On Oct 24, 8:15*pm, "Capt. JG" wrote:
"Bart" wrote in message

...



In addition to all my other licenses and certifications,
I now hold the Yachtmaster Ocean. And I must say the
Brits are to be commended on putting together an
outstanding program. *I was nothing but impressed
by all the many UK sailors I've met. The Solent is
The reason there are so many good sailors over
here.

*I strongly recommend, to anyone who loves
sailing--make a point about sailing over for a week
or two. *I sailed into nearly every harbor and like
them all. *Newtown creek, and the Beaulieu river
were particularly beautiful.

Thereis lot of traffic. *I have some cool photos I'll
post when I get a chance.

Regards

I think it's an outstanding achievement. I know someone else who attained
this cert, and he's quite an impressive sailor. I know it's fairly
expensive, but I've been considering it. There's actually a local company,
Modern Sailing, that is certified for this instruction. They're a top-notch
school in my opinion.

Perhaps you can give us some of the details of the requirements? Would love
to see pics also!

--
"j" ganz

There are two levels. Yachtmaster Offshore
and Yachtmaster Ocean.

I don't recall all the requirements for the offshore
--which is basically a coastal certificate. You do need
A certain number of coastal passages and you better
Have lots of nighttime experience. There is a Theory
or classroom portion. It is divided up into a Navigation
component and used make-believe charts and tidal
information. Unlike the US where you can do tides in
your head. There is an interesting way to calculate
tide using a tidal curve and a slanted line to give very
precise tide estimate--it works of course only where
you have the data for it. I found that working from the
tidal lows was the only way to make calculations for
Harbors that, due to their geography, had double
highs.

There is also a weather component and one other component
--I forgot what it was called. I didn't have to take it.

They have a Yachtmaster Prep-- which is five days
and this is typically followed by an Exam. The
Examiner is independent of the school offering
the course. I would not recommmend doing the
Exam without the Prep week--if only to get familiar
with the Solent.

Some thing covered were Blind Navigation
which was the only thing my instructor screwed
up. What you want is set and drift type cross
current estimates--mine had me take us up a
river in simulated fog--fairly trivial as I had feed
back from ok deck.

I enjoyed finding buoys in the dark and using
contour lines--all that sort of thing is fairly easy
if you know the importance of a back bearing
and cross-bearings. It is important to pick out
bright nav aids for this. Most of the cardinal
buoys were fairly bright, but not all.

Navigating at night had twists thrown
in like buoys off station--be sure to
check what is happening on the radio!
And out of date charts with missing
lights--in my case a channel light and
an entrance sector light! here I thought
I had an easy river entrance and the
sector light was out. One fellow had to
Navigate through a narrow channel near
The Brambles which was a simulated
minefield--you flunk if the depth goes
below so many meters. Of course you
flunk if you run aground in any case.

For the Ocean part--there is a Theory
portion. I could not find a class so I hired
a private tutor. I'd studied this material in
2001 and forgotten some of it. If you don't
Take the theory--which includes passage
planning and weather, you must take an exam.
Also required are sights. You must do a
minimum of a Sun run Sun. And you must
document a passage over 96 hours and it
must include a leg of 48 hours or 200 miles
that is at least 50 miles offshore. I did not
have any records of this, but it was a simple
matter to do a passage, and I needed the
ocean sights. One more thing needed is a
Compass Check. I used a sunset and True
Angles tables from Reeds to estimate my
deviation. I was fortunate in that I was
offered a passage as a mate on a friends
boat for only the cost of food. And I was
even more fortunate to knock off two of my
goals--seeing Gibraltar and Malta.

After completing your sights, there is
an Oral Exam. Apparently some people
try to fake it. I had plenty of supporting
documentation. I might have been able
to skip the written exam based on my
previous course work, but rather than
risk not getting the certificate, I chose
to take the written exam at that time.

If you have done a number of sights
on the ocean, the sight reduction
problem in the classroom is a piece
of cake to do. If you haven't done
many sight reductions it will perhaps
be more difficult. Celestial Navigation
concepts can turn your brain mush at
foray, but if you do the every day on a
passage and think about Zn, declination,
and how they related to all the different
possibilities--it will become second nature
to you. I'm looking forward to doing more
complicated things in the future. I tried a
set of star sights on my last trip and found
the horizon too hard to distinguish. I want
to try that again along with a Moon sight.

The rest of the Ocean written exam consists
of a couple of questions on weather. Mine was
about hurricane formation and track--safe and
dangerous semi-circles. For Passage Planning
I was given four short ocean passages and asked
which ones had favorable currents. I've been told
common questions include how to check a sextant
for error and labeling the best times to depart
various locations around the Atlantic to avoid
bad weather--things that you would ordinarily
pick up inthe course of doing things like that.
For example, it is late October. In a few weeks
people will be leaving for the Caribbean from
Gibraltar and the Azores, and New England and
the Mid-Atlantic States.

I'd rate the RYA Yachtmaster Offshore as the
more important and challenging certification.
It is harder, contains more important material,
and of course sailing close to shore is far more
dangerous.

I also feel that the RYA certification is widely
recognized around the world and more challeging
than either the ASA or US Sailing Certifications.
For me, although I hold a USCG license, that does
not carry as much weight elsewhere in the world.
I think the combination of the two has some meat
to it.

I have to run. I'll be able to check in on a limited
basis in the next few weeks. I have some new
questions to pose that will need some diagram
and pictures to go with them. It make take me a
while to pull them together--late Nov or early
December.