Now you can go to sea and learn to navigate online

Essential Navigation & Seamanship is the new navigation course from the RYA. Launched at the boat show in London in January it marks an important milestone in the RYA’s approach to encouraging new learning methods.

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This course is for anyone interested in sailing, motor boating, sea angling or diving, and works well in complementing the RYA’s onthe- water training, such as the Powerboat Level Two, Start Yachting and Motor boat Helmsman courses. It offers a great introduction to navigation, seamanship and safety awareness for new, inexperienced or rusty skippers and crew.

Unlike other RYA navigation courses, this one is provided online using a new web based Interactive learning platform called RYA Interactive. This is a significant departure from the classic classroom approach.

Traditionalists may take some convincing but it’s not just aimed at the Face book generation. It has been developed by expert sailors and trainers. Having taken the course myself I have to say it is enjoyable, and informative.

Above all the RYA has pulled off a neat trick – they have taken a seemingly unexciting subject and made it fun.

The course can be completed in around six to 10 hours of study, but the beauty of it is that you can work through it at your own speed, whenever and wherever you like. With many marinas offering internet access, you can even work through the modules on your boat! All you need is a web browser and an internet connection. Best of all, if you get stuck you can contact the training centre through which you enrolled and an Instructor will coach you through your problem.

Despite its unorthodox delivery method, the course is orthodox in substance. It is heavily geared towards electronic methods of navigating, and why not, it is the 21st century after all.

However purists need not fear as course topics include how to read a paper and electronic chart; safety including essential checks before leaving harbour; how to obtain a weather forecast; buoyage and rules of the road; position fixing; pilotage and passage planning.

It is a highly informative course with lots of opportunities for you to put your new found knowledge into practice. You will find many interactive exercises to help reinforce the tutorials and lots of chances to try out what you’ve learned both online and using real paper charts.

So why does the world need another navigation course? The RYA’s Day Skipper theory course is the de-facto standard.

Day Skipper is an in depth course that requires 40 hours of study and covers a large number of topics, some of them necessarily complex. There are two in-class assessments that must be passed. Day Skipper is a big ask for a novice so behind the scenes at RYA HQ, they have been working for some time to offer an entry level course that can be used either as a pre-course to Day Skipper, or as a stand alone course for those that want to know about navigation but don’t currently want to progress to Day Skipper.

As all experienced skippers know, good seamanship principals have always been about having a backup plan and basing decisions on more than one source of data. Having a crew member that can step in if the skipper becomes incapacitated is the ultimate backup plan, but how many crews know how to raise the alarm, work out your position and communicate this to the rescue services? The Essential Navigation course will tell you how to do these things and much, much more.

What’s next?

You will need to purchase an enrolment key from an RYA Recognised training centre before you can login to RYA Interactive and enrol

on the Essential Navigation & Seamanship course. You can do this on-line at www.angliaseaventures.com. Full enrolment instructions

will be automatically emailed to you so you will be ready to start your course right away.

About the Author

Roger Gross is Principal at Anglia Sea Ventures, an RYA Recognised Training Centre based in Ipswich. Roger learned to sail dinghies aged five. Taught by his father he progressed to larger yachts and has gone on to log over 30,000 miles in the UK, the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. A computer software and electronics engineer, in 2007 Roger retired from the rat race and turned his energies to his lifetime hobby and founded Anglia Sea Ventures with his wife Lesley. They are pictured here.

Course Details Course: RYA Essential Navigation & Seamanship on-line On-line price: £99 (reduced from £149) Contact: Anglia Sea Ventures Ltd. Haven Marina, Ipswich IP3 0EA 01473 210 437 www.angliaseaventures.com/traininginteractive.htm