RYA ends distinction between tidal and non-tidal courses
The Royal Yachting Association (RYA) will no longer distinguish between tidal and non-tidal Day Skipper and Coastal Skipper qualifications from January 2017, it has announced.
Anyone taking an RYA Day Skipper or Coastal Skipper practical course will be taught tidal sailing and navigation principles, wherever their training centre is based. The subject will be taught practically where possible and covered in theory in non-tidal areas. Cruising training centres will also no longer be identified as either tidal or non-tidal.
The RYA said: ‘The new combined syllabi will ensure that all candidates will at the very least have covered the concepts of boat handling, navigating and pilotage in areas with streams, currents and significant tidal range.’
All RYA Yachtmaster qualifications will be unaffected – as before, at least half of the qualifying miles must be completed in tidal waters.
RYA training manager and chief examiner Richard Falk explained: ‘The RYA is the only organisation in the world that differentiates between tidal and non-tidal courses. We need to bring this element of our training schemes into the 21st Century.
‘People who learn to sail in waters with little or no tidal influence these days often go and experience tides or currents as they sail in more diverse locations around the world.’
Defining which areas are tidal and which are not was also a challenge, he said, as some areas designated non-tidal have more tidal range than parts of the UK.
James Stevens, chairman of the Yachtmaster Qualification Panel, supported the move:
‘The RYA has sensibly decided that every practical trainee for Day Skipper and Coastal Skipper is required to learn about tides. It is an improvement in the overall standard of RYA training.’
Some are concerned, however, that the new qualifications may hide a lack of tidal experience. One training centre owner, who did not want to be named, said:
‘The RYA has already stretched the boundaries of what is tidal. The majority of so-called ‘tidal’ certificates are anything but, and the hugely tidal English coast is a rude awakening for many, right up to Yachtmaster Instructors.
‘It’s disingenuous of the RYA to be telling people they are qualified to sail in tidal waters when they are not; it’s also more than a little dangerous.’