Back to (sea) school

James Wood gets to grip with navigation, passage planning, tides, buoyage, Colregs and more on his RYA Day Skipper Theory course

- James Wood

There was no getting out of it; after six months’ applying the necessary elbow grease to get our Maxi 84 Maximus back on  the water, it was time to learn to sail her properly... and that meant going back to school. While I have a good number of years under my belt as ‘incompetent crew’, navigation was always something I left to the skipper.

Unfortunately, the skipper (my wife, Ali) wasn’t having any of it. Sailing with our three young children meant she wanted us both to take a role in passage planning and pilotage.

All signed up

Next thing I knew, I was signed up for an RYA Day Skipper Theory course at Cobb’s Quay Marina in Poole, led by Powerboat Training UK. It was time to brush up on my buoys, collision regulations, safety procedures and learn to safely get our Maxi 84 cruiser from A to B.

Run over 40 hours, the RYA Day Skipper Theory course is an intensive way to formalise your seamanship skills. It’s possible to take it online, but after 20 years out of the classroom, I decided to attend a class to help focus my mind and meet fellow sailors.

The intention is to follow up the theory with the Day Skipper Practical course, which concentrates more on boat handling, including manoeuvring, wind awareness and emergency drills.

Seamanship

It had been a decade since I crewed on cruiser racers in Poole Harbour, and longer still since I cruised with Ali and my father-in-law on a GK24 and then a Morecambe Bay Prawner.