Coastal Skipper - Typical Course

Meet at Landers for a drink a meal and generally get to know each other. Introduction to the boat and stow your gear. This is one of our standard training yachts, a modern, clean and very well equipped Jeanneau 40. Substantially larger and more comfortable than a typical sailing school yacht, this is after all a holiday for you as well as a training exercise! We then aim to get a good nights sleep ready to start bright and early the following morning. although some people get over-excited and go for a nightcap at the bar before getting their heads down!

Tea or coffee at about 0730, followed by showers and breakfast.

Tuition starts in earnest at about 0930 with a thorough safety briefing and familiarisation of all the relevant equipment on board. We aim to leave the dock at 1130 ish, for a sail up the Solent, familiarise ourselves with the running rigging, sail controls and handling characteristics of the boat. Lunch at anchor.  The afternoon is spent revising your navigational skills and boat handling.  This allows the instructor to get a good idea of any areas of weakness.

We normally tie up at a marina, usually in Cowes for the first night at about 6.00pm. Supper goes into the oven to heat up, and we go off to the pub for a well-earned drink and to discuss the day. Supper back on board at about 8.00pm, maybe a cheeky glass of wine to wash it down and then bed.

Usual start, tea or coffee at about 7.30 - 8.00am, showers and breakfast and then back to the task in hand. We shall need to formulate a plane for the week in the light of weather forecasts and tidal movements of the next few days.  We would like to undertake a reasonable coastal passage, perhaps down to Weymouth, so this will need careful planning to get the timings right. Perhaps some 'parking' exercises in and amongst local pontoons and jetties.  Lunch and then out onto the Solent to hone nav.skills. We would decide on an evening venue and plan our trip to ensure that we are safely secured in our berth before beer!

By wednesday morning the routine will have become well established, Although this might involve a very early start to catch a tide if we are to escape the Solent and make decent headway.  Clearly this will be wind and tide dependent.  A watch system might be appropriate if we are to vernture a long way, maybe even Dartmouth! So we will need to plan this in the light of the crews particular strengths. It may be quite possible that the day will run into a night passage so this will need to be planned for.

By this stage the plan will very much depend on where we are. We shall need to plan to return to within striking distance of Gosport for the following day, so the plan will need to be made to ensure that this can happen without a long, last minute haul.

Within the context of the past two or three days we will have undertaken various exercises such as MOB recovery, tidal calcs and pilotage exercises. As often as not we eat out on the Thursday evening as it is our last night together.

Your last day and it seems an age since Monday

We aim to tie up in the home berth by about 2.30 pm, which should see you on your way by about 3.30 after we have emptied and tidied the boat. This allows you to miss the Friday afternoon traffic if you have far to go. You will have had the most fantastic week!