RYA COASTAL SKIPPER PRACTICAL
Advanced Skipper Training
Advance to coastal and night sailing with RYA Coastal Skipper Practical in Antigua. Ideal Yachtmaster preparation.
What Will You Learn?
This course moves beyond short day sails and focuses on passage planning, decision-making, and leadership at sea.
Over five days on the water, you will learn:
- Planning and skippering longer coastal and offshore passages
- Night navigation and operating after dark
- Watch-keeping routines and crew management on extended passages
- Advanced pilotage, navigation, and seamanship
- Skippering safely in changing conditions
Read the full RYA syllabus
During the course we sail to different locations around Antigua and Barbuda (and potentially to other Caribbean islands), click HERE for a chart of the island.
Our student instructor ratio is 4:1. This allows us to give you maximum individual attention and for our instructors to create a bespoke sailing experience for each and every one of our students. However, we can accommodate private groups of up to 5 people.
Who Is This Course For?
The RYA Coastal Skipper is perfect if
- You have extensive experience skippering or chartering boats
- Day sailing doesn’t take you far enough and you want to experience overnight passages
- The next perfect anchorage is a little bit further than you’ve gone before and you want the skills and confidence to undertake longer passages
- You want to build your confidence before progressing towards the RYA Yachtmaster Certificate of Competence
Pre-Requisites
As a minimum, you must have:
- 15 days experience on sailing vessels
- 2 days as skipper
- 300 miles and 8 night hours in your logbook
- Minimum age: 17 (under 18s require a signed waiver from a parent/guardian)
- You must have completed the RYA Coastal Skipper / Yachtmaster Offshore Theory course
However, most people prefer to consolidate their experience in familiar waters before stepping up to this level.
Price and Availability
The RYA Coastal Skipper Practical course is 2995 USD per person. You can find the availability on our online booking platform here. If you don’t see the dates you want, contact us and we may be able to move course around or put you on the waiting list for your specific dates.
This is course in on one of our monohull sailboats. If you are interested in Catamaran courses, we have those too!
What To Do Next?
The RYA Coastal Skipper Practical course teaches you the fundamentals of longer passage making. You can then consolidate your learning and build your experience on longer passages, more challenging weather conditions and manage larger crews effectively.
After completing this course, you can also be examined for the RYA/MCA Yachtmaster Coastal Certificate of Competence. This Certificate of Competence can be commercially endorsed by the RYA for professional work on yachts and is widely accepted in many countries.
