The course criteria is:

• Passage planning: Can plan a coastal passage including a consideration of the capabilities of the yacht, navigation, victualling, weather, ports of refuge, tidal heights and tidal streams, publications required and strategy. Know customs procedures for most common circumstances.
• Preparation for sea: Aware of safety equipment required for offshore passages, and can prepare a yacht for sea including stowage, safety briefing, watch keeping, delegating responsibilities and equipment and engine checks
• Pilotage: Preparing a pilotage plan, with consideration of soundings, transits, clearing bearings, buoyage, port or harbour regulations and tidal considerations. Able to pilot a yacht by day and night.
• Organisational and skipper skills: Can take charge of a yacht and direct the crew, organise the navigation, deckwork and domestic duties of a yacht on passage, awareness of the significance of meteorological trends, aware of crew welfare and can use electronic navigational equipment for planning and undertaking a passage, including the use of waypoints and routes.
• Yacht handling under power: Able to control the yacht effectively in a confined space under power, including all berthing and unberthing situations in various conditions of wind and tide.
• Yacht handling under sail: Can use the sails to control the yacht in a confined space, and capable of anchoring and mooring in various conditions of wind and tide.
• Adverse weather conditions: Understanding of preparations for heavy weather and yacht handling in strong winds, and navigation in restricted visibility.
• Emergency situations: Recovery of man overboard under power or sail, actions to be taken when abandoning to the liferaft and during helicopter and lifeboat rescues.

Course objective:

By the end of this course you will be able to skipper a yacht in coastal waters by day or night.

Number of places :

Weekday courses : Maximum of 4 people per course

Weekend courses : Maximum of 5 people per course

Prerequisite:

RYA Day Skipper & 15 days sea time (2 days as skipper) – 300 miles, 8 night hours.

Duration:

5 days.

Where:

Brighton Marina, BN2 5UP.

Availability:

Courses are run  from Febuary to the end of November. If you cannot find a date please contact us. Private tuition and own boat tuition is also available.

This RYA Coastal Skipper Course is also available in Barcelona

Booking:

Book online from the dates below or call 01273 42 48 42 option 1 or email us.

If you cannot find a date please contact us. We also run the RYA Dayskipper from Barcelona

Booking terms and conditions apply and rebooking fees are charged for cancellations made with less than 4 weeks notice.

What to Bring

• Be prepared for changeable weather, bring plenty of layers
• Quick drying clothes can be very practical, avoid jeans
• There is limited space on board, only bring one large bag
• Gloves for warmth and rope friction protection
• Sunglasses, sunhat and suncream for summer months and woolly hats, thermals and layers for winter months
• Deck boots and non-slip deck shoes or trainers that don’t mark
• We can supply waterproofs for hire, Musto BR1s. You will need to order these in advance so we can have them ready for your arrival. If you have your own waterproofs, please bring them, they are a necessity
• Sleeping bag, pillow and towel
• Passport as you may go to France
• If you are worried or unsure whether you suffer from seasickness then pills and wrist-bands work well. Don’t arrive on an empty stomach and take tablets with breakfast if you have never been sailing on the sea before, sometimes the motion takes a while to get used to
• The marina fees are not included and vary and are shared during the week. Please allow £25 for the week
• Over 5 days and 4 nights we supply: Four breakfasts, five lunches and one dinner. Meals will be nutritious with a few treats thrown in. Feel free to bring any extra food you may want
• RYA Coastal Skipper requires a photo with the certificate so please bring two passport photographs

Yachting

On our yacht courses we use either our Beneteau 36.7 or Beneteau First 35, these are cruiser/racers with great performance – perfect for learning and RYA courses. They are commercially coded with safety equipment to the highest standard. 

Sailing 

We also offer sailing courses in our smaller Delphia 24 keelboats,  These 8 metre performance boats are used for racing and day sailing, very responsive boats for our RYA sailing courses.

If you would like more practice after your yacht courses or RYA Sailing Level 2 we offer:

• Sailing Clinics – at weekends from 1600 till 1800 for £40
• Racing – is a great way to practice too, we have boats entered in popular races like Round Island Race, Royal Escape or even mini races on our clinic nights

Changing Bookings

When you make a booking with us we assign staff and equipment to deliver the booking. That means we are unable to offer that space to anyone else.

If you cancel that space we are likely to incur a loss.  We will have already made commitments to staff and we may have turned away other bookings. We are unable to get insurance that covers us for this loss.

We therefore do not offer refunds for cancellations. If we did not do this we would have to put up our prices for everyone.

Our cancellation policy applies in all circumstances including no shows, illness, relocation, transport failure and bereavement.

Course Cancellation Insurance
You can take out insurance to cover the cost of your course against cancellation through CancelSure. Guide cost is £12 for the first £100 of cover and then £6 per additional £100 of cover.

Our Advice

• If you pay by credit card your cancellation may be covered by your credit card provider.
• Consider taking out course cancellation insurance.
• Your holiday insurance may cover you for course where you stay on our boats.

Please see our full Booking Terms and Conditions

Cancellation charges
You may cancel your course/event at any time. Written notification from the Lead Name in your group is required. Cancellation will only be accepted on payment of the cancellation charges as set out below. The following cancellation fees apply :

• More than 8 weeks before course/event – loss of deposit
• Less than 8 weeks before course/event – 100% of price of course/event

At our discretion, we may allow a forfeited deposit to be used towards an alternative course/event run by us or the same course on an alternative date. In each case, such a booking will be at the price prevailing at the time of re-booking and subject to an admin charge of £25 for courses over £150 and £10 for courses under £150. In these circumstances we offer significant discounts on rebooking within 12 months.

The discount is based on how much notice was given for the booking cancellation and non discounted course rates:

• More than 4 weeks before course/event  –  90% discount on full brochure rates
• 2- 4 weeks before course/event – 75% discount on full brochure rates
• 13 days  – 72 hours before course/event –  50% discount on full brochure rates
• 72 hours or less  –  25% discount on full brochure rates

For example if you book a course worth £200 and need to change the date of that course:

4 weeks notice this will cost you an additional £20
2 weeks notice this will cost you an additional £50
3 days notice this will cost you an additional £100
24 hours notice this will cost you an additional £150

Postponement by us due to bad weather
On some occasions courses may need to be postponed due to bad weather. In these circumstances we will offer you alternative dates, no refund will be available.

On some occasions group events may need to be postponed due to bad weather. In these circumstances we will offer you alternative dates.
If you are unable or unwilling to accept these new dates then we will refund you the full cost of the course less 15%.