Day Skipper theory: attend course or do online?
Discussion
I'm looking at organising my Day Skipper Theory. Quite fancy doing a classroom course as it's more social, but I'd be driving 45 mins to and from it minimum so considering doing an online course via Sunsail/Navathome.com for the reduced faff factor. I'm mathsy/sciency/engineery by training so I'm not too worried about learning the nav side - I've been through the examples on here (http://www.navathome.com/free-trial/rya_online.aspx) and it doesn't seem too bad.
Anyone done the online one? Would you recommend it?
Anyone done the online one? Would you recommend it?
ecsrobin said:
What is your sailing background?
My early sailing history goes:
Never sailed
Comp crew course (held in Solent)
1 week sail around Solent
Day skipper practical (in Solent)
Weekend Topper sailing in Cowes in 1995My early sailing history goes:
Never sailed
Comp crew course (held in Solent)
1 week sail around Solent
Day skipper practical (in Solent)
Long weekend on a Victoria 34 in 2003 in the Solent
Day on Lion New Zealand in 2014 in Bay of Islands
Comp Crew in the Solent last few weeks (1 weekend left)
TODO:
Day Skipper Theory
Day Skipper Practical
VHF
Thought I'd give a bit of an update on this. I chose to do the Day Skipper theory course remotely with Navathome. Overall I was very pleased. Seemed good value and the flexibility of studying when I wanted (esp as we have a young toddler who my other half would have had to look after on her own for 2+ weekends if I'd done the classroom based course). Support for the course is good, instructors are just an email of phone call away and they reply very quickly. Only thing I'd change is that it was difficult to tell how far through the course you were at any given point. Although there were 8 sections or so, some took a long time (chartwork/tides) and some could be whipped through very quickly (safety gear), so it'd be useful to have a percentage complete based on time, but it's not critical.
Overall I reckon I spent 35 hours or so doing it, the first third in November, then a few months break before doing the rest over a 2 week period in March to get t done before my practical course. Although I think I could have reduced this if I'd done it in bigger chunks, say 6 hours at a time rather than the average of probably 3 hours at a time I ended up doing as you end up having to get yourself back up to speed or say 15-20 mins or so every time you start a new session.
Navathome course comes with a licence for the RYA chart plotter app for your computer which allows you to practice planning passages on electronic charts which is useful which not all online courses provide so useful to have as a differentiator in terms of checking value for money of the online course you're looking at.
Online exam is very good, has same look and feel as the course. They say you should allow up 8 hours to do it, but off the record they say 4 should be enough and I think I got through it in 3 and a bit with a couple of redos of questions. Feedback during the course from them is via email and pretty much realtime which is nice - they know when you're taking the exam and you get the impression an instructor is assigned to sit by their computer that day to monitor your progress, and there's lots of encouragement.
My advice would be to read all the books/material etc they give you as some things you're required to know aren't spoon fed to you, so I did get caught out a couple of times in the exam, but nothing major.
Anyway, would highly recommend if a classroom course does not fit in with your needs.
Overall I reckon I spent 35 hours or so doing it, the first third in November, then a few months break before doing the rest over a 2 week period in March to get t done before my practical course. Although I think I could have reduced this if I'd done it in bigger chunks, say 6 hours at a time rather than the average of probably 3 hours at a time I ended up doing as you end up having to get yourself back up to speed or say 15-20 mins or so every time you start a new session.
Navathome course comes with a licence for the RYA chart plotter app for your computer which allows you to practice planning passages on electronic charts which is useful which not all online courses provide so useful to have as a differentiator in terms of checking value for money of the online course you're looking at.
Online exam is very good, has same look and feel as the course. They say you should allow up 8 hours to do it, but off the record they say 4 should be enough and I think I got through it in 3 and a bit with a couple of redos of questions. Feedback during the course from them is via email and pretty much realtime which is nice - they know when you're taking the exam and you get the impression an instructor is assigned to sit by their computer that day to monitor your progress, and there's lots of encouragement.
My advice would be to read all the books/material etc they give you as some things you're required to know aren't spoon fed to you, so I did get caught out a couple of times in the exam, but nothing major.
Anyway, would highly recommend if a classroom course does not fit in with your needs.
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