RYA Competent Crew

We sometimes combine students taking their RYA Day Skipper or RYA Coastal Skipper courses alongside students on the RYA Competent Crew course, so you will get to experience a wider range of sailing.

All Students are able to live and stay on board the yacht for the duration of the course. 

Fancy going VIP and having your own exclusive private course for you and your friends or family? You can book the whole yacht just for your own exclusive course from only £649 per person. Enjoy the course in style, with up to five persons on the boat being taught by one of our friendly, experienced RYA Yachtmaster Instructors! What a way to start your sailing adventure and learn to sail the right way!

The RYA Competent Crew course Includes:

• Knowledge of sea terminology, parts of a boat, including rigging & sails
• Sail handling
• Rigging & controls
• Ropework
• Fire precautions & fire fighting
• Personal safety equipment
• Man-overboard:
  • How to recover a man-overboard
  • Actions following recovery
• Emergency equipment
• Manners & customs
• Rules of the road
• Inflatable tenders, their safe use and operation
• Meteorology (Weather!)
  • Forecasting services
  • Knowledge of the Beaufort Scale
  • What to do when the weather turns bad and how to prepare the boat and crew
• Sea sickness
• Helmsmanship, sailing and wind awareness
• General duties on board a yacht
• Sufficient knowledge to understand orders given concerning the sailing and day-to-day running of the yacht, including:
  • Setting, reefing and the general handling of sails
  • Use of sheets and halyards and their associated winches
  • Handling ropes, including coiling, stowing, securing to cleats, single and double bollards
  • Handling warps & fenders
• Ability to tie the following knots and to know their correct use:
  • Bowline
  • Figure-of-eight
  • Clove hitch
  • Rolling hitch
  • Round turn and two-half-hitches
  • Single and double sheet bend
  • Reef knot
• Awareness of the hazards of fire and the precautions necessary to prevent it
• Knowledge of the actions to be taken in event of fire breaking-out on board
• Safety equipment, such as life rafts, safety harnesses and lifejackets
• Flares and when they should be used
• Procedure for launching and boarding a liferaft
• Environment responsibilities in the marina and at sea
• Keeping an efficient lookout when at sea
• The basic principles of sailing including steering and trimming sails on all points of sailing
• Steering to a compass course/heading, under sail and power
• Carrying out general duties on and below deck when at sea and at a berth

Remember, unlike a lot of training centres in the Solent, we provide food during your course. So you’ll get breakfast, lunches, snacks and three evening meals (One evening meal is taken ashore at the students own cost, food is simple mainly vegetarian food for evening meals), along with unlimited tea, coffee, hot chocolate and soft drinks.

Our boats also include heating – we still aren’t sure why other training centres don’t want warm happy customers! so not only do we feed you (overfeed usually!), we also want to make sure you’ve got a warm comfortable boat to sail in.

Ask other centres what they provide against what we do. You won’t find better value in the Solent for a comprehensive course package.