What you need to be a Charter Skipper, as well as the Boat!
A Coastal Skipper or Yachtmaster
Offshore Certificate of Competence
What are they? These
are the MCA/RYA Certificates that must be gained to prove competence to that
level. This Certificate which is currently in the shape of a small hard
backed, blue book must then have a commercial endorsement included. This is
required before Licence for your Vessel that is intended to be chartered.
The Vessel must meet the Code of Practice regulations and is inspected by a
qualified and often recommended Surveyor. The Licensing Authority will
recommend a local Surveyor.
When booking or
boarding a charter vessel you’re entitled to see a current license
certificate as one should always be kept on the boat.
To start up and get
into the charter boat business legally you must obtain one of these
certificates first. These certificates are issued by the RYA/MCA and
generally examined by the RYA. Once the certificate is received, then a
Medical must be passed (ML5 similar to HGV) and a Basic Sea Survival (I day
Course) certificate obtained. Only then can the Coastal Skipper or
Yachtmaster Offshore Certificate of Competence can be commercially endorsed.
This certificate and yourself then become part of a License that is integral
with your boat. Your boat must also pass an independent Survey. This is
another story.
Sounds easy? Surely
you have heard and read the stories in the angling press from disgruntled
skippers, it is justified I can tell you, as obtaining your Coastal Skipper
or Yachtmaster is no trivial matter. There are many prerequisites required
before attempting Coastal Skipper and even more before going for the
Yachtmaster Offshore. These include an ‘in-date’ First Aid Certificate, VHF
Operators License, Diesel Engine Maintenance knowledge, theory required up
to either the Coastal Skipper level or Yachtmaster level, ideally learned
through a shore based course, 1250 logged sea miles in Tidal Waters for
Coastal Skipper or 2500 logged sea miles, including a minimum of five, 60
mile passages with two skippered and one at night for Yachtmaster, plus some
days ‘live aboard’ and some hours at night.
To gain the Coastal
Skipper or Yachtmaster Certificate you must pass a 10 – 11 hour practical
test to a standard that is measured by an RYA examiner. The test includes
boat handling, knowledge and seamanship at a Coastal Skipper standard or at
a higher Yachtmaster standard. The examination is exactly the same for
Coastal Skipper or Yachtmaster. A Yachtmaster must pass at a higher standard
than Coastal Skipper, where one or two more errors can be made and the
tolerance for error widened and Coastal Skipper requires less sea miles. To
attempt the Yachtmaster Offshore Certificate you must have at least 5
skippered passages under your belt and logged, including one at night,
greater than 60 miles. That is not 30 miles there and back!!! During the
practical test you are also tested for an understanding of your required
theory. In particular you will be tested on the Collision Regulations (IRPCS),
IALA Buoyage System, Knots, Crewing, Weather, Safety at Sea, the boat, the
equipment and engine including servicing and Navigation.
In theory you can
invite an RYA Examiner along to your own boat. It must be fully equipped and
longer than 7.0 meters and have crew available on the day of the test. You
need to prove you can brief and command your crew. You will test out from
your own port but potentially you could go to any other port in that period
of time. Some of the time will be spent proving your Pilotage skills at
night into a port you are not so familiar with.
The other option is
the one I chose where you can get yourself on a Coastal Skipper Practical
Course that has the examination on the last day. The problem with this is
that you actually use 3 days of the course learning how to steer another
boat and learning the layout, engine and safety equipment. In my case this
was a Fairline Phantom 38 with two 370 Volvos giving it a top speed of 31
knots drinking around 65 litres of diesel an hour! The big advantage of this
is that you are proving that you can transfer your skills to a strange boat
and it is all good practice to revise what you actually need to know. Twin
screws are great until they expect you to berth on one engine. They don’t
steer too well against the prop walk on an engine offset opposite to the
turn. Add some wind and it makes it a challenge.
There are two types
of 
Coastal Skipper / Yachtmaster courses, so be warned. Myself and Jeff Semple booked for the same course and were independently and constantly fed
misleading, poor and incorrect information, prior to booking in and paying
£700. Although the course title was a ‘Motor Conversion’ we were assured
that the course and the test were the same, which is absolute bollocks. Find
out what you want to do before going to the big sailing schools. Our
experience, with a training school based at Cowes is that they actually, said
'yes' to everything,
after all they get your money that way. Having said that at the end of the first day,
they stated that in their ‘instructors opinion’ with what they had seen
already, we would both pass, and in the end we did. So it is a hard one
to argue. There are other places to get the correct training from and so a
recommendation is best, unfortunately I can't give you one!
The instructors and
examiners were fantastic but there is a huge difference between living
aboard a new Fairline Phantom 38 and staying in a room with just a mattress
and duvet. Anyway I do not wish to dwell on the negatives. But I must say,
if you are not a Yachtmaster Offshore Sail qualified skipper already, the
Motor Conversion is not for you, whatever the sales people say! This was one
of the hardest tests that I have had to endure but mainly because the course
content did not cover everything we were examined on, our previous
experience got us through!
Details of the 11 hour Examination
The Exam starts with
a walkthrough of the boat which is a Safety Brief by a nominated Skipper.
You may be the nominated skipper so you need to know it all. This will
include:
White-Maiden.com 
Les Jones
07505 256356
