Plymouth Sailing School and Yachtmaster

The RYA (Royal Yachting Association) offers various levels of certification, their Offshore and Ocean are essentially captain's licenses and have a wide acceptance throughout the world.

Armando's goal is to become a working captain, so he needed this certification and I had agreed to stop somewhere in the UK for a week or so to make that possible....I figured I'd attempt to get one also since we would be spending some down time on it.

Once we really started looking into it, the “week or so” was completely unrealistic.

But, as it turned out, Mountbatten is home to the Plymouth Sailing School, run by Richard Brown and son (Richard Jr.).

Richard really help us out, offering to do as much or as little as was required to assess our needs and get us ready for the exam.

He's an RYA instructor of instructors...but completely down to earth.

He held an unscheduled day long session (for just the two of us) for our radio certification (a prerequisite for the Yachtmaster certification)

We ended up taking a 6 day intensive course in theory at the school (which Armando aced and I quickly fell hopelessly behind in).

Richard was able to get Armando on one of his boats with an instructor (several days into a 1 week on the water course...there had been 2 cancellations). I tagged along on most days to observe.

At the end of the on the water class a Yachtmaster examiner boarded the boat and spent one evening and a morning putting Armando (and 1 other student) through an on-the-water practical examination (I observed the evening session).

Armando was awarded his certification (the other student was not), which is really quite an accomplishment.

I scheduled an exam to take place on my boat several days later, figuring I would take the weekend to catch up what I hadn't done in the theory class (like all the exercises...in my defense I was pretty busy with boat stuff and totally burned out), take the boat out to check out all the work that had just been completed and scope out all the spots the examiner might direct me to take him to.

Anyway, read Weekend at Madeline's (coming soon to a blog near you!) to find out how I really spent my “exam prep time”!

My examiner boarded the boat in the late afternoon and put me through the paces, I was happy to be doing the exam in my boat. I failed to impress him with my spotty answers to all the material I had planned to bone up on over the weekend, but he passed me with the comment that “You're not the perfect candidate, but then no one is. I cases of doubt we're told to ask whether we would send our children out sailing with you, and I would, you're very safe”! I then had to promise I would learn all my fog signals and leave the UK within 1 week....we were off the next day!!!

I will say that I really gained a lot of knowledge from going through the Yachtmaster process. It was really a good experience since it was coupled with all the sailing we've done in the tidal waters of the Channel, much would be lost if you took this training in a less arduous sailing area. The training is really all about safety in one of the toughest areas to sail in the world....if you get your Yatchmaster there I think it really means something.

I can't say enough good things about Richard and Richard Jr at the Plymouth Sailing School. I would not have gotten the certification had I not had their assistance.

I would highly recommend the Plymouth Sailing School to anyone that is pursuing any of the RYA certifications.

Posted by Diane For Scott