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Established in 1991 and based at Hamble Point Marina, in Hamble near Southampton the British Offshore Sailing School (BOSS) is one of Britain's leading sailing schools. BOSS has full Royal Yachting Association (RYA) recognition, is a Duke of Edinburgh's Award (DofE) Approved Activity Provider and the sailing school is run by a team of instructors whose reputation is second to none.

The British Offshore Sailing School offer a comprehensive range of RYA practical and shore based sailing courses, starting with introductory sailing weekends for beginners, RYA Competent Crew , RYA Day Skipper, Coastal Skipper and Offshore Yachtmaster right through to sailing courses and cruises for Ocean Yachtmasters and RYA Instructors. In addition, a wide selection of special one day and weekend sailing courses and sailing masterclasses are available to people at all levels.

We also specialise in ladies only RYA sailing courses - run by our experienced RYA qualified instructors.  For individuals or groups who want a taste of adventure or wish to gain more experience and clock up some sea miles, we offer long distance holiday sailing cruises. For those who wish to improve their skills, a comprehensive selection of RYA and specialist shore based courses and are also available at Hamble. During the summer months we also have a busy teenagers sailing programme with options to take RYA Competent Crew or RYA Day Skipper courses as well providing 10 day Gold DofE sailing expedition programmes.

Our philosophy with all that we offer is that sailing should be fun, enjoyable and above all safe!

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Hamble Point Marina, School Lane, Hamble, Southampton, Hampshire. SO31 4NB

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• Yachting Monthly's Scuttlebutt

Hamble School of Yachting....

• Thread starter pvb
• Start date 26 Sep 2018
• 26 Sep 2018

Well-known member

Just watched one of their boats leave the pontoon in the marina at night, with no navigation lights. Saw them in the lock and commented on their rather different approach to night sailing. Got quizzical response. Suggested nav lights might be an idea. Frantic scrambling, lights switched on, but they didn't all work. The "instructor" said it didn't matter, he'd replace the bulb tomorrow. So off they went. And people pay good money for this standard of RYA tuition...  

Long way from home, maybe they were lost?  

• 27 Sep 2018

capnsensible

Active member.

capnsensible said: Nothing like using a small incident to try and smear a whole organisation, is there? Click to expand...

pvb said: Suggested nav lights might be an idea. Frantic scrambling, lights switched on, but they didn't all work. The "instructor" said it didn't matter, he'd replace the bulb tomorrow. Click to expand...

dom said: Technically he's right, a ship can only come from one side at a time Click to expand...

alant said: From my dealings over many years, they are a very professional & well organised outfit. (Perhaps the incident was part of a teaching scenario). Click to expand...

capnsensible said: Two ships.......:ambivalence: Click to expand...

Agree with posters above about Hamble School of Yachting. Did my Yachtmaster Coastal with them a while back, found the boats in a good state, excellent instructor and generally well organised. Is the OP saying he's never forgotten to switch nav lights on or made a mistake? I know I've forgotten nav lights for a while in the transition from dusk to dark. And I don't think a sarcastic comment helps - a simple "your nav lights aren't on" would have been more welcome. The instructors response was probably a slightly narked sarcastic comment back...  

Deleted member 36384

I have worked on a few yachts that were also RYA approved sailing school yachts, they carried emergency navigation lights, disposable battery operated. I don't know if it is a requirement for MCA Coding or RYA registration or just considered good practise. I have an inclination that it is a coding requirement, any one know?  

kayenox said: And I don't think a sarcastic comment helps - a simple "your nav lights aren't on" would have been more welcome. The instructors response was probably a slightly narked sarcastic comment back... Click to expand...

BlowingOldBoots said: I have worked on a few yachts that were also RYA approved sailing school yachts, they carried emergency navigation lights, disposable battery operated. I don't know if it is a requirement for MCA Coding or RYA registration or just considered good practise. I have an inclination that it is a coding requirement, any one know? Click to expand...

dom said: Oh yeh, forgot, it’s lightening then that never strikes the same place twice Click to expand...

capnsensible said: Three ships. Click to expand...

dom said: Now I understand why Christmas trees have so many lights! : 4 calling birds, 5 gold rings, 6 geese a-laying, 7 swans a-swimming, 8 maids a-milking, 9 ladies dancing, 10 lords a-leaping, 11 pipers piping, 12 drummers drumming, and a.......... Click to expand...

capnsensible said: Vessel under tow with a length exceeding 200 metres restricted in its ability to manoeuvre? Click to expand...

The Cowes Harbour Master, used to often contact UKSA, asking "are you fishing or trawling tonight", when a returning student boat came in having forgotten to turn tricolour light off (sailing), before switching nav/steaming light (power driven vessel) on.  

Once saw a American Navy ship leaving a South Pacific Harbour passing us(cargo ship at anchor) with no nav lights on. Our ships master called them on the vhf to inform them. Response from the American Officer was arrogant “ we are the US Navy, of course we have our lights on”. The lights were switched on about 30 seconds later but no further vhf contact. Someone probably was court marshalled that night.  

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Yachting Monthly

• Digital edition

How to pass your Yachtmaster Practical Exam

• Theo Stocker
• August 22, 2024

Theo Stocker is put through his paces on an RYA Yachtmaster Offshore prep week, before taking the exam itself. Find out how he got on

The RYA Yachtmaster Offshore has long been the qualification that cruising yacht sailors, both amateur and professional, have aspired to. Quite aside from the fact that it is the gateway to working in the yachting industry if the desire so takes you, it is good to know that you have mastered the sweep of skills and experience necessary for you to be deemed competent at skippering a sailing yacht.

I’ve wanted to test myself and see if I was up to scratch for years, and I finally got the courage up to put my skills under the spotlight earlier this summer. I was going to be taking the test with my friend Andrew, as we’d been talking about doing our Yachtmaster for two decades.

Last month I shared my experience of preparing for a Yachtmaster exam to get our rusty skills and knowledge back up to standard, and to check that there weren’t any major holes in our repertoire. Now that the RYA Yachtmaster scheme has turned 50, we were also interested to see how things have changed with technology.

Things like chartplotters and mobile internet have made some areas massively easier, but bring their own challenges, and in the first part, we discovered that navigating these systems and knowing what information to trust requires just as many skills and as much judgement as the old methods.

If anything, they also bring more opportunity for distraction from the real world with plenty of potential for making navigationally serious mistakes. The standard for passing the RYA Yachtmaster Offshore exam is just as demanding as it ever was.

Having looked at safety briefs, marina boat handling, navigation and pilotage, it was now time to move onto boat handling under sail, the more critical safety manoeuvres, as well as some of the softer skills involved in skippering a crew. The exam was looming…

The Yachtmaster crew (L-R): Matt Sillars, Andrew Eastham, Row Staples, Theo Stocker

Skippering the boat

Part of the reason for having our supercrew, Row, on board for the prep week was that it’s all well and good sailing solo, but a skipper needs to be able to lead and manage a crew safely, and ideally create an atmosphere on board that is harmonious, effective and enjoyable, striking the right balance between being clearly in control, facilitating everyone to play their part, and enjoying life at sea.

A huge part of this is around good, early communication in the inevitable form of briefings. Now, this isn’t patronisingly sitting everyone down and telling them to do things they are totally capable of doing, but of communicating what you want to happen, before it happens.

Briefings can be brief and on-the-go, as long as they are clear and you are confident your crew understand. It also demands some degree of foresight and competence on your part – if you haven’t anticipated something, you can’t brief for it. Whether it’s leaving a berth, setting sail or fighting a fire, everyone having a job and being equipped with the skills to do their jobs should engender a satisfying sense of competence and achievement for everyone involved.

Article continues below…

How to prepare for your Yachtmaster Offshore exam

Many very competent and highly experienced yachtsmen and women don’t have any qualifications at all and are content to keep…

Andrew and I were struck by how much we’re both used to just getting on and doing stuff on our own boats, either by ourselves, or without making sure the crew know what we’re thinking. Talking out loud was a helpful habit during the week. In marina manoeuvres, we tried to warn crew on the foredeck that we were about to turn, or go astern, so as not to unbalance them, and our coming alongsides were a lot smoother when everyone knew what order to get the lines across in.

Make sure there’s cake and coffee – especially during your exam

Soft skills

Whether you’re sailing with strangers you’ve never met before, or with your family who know your flaws only too well and are occasionally good enough to point these out to you, managing interpersonal relationships on board is a skill that’s hard to teach but critical to a safe and happy crew. The more competent and in control you feel, the easier this will be, and thinking ahead will help you keep your stress levels down.

Under the eye of an instructor or examiner, we were of course on our best behaviour. It helped that all of us genuinely enjoyed our time on board and each other’s company, but thinking through what your crew may be feeling or thinking will help. Swallow your pride and do some of the jobs others might not enjoy.

As long as the boat is under control and you’ve got some capacity, make everyone a cup of tea and offer the choccy round. Give people things to do, but let them rest when they need a break too. Make sure they’ve all got suncream on. Keeping an eye on their wellbeing isn’t always easy when you’re nervous, stressed, or don’t quite know where you are.

Briefings can be informal, as long as your crew is clear about what’s happening and what to do

Command and safety

At the same time, you are responsible for keeping the boat safe. There will be times when you need to make it clear who is in charge, and what you are and are not happy with on board. Andrew and I are used to scampering around a boat, but reminding each other to clip on before going forward for a man overboard, or finding a safe way to adjust the mainsail leech line was a useful reminder to err on the side of caution. Demonstrate that you can pre-empt risks and avoid or mitigate for them.

Boat husbandry and housekeeping

Serious problems on board are more likely if you don’t keep on top of the little things. We worked hard to make sure the boat was in a good state during the week; tidy the galley up and stow the crockery before you set sail, coil the halyards and lines away once you’ve finished reefing. A snake’s wedding in the cockpit is going to lead to jammed lines and tangled feet. If you’re happy with the picture of where the boat is and how she’s sailing, look around you to make sure the details are right too.

Shout man overboard and point at the casualty. Crash tack to stop the boat

Man overboard

Man overboard is just about one of the most serious events that can happen on board a cruising yacht at sea. Getting them out of the water as quickly as possible is of paramount importance. When I last did a sailing course nearly two decades ago, the drills were the same as they’ve always been – choose whether you want to get back to the MOB under sail or engine, do your manoeuvre, then fish out the fender and bucket with a boathook.

I’ve spent some time for the magazine testing not only the sequence of actions in this manouevre but how you then actually get the casualty out of the water, and was chastened by just how hard it really is to lift a dead-weight casualty from the water onto deck, especially if they are incapacitated.

I was encouraged, therefore, that the RYA’s approach to MOB training has moved on, breaking it down into three areas: preventing man overboard in the first place, getting back to the casualty, and getting them out of the water.

The usual points of minimising time on deck, clipping on in rough weather or when alone on deck, only going forward on the windward side, and all the other precautions, are something to drill into your crew, and as skipper, it’s important to ensure a safe culture on board.

You can still practise with a fender, but getting back to it is only half the job

Man overboards are no longer taught exclusively under sail. Yes, we practised sailing back to a fender in the water, but this should only ever be as a backup to the fastest and most reliable way to get to your MOB, and on boats with engines, that is under power.

The order in which we did the drill during our training was as follows:

• Raise the alarm – Shout man overboard and point at the casualty.
• Stop the boat – Stop the boat by crash-tacking to heave to, and ensure crew don’t release the sheets. At this point you are close to the MOB and under control.
• Mark the mob – Throw in the horseshoe and danbuoy, then allocate someone to point at the MOB. At this stage you should also be able to communicate with them.
• Make a distress call – Someone can then go below to hit the VHF DSC distress button and to mark the MOB on the plotter, but don’t bother with a voice Mayday call at this point – it’s too slow unless you have a large crew.
• Start the engine – Check the lines are clear, start the engine, furl the jib and centre the main.
• Prepare for recovery – As you motor round, the crew can get the MOB recovery kit ready – a grab bag in the cockpit locker contained a 6:1 handy billy with a sling already attached.
• Rig the handy billy – The handy billy is hoisted on a spinnaker halyard, and guyed forwards to stop it swinging – we used the spinnaker pole downhaul, but a clip to the shroud might also work. The tail can be taken to a primary winch via a turning block if extra power is needed. Before crew go forward, they should clip on to prevent a second MOB, so have tethers in the bag too.
• Depower the main – Once downwind of the MOB, come onto a close reach and the main can be eased out with the deck crew forward of the shroud, and if a topping lift is fitted, scandalise the boom to keep it clear of heads. If you’ve got lazy jacks, you could drop the main, but don’t drop the main onto deck where everyone will be working.
• Approach and attach – As you come to the MOB, aim upwind and drift down. A loop of rope can be thrown over the casualty, which will be easier than trying to catch them with a flimsy boathook.
• Hoist them aboard – Get them to put the sling on if they can, or use the loop of rope secured to the handy billy to hoist them. A floating loop of line pre-attached to their lifejacket, like the MOB Lifesaver, would also speed things up here. If they’ve not been in the water long, and you’re only doing a short lift, focus on getting them out of the water rather than keeping them horizontal.

Stop the boat by crash-tacking to heave to without easing the sheets. You should then be stopped, under control and close to the MOB

Practise alongside

It’s a highly informative process to try out this last part whilst alongside in the marina, with the ‘casualty’ a real person lying on the pontoon. While they would be wet, heavier and needing lifting further in real life, this is a very safe and controlled way of practising with your system and adjusting it until everyone is happy they know what to do.

Having done this exercise now, I am keen to do a full man overboard drill at the start of every season and at the start of every trip so that everyone on board knows what to do – it is this practice that is the deciding factor in whether you can get an MOB back or not.

Once you’re used to lassoing, it’s almost easier than using a boat hook

Manoeuvres under sail – picking up a fender

Sailing back to a fender is a good skill to have, were your engine to fail during a MOB – a line wrapping around the prop, for example – or just to get back to a favourite hat or fender that’s gone overboard. It’s like sailing onto a mooring, but easier in many ways without having to factor in the tide.

The basic principle is that you want to approach on a close reach with enough space to slow down and arrive under control, able to spill all the power from the main. There are two slight variations in that you can bear away on a broad reach to start with as you sail away from the fender, or you can reach away, then dip downwind after the tack. If you do the latter, the dip down will need to be a significant bear away.

As you’ll be sending crew forward to the shrouds, you’ll still need to furl the jib and scandalise the main on your final approach. I managed to get myself confused once or twice and went to put the fender on the windward bow like a mooring, which isn’t going to work.

Picking up a mooring under sail is a satisfying skill to master. Put the buoy on your windward bow so it doesn’t drag you into a gybe

Mooring under sail

There are a few manoeuvres that everyone should be able to do. While you may rarely sail onto a mooring buoy, knowing how to do so is a good skill to have should you have engine trouble or just for showing off. At the same time, it’s a good indicator of a sailor’s feel for the boat and how it will respond to the elements.

When approaching into wind and tide together, our Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 37 from 2008 had a fairly shallow forefoot, so as soon as our speed dropped off, the bow tended to pay off quickly.

You don’t want a flogging genoa over the crew on the foredeck either, so furling the genoa away is a good option, but you will sail slower and with more leeway, so need to be slightly higher upwind than you first anticipate.

With wind and tide opposed, you would clearly approach under genoa alone, but with wind and tide at roughly right angles, you’ll need to judge which approach is needed. There were two factors that caught us out a couple of times, interestingly more important in lighter airs.

The first is that as the boat slows down the tide becomes proportionally more important, and secondly, at the same time apparent wind will decrease and move aft, further filling the mainsail. The lesson was to prepare for a wind-against-tide approach much more readily than we might otherwise have done.

You may find yourself having to sail back into harbour with engine problems.

Sailing onto a pontoon

You are unlikely ever to sail into a marina finger berth and I wouldn’t advise trying. You may, however, find yourself having to sail back into harbour with engine problems. While a Pan Pan call is pretty ubiquitous these days, a Yachtmaster should be able to deal with engine problems at sea, and if not, to sail themselves back into harbour rather than depending on being rescued.

Most harbours will have a pontoon or berth with a relatively open approach, and it’s reasonable to expect to be able to sail onto it. The calculation of which approach to use is much the same as for picking up moorings under sail, though with other boats around and a solid pontoon to hit, the consequences of getting it wrong are higher. Handling a boat in confined waters means you’ll need to keep control at low speeds, and be thinking ahead about escape routes if it’s not going according to plan.

For us, sailing on the mid-river pontoon opposite Warsash at the bottom of the Hamble river offered a good open approach, and just enough wind to get away with a wind-and-tide together approach, though a genoa-only approach may have been safer.

A properly guyed pole is a more seaworthy setup than just clipping the pole onto the sheet

Sailing downwind

The dangers of a crash gybe are well known, particularly from the mainsheet and boom scything across the boat, with a high potential to damage both crew and boat. I had sailed a bit close to a gybe with the jib collapsing earlier in the week, and when I had intentionally gybed, I hadn’t fully centred the main.

Although no harm was done, the boom did clatter across noisily. Matt gave a stern warning about the dim view an examiner would take of this – a potential instant fail – and we agreed that looking at rigging for downwind legs would be worthwhile, including both preventer and poling out the genoa.

Rigging a preventer

Rigging a preventer is relatively straightforward. We chose the longest, strongest line we had on board in the form of a spinnaker sheet. This was led from the end of the boom, where it was secured with a round turn and two half hitches – both a strong knot and easily released under load – then forward outside everything to the bow fairlead, and then aft to a cockpit winch.

It takes a little bit of rigging, but if the result is a much safer and more manoeuvrable setup, then it’s worth doing, even on relatively short legs

When poling out a headsail in the past, I’ve always set the pole using the pole uphaul and downhaul then clipped the sheet into the end then unfurled the headsail. This works fine in settled conditions for short legs clear of shipping. Were you to need to gybe, change course, or furl away the headsail quickly, however, it would leave you with the dangerous proposition of a loose, heavy pole potentially swinging freely on the foredeck that also prevents you sheeting the sail in for an upwind course without first unclipping it from the pole.

Coming up with a solution

Matt set us the task of rigging the pole in such a way that it could be locked in position whether the sail was set or not, and that the headsail could be sheeted in for upwind sailing without going forward to unrig the pole. After a bit of head scratching, we found a solution.

The pole could be held in position by the pole uphaul, the downhaul, which served to pull the pole forwards and down, and an additional aft guy, which was an extra line taken from the pole end to the aft mooring cleat. We attached a third sheet, in the form of a spinnaker sheet, to the jib’s clew, through the pole, and aft to a spinnaker block at the stern and then onto a primary winch.

The result was that chafe was minimised, the pole could be locked in position whether the sail was set or not, and if we did need to gybe or sail upwind, the normal jib sheets still had a proper lead, albeit the pole would need to be held aft and the headsail with a couple of reefs to keep it clear of the pole.

With examiner Andy Wright aboard, the exam was finally underway

The day of the exam

The exam starts a day or two before the examiner turns up, in that he or she may want to see a passage plan you’ve prepared in advance. If this is the case, the examiner will have passed the information to you via the school providing the training.

It’s best to do this two or three days before the exam so you haven’t got a last-minute panic, but not too far in advance that you’ve forgotten the sums you’ve done and why you made the choices you did. I was set a passage from Bembridge to St Vaast on the Cherbourg peninsula, giving me a potentially fiddly drying harbour at either end, though the forecast given was a conveniently favourable Westerly Force 4-5. With passage plan complete, and some last-minute swotting up on lights, shapes and sounds, Andrew and I retired for an early night.

After the windless drizzle of the day before, Friday dawned bright and breezy with a forecast of a good Force 5 from the southwest and plenty of sunshine – enough that we’d have to be on our toes, but at least something we could get our teeth into. Matt had reassured us that making mistakes wasn’t the end of the world during the exam, if we showed competence in getting ourselves back on track.

Andrew gives the crew an on-deck safety briefing, including the MOB recovery kit

Minor mistakes are to be expected and it’s more important how you respond to your own mistake. The only sorts of things that would probably be an outright fail, other than flunking our lights and shapes, are safety critical things such as a collision, running aground, an inability to navigate and pilot, or an uncontrolled gybe.

We were joined at 0900 by our examiner Andy Wright, an RYA Yachtmaster instructor trainer, examiner and centre inspector, an MCA Master 200 who works as an RNLI area lifesaving manager and who also volunteers with the Rona sailing project. There’d be no ‘getting away with it’ here.

We began the day with a coffee and chat, and Andy spent some time asking about our reasons for taking the exam, before laying out what he would be looking for. ‘I’m not going to be trying to catch anyone out, but what I want to see you demonstrate is that you can skipper the boat, navigate the boat, handle the boat under power and handle the boat under sail.’

Andrew talks examiner Andy through his pre-prepared passage plan

The safety briefings

We began, as we had with our prep week, with safety briefs, with Andy and I splitting above and below decks.

With the engine bay open, Andy took time to probe our knowledge of engine troubleshooting, asking us to point out various parts of the engine, the different significance of blue, black or white smoke from the exhaust (incomplete combustion, burning oil and overheating, by the way), and how to change filters, impellers and belts and how to bleed the fuel.

On deck, we were asked to explain when and why each kind of flare would be used. None of it felt overly pressured, but it was certainly an in-depth examination of our knowledge.

During the day, these conversations continued as he drew information out of us in areas that were not being practically demonstrated on the day – 15-20 minutes on lights, shapes, sounds and collision avoidance, including how we’d handle different scenarios in traffic separation schemes.

Andrew points out where the MOB handy billy and sling is during his safety brief

He asked us to talk through our passage plans, and then went further to see whether we knew if the boat we were on was legally allowed to do so, and what the administrative and immigration requirements would be on either side of the Channel – a tricky one given the ongoing chaos and confusion that surrounds small boat crossings these days.

Being tested underway

In between these chats, we got underway. First with our marina manoeuvres in and out of a selection of increasingly tricky berths, putting the boat into positions that we might not have chosen, including a berth two space into a gulley with a yacht moored either side of the space and a boat opposite. Ferry gliding in bows-first wasn’t too tricky, but with wind and tide pushing us on, getting out again was harder. I opted to use prop walk to pull the stern out against a bow line – slightly unconventional, and it needed a bit of oomph to keep our bows clear, but I got away without a collision.

We then had half an hour or so to each prepare a short passage plan and pilotage from each end, this time from Hamble to Portsmouth and back. As these weren’t Andrew’s home waters, he was relieved that I was going first.

Navigating the boat, piloting into Portsmouth, and recovering a MOB kept Theo on his toes

I know Portsmouth well, but hadn’t been in for a while. With a plan complete, Andy asked me to explain the route I’d chosen. While I had the route in the chartplotter, I’d picked waypoints near easy-to-find buoys so I could see I was in the right place from the cockpit, and I’d elected not to cut the corner over the shallows off Hill Head to keep us clear of a lee shore.

I’d also have to use the Outer Swashway on the way in, as we’d be close to low water and lacking depth by about 0.3m to get in via the Inner Swashway.

Emergency on passage

Underway, and with Row on the wheel, I had decisions to make about how many reefs to put in, and I was torn between sailing the boat properly and being overly cautious. Starting with one reef, with the breeze creeping upwards, life was comfier with two reefs in. I had to stop myself from any gung-ho attempts to tighten leech lines, electing for a quick heave-to to sort them out. Coffees needed to keep on flowing during the passage, and lunchtime was upon us before I knew it.

We needed to devise a rock-solid passage plan

While the pasties were heating in the oven, there was time for a fix on the chart, or would have been had the fender not fallen overboard. We went through our drill and I was relieved to get back to the MOB first go. Andrew and Row looked at me to see if we were doing ‘the whole thing’ and as Andy hadn’t flinched, we rigged the handy billy, attached the fender to the sling and hauled away until it was safely aboard – it’s a complex process that really does need practice, but it had gone well.

A sense of relief

Once safely in Portsmouth Harbour, it was my turn to find and pick up a mooring buoy under sail. Tied up and handing over skippering duty to Andrew for his turn in the hot seat, I suddenly felt a wave of relief that my passage, pilotage and handling seemed to have gone okay. It was only early afternoon, however, and we wouldn’t be finished until we’d done our night navigation.

There was a fresh breeze from the southwest for the passage to Portsmouth

Andrew’s passage went well, too, in a building breeze that was more on the nose on the way back, while I was below wrestling with getting a tray of meatballs and sauce into a wildly swinging oven. I’m ashamed to say that when it was Andrew’s turn at MOB, despite a flawless approach, I messed up the lasso and missed the fender. Sorry, friend.

Night navigation

By the time we were back on a mooring inside Calshot Spit it was time for dinner and a brief respite, before plunging on into our night nav exercises.

Much like earlier in the week, we were asked to navigate to unmarked locations and Andy gave us a bit of time to prepare these. While we were doing this, he also checked our knowledge of how the radar worked for collision avoidance and for navigation, and how to extract relevant information from both the chartplotter and the AIS.

My night nav began well, using multiple sources of position information as requested, and just about making sense of my hastily drawn sketch and notes, looking for the characteristics of particular lights (you’ll need to know how quick VQ compared to just Q really is) and using the radar to plot our course.

Andrew plots a visual fix as the sun starts to set

As it was top of the tide, however, every ship in Southampton seemed determined to set sail, including the maiden voyage of the Queen Mary cruise liner with attendant tugs, police launches and party boats following behind. Cowering at the side of the channel, my plan was thrown into disarray and I lost the plot on radar, and we were blinded by disco balls and oil terminal lights alike. Luckily, Navionics is by no means banned, and a quick range and bearing in the palm of my hand gave me a course and distance to my imaginary point. Another step closer.

Still, Andrew needed to pilot us up the Hamble River, where Hamble Point’s sector lights can be easily lost in the welter of shore lights, and I was asked to bring the boat alongside, stern first at the end of a long gulley, giving me another chance to mess things up, right up to the last minute.

Back at Calshot darkness falls ahead of the night navigation exercises

But with the boat tied up and put to bed, Andy took each of us off for a quick chat on the pontoon. Fortunately, he was pleased with how we had done and broke the news that we had both passed. Phew – mission accomplished!

We could finally open those beers and enjoy what we had just achieved. Both of us had found the week intense, all-absorbing and demanding – perhaps unsurprisingly. As a result, we felt that we’d been forced to up our game when it came to our sailing and skippering, and our skills had been updated by a decade or two.

We were now much better-rounded skippers than we’d been before. There were lots of learnings and some new skills to take back to our own boats, too, but we had also had a fun week along the way.

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2 rescued in Clearwater after yacht catches on fire: Officials

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Two people were rescued after a yacht caught on fire early Saturday morning, according to authorities.

Clearwater Fire & Rescue, Clearwater Police and multiple other agencies responded to a yacht fire just before 5 a.m. The yacht was located just west of Coachman Park and north of the Memorial Causeway bridge, according to officials.

Courtesy: City of Clearwater

Two people from Clearwater were rescued by another boat in the area. Authorities say they were not injured.

The cause of the fire is unknown.

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Inside the Shocking Sicily Yacht Tragedy: 7 People Dead After Rare Luxury Boat Disaster

There was a violent storm, but even then, luxury yachts are built to weather such events. so why did this boat sink off the coast of sicily, leaving seven people dead.

Nobody was trying to reach the lowest depths of the ocean or otherwise test the boundaries of human endurance .

But what was supposed to be a routine pleasure cruise aboard a superyacht turned deadly all the same on the morning of Aug. 19 when the 184-foot Bayesian got caught in a storm and sank off the coast of Sicily .

"I can't remember the last time I read about a vessel going down quickly like that," Stephen Richter  of SAR Marine Consulting told NBC News . "You know, completely capsizing and going down that quickly, a vessel of that nature, a yacht of that size."

Of the 22 people onboard, including crew, seven people died. The last of the bodies was recovered Aug. 23, an expectedly sad coda to what had already been a tragic week as the search for answers as to how this happened got underway.

And to be sure, every minute of the Bayesian's ill-fated outing is being fiercely scrutinized, starting with the general seaworthiness of the vessel itself.

Because, frankly, this was a freak occurrence.

"Boats of this size, they’re taking passengers on an excursion or a holiday," Richter explained. "They are not going to put them in situations where it may be dangerous or it may be uncomfortable, so this storm that popped up was obviously an anomaly. These vessels that carry passengers, they’re typically very well-maintained, very well-appointed."

But in this case, a $40 million yacht sank, seven people are dead—including a billionaire tech mogul and his 18-year-old daughter—and morbid fascination doesn't need a second wind.

Here is how the story of the Sicily yacht tragedy has unfolded so far:

What happened to the yacht that sank off the coast of Sicily?

The Bayesian had set off from the Sicilian port of Milazzo on Aug. 14 at capacity with 12 guests and 10 crewmembers aboard.

The aluminum-hulled vessel was built in 2008 by Italian shipbuilder Perini Navi and registered in the U.K. Cruise sites listed it as available for charter at $215,000 per week, per the Associated Press.

On the morning of Aug. 19, the superyacht was anchored off the coast of Porticello, a small fishing village in the Sicilian province of Palermo (also the name of Sicily's capital city), when a violent storm hit.

The vessel "suddenly sank" at around 5 a.m. local time, seemingly due to "the terrible weather conditions," the City Council of Bagheria announced shortly afterward, per NBC News .

At the time, only one person was confirmed dead—the ship's chef—but six others were said to be missing. The 15 survivors—who managed to make it onto an inflatable life boat, according to emergency officials—were rescued that morning by the crew of another yacht that had been nearby when the storm hit.

"Fifteen people inside," Karsten Borner , the Dutch captain of the ship that was able to help (the Sir Robert Baden Powell), told reporters afterward, per Reuters. "Four people were injured, three heavily injured, and we brought them to our ship. Then we communicated with the coast guard, and after some time, the coast guard came and later picked up injured people."

When the storm hit, his boat ran into "a strong hurricane gust," Borner said, "and we had to start the engine to keep the ship in an angled position."

They "managed to keep the ship in position," he continued, but once the storm died down, they realized the other boat that had been behind them—the Bayesian—was gone.

The wreck ended up settling 165 feet below the surface, according to Italy's national fire department.

Fire officials said that divers, a motorboat and a helicopter were deployed to search for the missing.

Meanwhile, footage was captured of the ship capsizing on closed-circuit TV about a half-mile away from where it was anchored.

In the video obtained by NBC News, the illuminated 250-foot aluminum mast of the ship appears to list severely to one side before disappearing completely. Survivors recalled having just a few minutes to literally abandon ship.

"They told me that suddenly they found themselves catapulted into the water without even understanding how they had got there," Dr. Fabio Genco , head of the Palermo Emergency Medical Services, told NBC News Aug. 22. "And that the whole thing seems to have lasted from 3 to 5 minutes."

Genco said he got to Porticello about an hour after the Bayesian capsized.

Survivors "told me that it was all dark, that the yacht hoisted itself up and then went down," he said. "All the objects were falling on them. That’s why I immediately made sure, by asking them questions, if they had any internal injuries."

Why did the yacht sink?

Italian prosecutors are investigating to determine what transpired before the boat went down, according to NBC News.

Meanwhile, the CEO of shipbuilder Perini's parent company The Italian Sea Group defended the vessel itself as "unsinkable."

Perini boats "are the safest in the most absolute sense," Giovanni Costantino told Sky News Aug. 22 . What happened to the Bayesian "put me in a state of sadness on one side and of disbelief on the other," he continued. "This incident sounds like an unbelievable story, both technically and as a fact."

Costantino said it had to have been human error that led to the boat sinking, declaring, "Mistakes were made."

"Everything that was done reveals a very long summation of errors," he told newspaper Corriere della Sera  Aug. 21, in an interview translated from Italian. "The people should not have been in the cabins, the boat should not have been at anchor."

The weather was "all predictable," he continued, adding that the storm "was fully legible in all the weather charts. It couldn't have been ignored."

The yacht's captain, identified as James Cutfield of New Zealand, was taken to Termini Imerese hospital for treatment. From there, he told  La Repubblica , per Sky News , that he didn't see the storm coming.

Borner, the captain of the ship that rescued the 15 Bayesian survivors, told NBC News that he noticed the storm come in at 4 a.m. local time, and saw what looked to him like a waterspout, a type of tornado that forms above water.

The International Centre for Waterspout Research posted on X Aug. 19 that it had "confirmed 18 waterspouts today off the coasts of Italy. Some were powerful waterspouts, one of which may have been responsible for the sinking of a large yacht off of Sicily."

Borner said he didn't know why the Bayesian sank so quickly, guessing "it may have something to do with the mast, which was incredibly long." (A tall mast, even with its sails down, means there's more surface area exposed to wind, which can result in tipping.) 

Confirming that one person was dead and six unaccounted for immediately following the wreck on Aug. 19, Salvo Cocina of Sicily's civil protection agency told reporters that a waterspout had struck the area overnight.

"They were in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said.

Who were the seven people who died when the yacht Bayesian sank?

The tragedy initially became headline news because billionaire tech mogul Mike Lynch —"Britain's Bill Gates ," some U.K. media called him—was among the missing. His body was ultimately recovered Aug. 22 .

The 59-year-old founder of software firm Autonomy had been on the trip with his wife Angela Bacares and their 18-year-old, Oxford-bound daughter Hannah  to celebrate his recent acquittal in the U.S. on fraud and conspiracy charges stemming from the $11.7 billion purchase of his company by Hewlett-Packard in 2011.

In a bizarre turn of events, Lynch's co-defendant at trial, Stephen Chamberlain , the former vice president of finance at Autonomy, died after being taken off life support following a road accident on Aug. 17. Chamberlain's attorney told Reuters Aug. 20 that his friend and client had been out for a run when he was "fatally struck" by a car.

Meanwhile, multiple people who contributed to Lynch's defense were on the cruise with him and his family.

The bodies of Morgan Stanley International Chairman Jonathan Bloomer —who testified on Lynch's behalf—and his wife Judy Bloomer , as well as lawyer Chris Morvillo , a partner at the U.S. firm Clifford Chance, and his wife Neda Morvillo , a jewelry designer, were recovered on Aug. 21 .

In a LinkedIn post thanking the team that successfully defended Lynch, Morvillo wrote, per Sky News , "And, finally, a huge thank you to my patient and incredible wife, Neda Morvillo, and my two strong, brilliant, and beautiful daughters, Sabrina Morvillo and Sophia Morvillo . None of this would have been possible without your love and support. I am so glad to be home. And they all lived happily ever after…"

The first casualty confirmed Aug. 19 was the ship's Canadian-Antiguan chef, later identified as Recaldo Thomas . 

"He was a one-of-a-kind special human being," a friend of Thomas told The Independent . "Incredibly talented, contagious smile and laugh, an incredible voice with a deep love of the ocean and the moon. I spoke to him nearly every day. He loved his life his friends and his job."

Hannah's body was the last of the missing six to be found , with divers bringing her remains ashore on Aug. 23.

Lynch and Bacares, who was rescued, also shared a 21-year-old daughter, according to The Times.

While awaiting trial, Lynch—who maintained his innocence throughout the proceedings—had spent 13 months under house arrest in San Francisco. Back home in London afterward, he admitted to The Times in July that he'd been afraid of dying in prison if he'd been found guilty. (He faced a possible 25-year sentence.)

"It's bizarre, but now you have a second life," he reflected. "The question is, what do you want to do with it?"

(E!, NBC News and Sky News are all members of the Comcast family.)

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Body of British Tech Entrepreneur Lynch Retrieved From Sunken Yacht, Official Says

Rescue personnel work at the scene where a luxury yacht sank, off the coast of Porticello, near the Sicilian city of Palermo, Italy, August 22, 2024. REUTERS/Louiza Vradi

PORTICELLO, Italy (Reuters) - The body of British tech magnate Mike Lynch was retrieved on Thursday from the wreck of a yacht that sank earlier this week off Sicily during a storm, Massimo Mariani, an interior ministry official, told Reuters.

Lynch's daughter, the last person unaccounted for after the shipwreck, is still missing, Mariani said, adding that she may be inside the wreck or could have been tossed into the sea as the boat sank.

(Reporting by Giselda Vagnoni, writing by Gavin Jones, editing by Alvise Armellini)

Copyright 2024 Thomson Reuters .

Photos You Should See - July 2024

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Home / School, courses also ONLINE / Russia

Sailing schools and courses (ISSA, RYA, IYT) in Russia

The possibilities for yachting in russia are unlimited, since this is a country with a long maritime history. you just need to choose where you want to sail. small and big lakes, full-flowing rivers, warm and cold seas — all this is available to those who want to try sailing in this country..

Practical yachting

You will be able to master the skills of sailing; learn to feel the boat, approach and leave the pier, learn about the safety measures on the water and much more.

There are places in 1 team

International Bareboat Skipper (IYT) Course

Having received the International Bareboat Skipper Certificate, you can independently charter a yacht on a charter and operate it in the waters of any country.

More details

ISSA Offshore Skipper course

The certificated confirms the skills sufficient to sail the yacht in light and dark hours at a distance from a sheltered port up to 100 sea miles.

IYT International Crew course

This is a certificate of excellence for those candidates who wish to train to become an active crew member on a power or sailing yacht. It includes Introduction to Boating for power and sail yachts.

IYT Introductory Sailing Skills course

This course is great for groups of friends or like-minded people to get together for a few days of fun sailing while learning skills to better help as crew onboard.

IYT Try Sailing Course

It’s a fun hands-on course to enjoy being on the water while learning basic sailing skills.

Yacht management training in the Moscow region

In three hours of training, you will learn the basic techniques of managing a yacht, learn some of the specifics of working with a yacht, a helm, sails.

RYA Coastal Skipper course

Advanced skippering techniques for yachtsmen with considerable knowledge of sailing and navigation, wanting to undertake coastal passages by day and night.

RYA Competent Crew course

This course is for beginners and those who would like to become active crew members rather than just passengers.

RYA Day Skipper course

A course for aspiring skippers with some yachting experience and basic navigation and sailing skills.

RYA Start Yachting course

A short introduction to sailing for complete beginners.

Boat Handling Course

The boat handling course will go a long way to relieving those feelings of apprehension when the time comes to carry out a manoeuvre in a tight marina or in windy conditions. Your experienced instructor will explain the main factors that affect how a yacht handles under power and armed with this information you will have the chance to put theory into practice in a variety of situations.

You will come away with a better understanding of how windage, prop walk, tide, rudder shape and prop wash effect your yacht and indeed can in many cases be harnessed to help you pull off a perfect manoeuvre. We are often asked about ways to moor up when short handed so time will also be spent looking at various methods to help. The day is run in a friendly and relaxed manner to help you get the most out of your time on the water.

Hamble School of Yachting advise Sailing Today's 'The Big 5 of Boat Handling' article read it here!

Itinerary: 

0900 until approximately 1700.

What's Included:

Wet weather gear, lunch, morning and afternoon tea.

Support Courses: 

Sail Handling Course

Course Dates: 

Please note that if the dates listed are not suitable for you or you wish to have a course run on your own boat we can arrange bespoke courses. Please call us if you would like more information about these options

Duration: 1 Day.

Previous Experience Required: Basic sailing ability .

Course Overview: A hands on course that will help improve your understanding of how a yacht handles under power and improve your boat handling in close quarters situations.

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