Coastal Skipper

[ecsrobin]

Hello all I'm currently an RYA day skipper and eventually looking to progress to Coastal skipper. However here's the problem, I haven't sailed in 3/4 years prior to that I have clocked only about 4 weeks in total and that included competent crew and day skipper courses plus my VHF radio licence course.

I have recently moved back to the coast (Solent) and so want to get back into something I really enjoyed but how should I go about it? I obviously need a refresher to sailing as such but not sure where to look. All my previous sailing was with the military so I would turn up on a Monday morning meet 7 random people and then sail with them for a week and it was great fun. Is there anything similar now I'm a civilian?

Then the intention is to carry out a coastal skipper shore based course over the winter. Any recommendations on a training centre within Hampshire?

[ecsrobin]

Anyone able to assist?

[ecsrobin]

Thanks for the reply, looks like the tall ships trust is very much what I was after just need to see what dates are available for leave in the new job.

[ecsrobin]

Fishtigua said:

There are crewing opportunities at the Royal Southern and many other yacht clubs on the Solent.

http://www.royal-southern.co.uk/Afloat/Crew-Regist...

Registered, thank you for the link that's right next to the RAF yacht club where I've been previously.

[ecsrobin]

DH01 said:

Why CS ? The syllabus /exam for YM is only slightly more involved. If you think you can do the CS, you can do the YM .

Ask what the differences are, you'll be surprised. The training places love training for trainings sake .

To be fair I never looked at it like that, I know they are all voluntary qualifications however I also like the fact that I do have an RYA qualification.

The biggest issue will be hours for me so I need to do some hours building. I registered on the royal southern and I have had a gent contact me so when I get to my logbook tomorrow I can provide him with more hours details with the hope of getting some refresher training and miles building.

I'd happily go for YM but without checking my logbook I think I'm a way off the mileage. Whereas if I complete coastal that halves the requirement and I would have the correct amount of sea time. However all completely irrelevant if I manage to build up experience this summer.

[ecsrobin]

So checking my logbook,

I have 19 days, 483miles tidal, 12 hours at night with 2 days in command and hold my short range VHF certificate so I need to obtain 300 miles and a first aid certificate over the next year which should be easily doable for coastal skipper.

[ecsrobin]

Cheers for everyone who's posted so far, some really helpful advice.

I would love to do a charter but would like to get out on the water with an experienced crew to refresh myself first but agreed a few hundred miles can be achieved quickly and hopefully all my skills come back to me quickly.

I posted on one of the crew wanted pages last week and I'm happy to say I've been contacted and I'm meeting up this week so hopefully all goes well.

[ecsrobin]

Just wanted to provide an update for everyone and thank you for the input.

Fishtigua said:

There are crewing opportunities at the Royal Southern and many other yacht clubs on the Solent.

http://www.royal-southern.co.uk/Afloat/Crew-Regist...

Thanks to Fishtigua I registered on the Royal Southern and within a few days I was contacted, after a couple of Sunday's sailing in light conditions in the Solent things slowly started coming back to me. Fortunately work have just put me through Yachtmaster Theory, which I passed.

I have just competed on the same yacht in the Swan Europeans at cowes and then Friday morning it was the start of the RORC Cowes - Dinard/St Malo race. 173 yachts and 20 in our class (IRC 1) we won our class by just shy of 2 minutes and Finished 28th Overall.

Now I look forward to a summer of racing and building my experience so that I can complete my coastal skipper by the end of the year or in the new year.

Thank you for all those who assisted in suggesting ideas.