Our Yachtmaster online theory course is unique, presenter led, with support all the way

Presented by Duncan Wells, author of the Stress-Free series of sailing books and creator of MOB Lifesavers.
Start when you like and go at your own speed. We do NOT send any packs/training material overseas. We only send to UK addresses

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You are not alone

"It is exactly the same as our classroom course, only without the classroom"

The course is video led and presented by Duncan Wells, author of the Stress-Free Sailing series of books.  Start when you like and go at your own speed. 3 months is the ideal time frame for Yachtmaster but you can go faster or slower. You have access to the course for 1 year. All the material and learning is online. With the Westview Sailing RYA Yachtmaster online theory course you are not alone. I monitor your progress and you submit assignments so we can see how you are doing. And you can contact me at any time on email if you have a question.

Take your time

"You may have done your Day Skipper many years ago, so…"

We go back over all the fundamentals that we covered at Day Skipper just to make sure that everything is tickety-boo. And once you have remembered all the basics you will then start to fly. This online theory course follows a logical, structured order. And remember there’s plenty to do on a Yachtmaster course! The RYA state that it should be taught over 40 hours and it needs this. The beauty of the Westview Sailing online theory course is that you can do it to suit your available time. I wouldn’t rush it, however. Realistically I would allow 3 months.  Emailed questions get an immediate answer. We also integrate traditional navigation with the modern electronics and thanks to a tie-in with nauticalsoftware.com we are able to include real RADAR demos, integrated with MARPA to give you a really good understanding of how they work and what they do.

A Learning style to help you remember

"Above all Yachtmaster study should be fun and I hope that is what I manage to convey."

I have always believed that one of the best ways of retaining knowledge is through quizzes and so we have multi choice answer quizzes as we go, with fun answers alongside the correct answers and devices that help us to remember. You will never be overcome with a fit of the vapours at the thought of Secondary Ports – as many are – as I talk you through them step by step and we do our time and height interpolations on our ‘Crocodile’ diagrams. And of course, the lessons being videos you can watch them time and time again. Check out the Free Preview module where you I take you through some of the lessons and you can get a feel for the thing.

Assessment & Certification

Shorebased Course RYA/MCA Coastal Skipper & Yachtmaster Offshore certificate.

Once you have been through the course you will be able to take the three assessment papers – a Chartwork paper, a Collision Regulations paper and a Passage Planning paper  and on achieving the standard you will receive the ‘SHOREBASED COURSE RYA/MCA Coastal Skipper & Yachtmaster Offshore’, certificate.

With the Westview Sailing online theory courses you are not alone. I am there in front of you, teaching you, encouraging you.

Duncan Wells

Navigational Instruments

The right tools for the job

Finally, navigational instruments – the plotter and dividers – are not included with the Yachtmaster course but if you need a set just let me know. They cost £25 plus p&p and I offer the more flexible Handy plotter rather than the Portland plotter. I find the Handy plotter easier to work with. It’s thinner, it’s more accurate and you can use it one handed – the more professional plotter I think. And of course, the Blundell Harling solid brass 7 inch, one handed dividers.

The Yachtmaster Pack NOW comes with our FREE ‘Lights, Shapes and Sound Signals at a Glance'

‘Lights, Shapes and Sound Signals at a Glance’ has all the Collision Regulations on two sides of laminated A4 card. An essential aide for Yachtmasters who need to achieve that all important passmark in the Colregs paper. It’s handy too as a cockpit card!

Course Highlights

  • Presenter led on videos
  • Just like our classroom courses used to be – only all the resources are there online for you to access whenever you want.
  • Start when you like. Take as long as you like or go as quickly as you want. We recommend you allow 3 months.
  • A thorough grounding in all the traditional navigational disciplines plus integration with electronic navigation. Thanks to a tie up with nauticalsoftware.com we are able to include real RADAR demos, integrated with MARPA and real VHF/DSC Mayday demos to give you a really good understanding of how they work and what they do. And we have a video on working with a chart plotter, waypoint plotting and passage planning to give you a good insight of what is available.
  • You are not alone. We will be with you all the way. In the videos, on email, on the phone. It is the most comprehensive Yachtmaster course there is. And presented by Duncan Wells, it is easy to understand.
  • There are fun multi choice quizzes throughout.

Course Cost & Curriculum

£ 375 one off purchase fee
  • Introduction & Packs
  • Module 1 – Chartwork, Projections, the Chart, Rocks Wrecks & Obstructions
  • Module 2– Position, Distance speed and Bearings, Plotting a position
  • Module 3 – Fixing a position
  • Module 4 - Aids to Navigation 1, 2 & 3
  • Module 5 - The compass, Magnetic variation, Deviation
  • Module 6 – Tides, the Tidal hour, tidal diamonds & the Tidal Stream Atlas
  • Module 7 - Dead Reckoning, Estimated Position, Computation of Rates, Leeway, Anchoring
  • Module 8 - Course to steer, Time Zones, Colregs
  • Module 9 - Weather 1 and Collision Regulations
  • Module 10 - Weather 2 and Weather 3, Navigating in restricted visibility
  • Module 11 - Tidal heights (Standard ports and Secondary ports)
  • Module 12 - GNSS - Electronic aids to navigation 1 and 2, Radar, MARPA, a 3 point fix by radar range
  • Module 13 – Pilotage, Passage planning, the running Fox
  • Module 14 – Stability, Safety, Distress, Calling a Mayday, Man Overboard retrieval, Protecting the environment & Before we set sail.
  • Module 15 Revision and pre assessment papers
  • 3 x RYA Coastal Skipper and Yachtmaster offshore Assessment papers
Cost includes; Shipping of the Westview/RYA packs to UK addresses only. We do not send packs or training materials overseas) | Our FREE Lights, Shapes and Sound Signals at a Glance card | ONE YEARS' access and unlimited support


Frequently Asked Questions

Most frequent questions and answers

We send it by Royal Mai to UK addresses only. We do not send packs or training material overseas.

Yes

No, you can start when you like

You have unlimited access to the course for 1 year. But within that our Yachtmaster course is designed to be completed in 8 weeks – that’s how long a classroom course used to take. 

About 3 months is a sensible amount of time to allow so that you do not lose momentum. We have had students who have concentrated on it and done it in 1 month. But there is a lot to get through at Yachtmaster level.

Yes if you are unable to complete the course within the year then you can buy extra time at a cost of £30 per month. Please contact duncan@duncanwells.com to arrange this.

Don’t worry we start from the beginning and make sure that we iron out any bad habits that may have crept in since Day Skipper. And Yachtmasters find quite quickly that it all comes back to them.
Yes and we give you the answers to the homework so you can see if you got the answer right

Yes there are 8 assignments as you go through the course – Fixing a position, A Dead Reckoning and Estimated Position exercise, a Course To Steer, Interpreting the Synoptic chart, a Meteorology question, a Secondary Port tidal height, a Passage Plan including Appraisal and a Running Fix. There are also three pre-assessment assignment papers

Yes, you have to do them to complete the course.

Yes, there are.

There are 4 papers;

  1. Chartwork Paper – time allowed 2 hours
  2. IRPCS Paper – time allowed 1.5 hours
  3. Passage Planning pre assessment appraisal preparation. This is not a paper but prep for the Passage Planning assessment which is split into two parts. Students are encouraged to spend no more than 2 hours on the Appraisal preparation.
  4. Passage Planning A – Appraisal and Plan – time allowed 1.5 hours
  5. Passage Planning B – Execute and Monitor – time allowed 2 hours

 

Shipping to Europe is extremely difficult at present, please contact us to discuss options.

Shipping to countries outside Europe is generally OK and you can expect to pay £38 to Australia, £34 to the north and south America. But please contact us before booking your course to check prices

Yes and if we see that progress has slowed or halted we will be in contact to check that everything is OK. Although you have the freedom to choose your pace it is important not to lose impetus and we are here to rev you up if you need it.
Yes – and students do.

Well no, not exactly. Once you have presented your pre-assessment assignments and you are ready for the final assessment you contact us and we will send you the papers one at a time. You complete them one at a time and submit them and we mark them. We may want to link up on Zoom to explain some of the answers, if necessary. Of course if you need a Commercial Endorsement then you will need to have the assessment papers invigilated and that means they must be completed in front of an RYA instructor.

No, not if you want it sent to the UK

Yes, if you want it sent to a country outside the UK

Only if you want to embark on MCA STCW training programme – for Officer of the Watch qualifications and beyond.

You do not need to show an invigilated Yachtmaster theory paper in order to do the RYA/MCA Yachtmaster exam as the theory is tested at the same time as the practical when you do the exam.

The MCA STCW programme however want to know that you have the detailed theory knowledge, which is demonstrated by passing an invigilated assessment.

The papers must be taken in person in front of an RYA instructor.

Yes. There is a charge for this. There are 4 papers and they will be taken over 2 days and the charge is £150

Once you have received your certificate, which is sent to you by post, look after it. Keep it. Most students will stick it in their RYA Cruising logbook.

Recently we have had a spate of students who have mislaid their Day Skipper shore-based theory certificate and I know we are talking about the Yachtmaster certificate here, but it costs now £35 for us to replace certificates! We will write out a new certificate for you and post it to you. We can also scan it and send it via email. Better still don’t lose it.

Yes. We offer the Westview Sailing Handy (flexible) plotter and the Blundell & Harling 7″ one-handed dividers, which are solid brass with stainless steel tips. Price £25 plus delivery.

The benefit of the flexible Handy plotter is that being made of thinner plastic than  the Portland Plotter you are less likely to get reading errors due to parallax and the compass grid is easier to line up with horizontals and verticals on the chart. It is also easier to use when taking tidal directions from the tidal stream atlas.

Please go to the Thinkific site for details https://support.thinkific.com/hc/en-us/articles/360030354954-System-Requirements-and-Supported-Browsers

Essentially though;

In order to make sure Thinkific runs well, please make sure your desktop computer, laptop, tablet, smartphone, or smart device has the following:

  • The most recent version of one of the web browsers listed below
  • Javascript enabled
  • PDF plugin
  • Graphic and audio output capability
  • Broadband internet connection with a minimum speed of 5Mbps (recommended)
  • TLS 1.2 supported by your web browser

 

Why choose us?

Presenter Led

At Westview Sailing our courses are presenter led and being on video you can start when you like and go at your own speed.

Classroom at Home

Learning with Westview is just like being in the classroom only you are at home. You get the very best of both worlds!

Monitored Progress

We monitor your progress and you submit assignments so we can see how you are doing, so we are in regular contact, encouraging you and supporting you.

24 Hour Support

All the learning is online but Duncan Wells and his team are available whenever you need them. With the Westview Sailing RYA Day Skipper and Yachtmaster online courses you are never alone.

Dyslexic friendly courses

So we have been told!

'Handy Plotter' as standard

We supply the more flexible, more accurate, ‘Handy Plotter’ with our Day Skipper plotter and divider sets, which are included in the course cost

Learning Aids

As well as a huge library of additional resources and access to a lifetime’s knowledge and experience from Duncan and his trusted training partners we supply our ‘Lights, Shapes and Sound Signals at a Glance’ card covering all the lights, shapes and sound Collision Regulations rules, free with our Yachtmaster packs.

What People Say About Us

Student Testimonials

“Clear, concise, easy to understand. What I wasn’t able to understand before, I now understand. And now I have passed my Day skipper theory "
DS
“I’m preparing for my OOW level exams and sail bigger ocean going vessels and I find these videos extremely helpful to reinforce the concepts and sometimes they clarify as to what to focus on”
HV
“I watched your video on secondary ports over and over again until it all became crystal clear – your calm sensible approach to dealing with the concept made it all seem so simple ”
JH
“Just wanted to say thanks a Million for all the Day Skipper tutorials. I’m part of the Lifeboat crew and a last minute opportunity came up to sit the exam. I can safely say I was struggling with my studies until I came across your videos. So thanks to you I was able to pass my theory in 10 days. Keep up the great work”
SS

Books

Explore the 'Stress-Free' Books

Thousand of Day Skippers and Yachmasters have passed through Westview Sailing’s hands over the years and availed themselves of the training aids – the tutorial videos, the Colregs Cards and Duncan Wells’s practical Stress Free sailing books.
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A Wealth Of Accessible Knowledge & Skills​

Explore Our Other Learning Resources

Westview Sailing is an RYA recognised training centre offering you all that you need to navigate confidently and safely in familiar waters at Day Skipper level and offshore at Yachtmaster level. Westview Sailing delivers vital knowledge via a unique blend of online videos exactly like our classroom courses and weekly Zoom meet ups, along with a huge library of additional resources and unlimited access to a lifetime’s knowledge and experience from Duncan and his trusted training partners.

RYA
Day Skipper

Online theory course

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RYA
SRC/Marine Radio VHF

Radio Course

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Tutorial
Video Vault

Video Resource Library

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