This course equips you with enough knowledge to navigate around familiar waters by day. A basic knowledge of lights is also included to introduce you to night cruising.

– Royal Yachting Association

When it comes to safely skippering a yacht or motor boat, or being a competent crew member, the practical elements of sailing are only part of the picture. Understanding the weather, navigation, safety – they are all crucial skills that any sailor should take very seriously. The Day Skipper Online Theory Course is designed to perfectly compliment both the RYA Competent Crew and Day Skipper practical courses. It includes over 40 hours of online tuition, designed to give you the knowledge you need to sail safely in UK waters.

Our Unique Course Material

There are lots of online RYA Training Centres out there offering the Day Skipper Theory Course. You’d be forgiven for thinking that all of these course were the same – but they are not. Sure, they all need to cover the same syllabus. However, each individual RYA Training centre is responsible for creating the online content to teach that syllabus.

In our opinion, when you are learning practical skills such as nautical navigation, weather and collision regulations, the learning material is really important. This is why we have created interactive, engaging videos to illustrate each and every point in the syllabus. We’ve gone to great lengths to ensure that our videos are the best, most effective way for our students to learn the skills this course is designed to provide.

Our videos make the course material easy to digest, clear and enjoyable. It’s also resulted in us having a 100% pass rate to date!

The Day Skipper Theory Syllabus

The Day Skipper theory course is designed to give students all the skills they need to skipper a yacht or motor boat in familiar coastal waters by either day or night. The specific subjects that it focuses on are as follows:

  • The basics of seamanship
  • The essentials of coastal navigation and pilotage
  • Chartwork
  • Electronic charts
  • Position fixing
  • Plotting a course to steer
  • Weather forecasting and meteorology
  • Tides
  • Collision regulations
  • Construction, parts and equipment of a cruising boat
  • Emergency and safety procedures including distress calls,use of flares,
    safety harnesses, lifejackets and liferafts

Taken from the Royal Yachting Association (RYA) website

Who Should Take the Day Skipper Theory Course?

The Day Skipper theory course is designed for those who want to take to the UK waters in safety and with confidence. Perhaps you’d like to charter a yacht one day? Maybe you’d like to progress through the other RYA qualifications? Or maybe, you are happy just crewing on yachts and motor boats owned by your friends and family, but would like to have a clearer idea of what’s going on. In any of these cases, the Day Skipper theory course is perfect for you.

The Day Skipper theory course is most popular with those wanting to complete their Day Skipper practical qualification or International Certificate of Competence (a requirement to charter yachts overseas). If this is a route you’d like to take then we would certainly recommend you complete the theory course before embarking on the practical qualification. We find that this approach almost always produces much stronger sailors and skippers than those who don’t sit the theory course prior to their practical assessment.

Not interested in skippering yachts or motor boats? Don’t worry, this course isn’t just for Skippers. If you’ve done a little sailing in the past, but would like to gain a strong grasp of weather and navigation, this course can really help to increase the enjoyment you get out on the water. We find that the more confident our students are with the theoretical elements of sailing and motor boating, the more they enjoy the practical side of sailing and motor boats.

So, put simply, this course is for anyone who wants to maximise their enjoyment of being on the water!

How Long Does the Course Take to Complete?

There’s no set answer to this. The beauty of it being an online course is that you can complete it at your own pace, at a time that suits you. Our Day Skipper Theory Course takes approximately 40 hours to complete. This can be completed within an intense fortnight, or a leisurely couple of months. We don’t mind, we just want you to complete it at a rate that suits you.

What Next?

If you’d like to get started, just click the button below to sign up to the course and complete your payment. Once you’ve done this you’ll get access to all our course material and our full learning management system. You will also receive an email from your designated course tutor who is a fully qualified Yachtmaster. They are available at any point should you have any questions or problems during your course.

We look forward to speaking with you!