

John

Simon B · 25 August 2006, 10:44

Thanks chaps, off to look at new books then, got the nav exercises already, I like nav! Some of the yatchies in my Day skip class were quite impressed with how divers find, shot and dive a precise location.

Will be shopping for Advanced PB next year, trouble is there a number of good instructors here and I will only do the course once.

Doug Stormforce · 25 August 2006, 11:29

Simon

There is of course a BSAC Navigation course that would work well to build you towards the advanced, I agree with most of what has been said above however the intermediate course is a good one to tick of along the way. I dont myself think its as straight forward as doing the theory then the advanced.

A more natural route is to do intemediate which puts some of the nav into practice then the adv, which takes it a bit further and introduces night work.

35 weeks night school seems incredibly long to me.

If you are fairly new to the nav side then definatly go for dayskipper first. Lets not try and jump b4 we can walk.

If you want any advice on any of the RYA or BSAC courses give us a call- only happy to help.

Simon B · 25 August 2006, 13:03

Doug,

I've done Day skip and most of the BSAC SDCs I'd say my nav is functional though not polished! the 35 weeks of Day Skipper didnt seem to drag, it was good practice and the instructor put extra stuff in. In fact, I'd go as far to say that it's a better route than BSAC "Charts and Position Fixing" SDC for the theoretical side of navigation.

The reason being, the repeated practice to work up the speed, also fixes it in memories like mine better!

Rogue Wave · 25 August 2006, 17:52

Simon

To be honest I don't think doing a bit of sailing theory only enhances your skills as a powerboat driver (or at least as a power driven water user) It allows one to show a ceretain consideration for the WAFI's ( rarely reciprocated however)

re nav have you got the RYA nav CD, I think thy were giving away trial copies with the Amanac, I have a few copies I'll send you one if you don't have one

looking at your last line it would seem I am not the only one with an iffy memory

Simon B · 08 September 2006, 15:55

Signed up for it starts next week, I'll probably be the only diver/powerboater. Not bad value at £137 would have been cheaper if I'd been an assylum seeker - £30!

Will keep you posted on its merits re RIBs n stuff.

Biggles · 08 September 2006, 16:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simon B

Not bad value at £137 would have been cheaper if I'd been an assylum seeker - £30!

Thats so they can go and get their mates over to good old Blighty.

ribrage · 13 September 2006, 18:10

To add to Pauls post, in my humble opinion the advanced power boat course is of far more use to you than the day skipper ,coastal skipper or even Yachtmaster theory courses, A LOT of these shore based theory courses go into a great amount of detail that would be unused in the context of your boating, as they are mainly taught by yachtsmen and relate to sailing type navigation ( I am shorebased instructor and APBI )

The Advanced power boat course will give you all that you need ? rough water handling,passage planning,night navigation,finding unlit marks at night (cruel) search patterns,MOB recovery,contour navigation....and you can get it commercialy endorsed.

(PS Before I get accused of being anti yottie I have both power and sail)

good luck

Ian