Skills & Own Boat Tuition

When I walk the docks I am often asked questions about boating, “How do you get into a mooring with the tide and wind behind you…How do I get into Bembridge…I want to teach my wife…How would you trim for waves?” All these questions are part and parcel of driving a boat and so we thought people may find it useful to have some own boat tuition sessions.

Own boat tuition sessions are perfect for:

Families who would love to have everyone learn at the same time
Those with access to a boat who want to explore more and go further afield
Recent members of Boat Club Trafalgar who want to extend their skills
Long-standing members who have “forgotten how to…”

The sessions are delivered by one of our professional RYA Advanced skippers or instructors.

The way we work is we’ll give you a quick call to understand:

What you would like to learn and who else will be on the boat. For example, a day for the whole family?
If there is a particular boat from the Boat Club Trafalgar Fleet you would like instruction on.
Whether you want to be certified by making it an RYA course.

With this information, I can create a bespoke session/day for you.

We tend to group the tuition into the following areas:

Cruising destinations
Boat management
Safety and crew management
Rights and wrongs – rules of the sea

BUT you tell us what you want and we will shape our tuition accordingly.

Cruising Destinations

There’s so much more to the Solent than simply heading to Cowes.

What about exploring further and looking at:

Where best to drop your anchor in Newtown Creek
How to navigate the sandbar to Bembridge
Navigating the Needles to Poole

A day out in the Solent enables us to teach you where to go and how to get there, how to manage the tide and sand bars and where best to moor up. It also encompasses elements of navigation and tide management, and of course the instruments that you have on your (or our) boat.

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Boat Management

Mooring up alongside a pontoon
Picking up a mooring
Dropping the anchor in a bay or off the beach
How to handle heavy seas
What to do if you run aground

Aimed at people who want to improve how they handle their boat. More confident boat handling undoubtedly makes boating more fun and gives you the confidence to go into different places.

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Safety/Crew Management

Good skipper tips!
How and when to use safety equipment including the VHF Radio

Practical usage of a boat focused on families and day to day usage – you specify what you would like to know or let’s have a chat and identify what will be really useful.

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The Rules of the Sea

Seamanship – who has right of way!
Coastal navigation and pilotage
Chartwork (electronic charts, position fixing, how to plot a course, weather forecasting, tides)
How and when to use the VHF Radio
What to do in a collision

This element of tuition is focused on ensuring you get it right from navigation and legal perspective. We deliver this course either on a boat or onshore at Trafalgar Wharf .

Many people look for a refresher on their RYA Day Skipper Theory Course or the RYA SRC Radio Course. Don’t forget that if you have a VHF radio onboard the RYA SRC Radio course is a legal requirement.

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Prices

We charge on a daily basis and can focus on one of the above elements or we can combine several elements into one day.

If the tuition is NOT RYA then we can have as many people on the boat as the boat is legally set up for. If you want to achieve an RYA certificate then we are only allowed to have up to 3 students.

Boats under 10 metres : £240 per day.
Boats over 10 metres: £280 per day.

How to Book

As this is such a personal service please email me or call me on +44 23 9270 6599