Martin Northey’s Blog

John just after his lifejacket had inflated accidentally

I very recently examined four yachtmaster candidates for an RYA Sailing School, where the candidates had done a Yachtmaster Practical Preparation Course, it takes two days to examine four candidates and so I had time to get to know them and was naturally keen that they should all pass the exam.

They had just three days of their yachtmaster preparation course to practise for the practical aspects of the exam, there is not time in a preparation course for the Instructor to give the candidates theory tuition, it is assumed that candidates will have prepared themselves by completing a theory course (preferably RYA) either on-line or by attending a shore based course.

I do not make exams difficult, there are however certain things that they must be able to do effectively such as, a ‘man overboard exercise’ - ‘picking up of a mooring’- ‘anchoring and weighing anchor’ all usually under sail. Otherwise, they need to show that they can arrive at and leave a pontoon under engine.

In addition they need to be able to complete a navigation exercise at sea, often just going to another harbour, but perhaps finding a specific position at sea just using bearings and a depth on the way. Otherwise I tell them that my general criteria is ‘would I trust this person to take my grand children (if I had any) across the English Channel, would my grand children enjoy the passage with this skipper and if they were unfortunate enough to fall overboard would the skipper be able to pick them up under sail (if perhaps the boats engine would not start) before they got hyperthermia?’

It is also necessary for candidates to prepare an imaginary passage plan in the English Channel, I supply the charts and a pilot book for this exercise.  Whilst it is not a pre exam requirement for candidates to have completed an RYA Shorebased course prior to taking the exam, my experience has been that candidates who have not done an RYA Shorebased (theory) course often have an incomplete knowledge of the RYA shore based syllabus, sadly two of the candidates in this recent exam had not done any RYA Shorebased course and as a result their passage plans were not up to the required standard, I was not therefore able to recommend to the RYA that they be awarded the Yachtmaster Certificate of Competence, despite their sailing skills being very good.

The third candidate whilst excellent in every way unfortunately experienced an accidental gybe during his time in the exam as skipper and helmsman, sadly if this should happen to a candidate I am not able to recommend that the candidate be awarded a Yachtmaster Certificate. The only way to prevent this happening is to always have a gybe preventer fitted when the wind is more than about 30º abaft the beam.

The fourth candidate John Davies who is Principal of The Menorca Cruising School & Charter was well prepared for the exam and passed, he had completed an RYA shorebased course and so his passage plan was excellent. His exam was not however totally without incident, whilst winching in the genoa the toggle attached to the gas cylinder in his lifejacket caught in the winch, triggered the gas cylinder and his life jacket inflated, it certainly gave me a fright and it must have given him an even bigger fright! The photograph above is of John just after his lifejacket inflated!

I was very dissappointed to be able to only pass one candidate out of four, it would have given me enormous pleasure to have passed more of them and if possible all of them. People want to take the Yachtmaster Exam  because it is the most respected yachting qualification in the world,  but candidates must realise that the reason that it is so highly respected is because the standard required is very high and they must know every part of the syllabus of the ‘RYA Sail Cruising & Yachtmaster Scheme’ in order to pass the exam.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 18th, 2008 at 3:15 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.