RYA Coastal Skipper / Yachtmaster Offshore Theory

RYA Coastal Skipper / Yachtmaster Offshore Theory takes the navigation you learned at Day Skipper level and makes it robust enough for longer passages, night sailing and unfamiliar coasts. It adds advanced position fixing and course shaping, more demanding tidal work, navigation publications, electronic navigation and, above all, weather: reading forecasts and charts and forecasting for yourself.

The RYA sets it at 40 hours of learning plus exam time, in a classroom, online or by distance learning. You need knowledge to Day Skipper shorebased level first, and the RYA treats this course as a prerequisite for anyone aiming at a Yachtmaster qualification.

Who it suits

• Day Skippers who want to skipper longer coastal and offshore passages
• Candidates preparing for Coastal Skipper Practical or the Yachtmaster exam
• Experienced crew who want to understand passage planning and weather properly

What you'll actually do

Expect plenty of chart-table problems over longer passages with changing tidal streams, plus work with almanacs and pilot publications. Electronic navigation gets real attention: using a plotter well, setting waypoints sensibly and cross-checking what it tells you. The weather sessions teach you to read a synoptic chart and use the barometer to spot change coming. The course finishes with an exam.

Key ideas explained

• Advanced position fixing — beyond the three-bearing fix you learn the running fix (one landmark, two bearings taken some time apart, with the first line moved along by your run in between) and combining different kinds of position lines, such as a bearing with a depth contour or radar range.
• Course to steer over several hours — on a long leg the tide changes direction hour by hour. Rather than zig-zagging, you add up the tidal vectors for the whole passage and steer one heading, letting the streams cancel out. Leeway (sideways drift from the wind) is applied as well.
• Secondary ports — tide tables only give full predictions for standard ports. For a smaller harbour you apply published time and height differences to its standard port, interpolating between spring and neap values, to get reliable times and heights.
• Clearing lines and pilotage plans — a bearing on a charted object that keeps you clear of danger, as long as the bearing stays on the safe side. You prepare these before entering a harbour at night or in poor visibility.
• Reading synoptic charts — isobars join points of equal pressure, and the closer together they are, the stronger the wind. In the southern hemisphere wind blows clockwise around a low and anticlockwise around a high (the reverse of the UK), which matters when you use UK-written material in Australia. Fronts mark boundaries between air masses and bring shifts in wind and weather.
• The barometer — the trend matters more than the number. A steady fall over a few hours warns of approaching bad weather, so log the pressure regularly.

Where it fits

The IYT Yachtmaster Coastal covers broadly comparable ground in a different system.

Getting ready

• Revise Day Skipper chartwork, especially course to steer and tidal heights, before day one
• Brush up on the southern-hemisphere weather patterns you sail in
• Keep a barometer log on your own boat to make the weather sessions real
• Ask the school how the exam is run

Good to know in Australia

• Tidal ranges differ enormously around the coast, from modest on much of the south and west to very large in the north-west, so the techniques matter more in some areas than others.
• This is a knowledge qualification, not a state boat licence; check your state's maritime authority.