RYA Coastal skipper training at Zeezeilers van Marken
End of May I followed the RYA Coastal Skipper training at the Zeezeilers van Marken. It was an intensive five day’s practical coarse.
If you are looking for a good practical coarses in tidal streams, Zeezeilers van Marken in Harlingen is a good place to be. They offer many coarses for beginners and experienced sailors.
Midst of July in 2022, I was helming, under power, upstream the Portsmouth river to the Gosport marina at midnight. Ester and I were delivery crew on a Sweden 45, supervised by skipper-owner Jaap Barendrecht. The Gosport ferry crossed our way in the night, just before we entered the harbour. The tide was flushing through the marina, but Jaap manouvred the yacht nicely into the berth.
Jaap did the pilotage, and the plotter in front of the wheel supported me well. Although you needed to look carefully to find the right navigation buoys. There were lot’s of lights and my eyes did not have the same night view as my Iphone (picture).
All went well, but I questioned myself, would I have done this without plotter and gps? Yes, but probably not at night.
Electronic navigation makes your skills rusty
I joined this RYA Coastal skipper training to sharpen my skills. This coarse handles the following items:
- Passage planning
- Preparation for sea
- Pilotage
- Passage making and ability as skipper
- Yacht handling under motor
- Yacht handling under sail
- Adverse weather conditions
- Emergency situations
In this practical coarse each individual gets a personal training and a piece of the trip’s navigation responsibility. We did many MOB exercitions, picking up a mooring buoy under sail, or a lost buoy under way. I learned to prepare my pilotage in a better way. Electronic navigation make your skills rusty. We were not allowed to have charts in the cockpit and only short stops in the nav station were permitted. Your pilotage plan is the extraction and road map. You need to know your next waypoints, signals and coarse to steer, from the back of your head. Old school navigation is the base and electronic is an add on for safety and confirmation.
I ticked all boxes from the training, but more important, I know where to improve. A first exam is possible in October, and I do my utmost to prepare.
My trainings and exams overview.
Read previous blog.
Read next blog.
Leave a Reply