Our Training

Day Skipper Qualification

Marbella Puerto Banus here we come!

We decided to do our day skipper tickets as a family.

We came up with this thought for two reasons. Firstly, there was not much we could do for a holiday as it was mid-COVID. Then, more realistically, we needed to see if hubby and I could function in a tiny space with nowhere to escape to when we started getting on each other's nerves — "probably not a bad idea before we go ahead and make this huge investment." Then, of course, we did need some basics on how a boat actually functions.

So we headed off to Marbella, Spain in June 2020, mid-COVID, to get ourselves some qualifications. This actually turned out to be a wonderful way to spend our time: in the beauty of the Mediterranean Sea, the sun, dolphins, and—let's not forget—the education part.

Training lasted three weeks in total: two weeks on the boat and one week in the classroom. "The classroom part drove me off my head, as I have not studied in 30 years." Little did I know there would be more to come.

We were lucky enough to have a really great skipper and teacher with us by the name of Charlie, we all developed a really great relationship with him over the 3 week period, learnt an unbelievable amount, from learning how to tie knots to plotting a course on a chart. (not a map we learnt, not allowed to use that word in sailing).

Charlie our first teacher & Captain "there is no better tool or equipment you can have on board than a well trained crew" (by Lary Pardey) Naturally we learnt how to dock the vessel as well, try to remember that we did our training on a 38ft and are planning on buying a 50ft ......more on that later.

The son that has done 2 atlantic crossings in his gap year. Another little detail to keep in mind is that we have never actually sailed ourselves, we had done a few charters, all with skipper and stewardess, so the reality is between Eric and I, we had pretty much zero knowledge so it was all from scratch. Saw some Mediterranean dolphins close up, what a magnificent site and incredibly beautiful. " I Have not yet mastered the art of editing my videos so you will have to wait a while before you see decent video footage. All you getting is photos for now"

About halfway through the training we realised just how much we were enjoying it, so we signed the final contract with Robinson and Caine for our Leopard 50 and off the email went. After 3 weeks we were qualified day skippers…."oh my, oh my if only we knew then just how green we were."

Yachtmaster Coastal

So after getting our Day Skipper qualifitcation and thinking we were ready to concor the world, we took delivery of our boat in June 2022 to find out that with our qualification we could only Day Sail and could not do any night passage. (Not that many sailors have any qualifications) however we like to be at least prepared, so we rushed off to Sweden to get our coastal qualfications.

We needed to gain the skills for coastal navigation so we could actually move up to 20Nm off a coast and could navigate through a night passage!

Really great that we found a place in Sweden, Sjösportskolan - Swedish Maritime Acadamy, who allowed us to have a private tutor and in our english language and after writing the final exam which we passed we were now qualified "Yachmasters Coastal Skippers" and we could take our own vessel up to Port Owen which was a 109Nm sail (or about 22 hours).

What we did decide to do once we got our Yachtmaster Coastal, was some "Boat training in Darkness", this was a super exciting offer to do at this stage already. What we did not realise when the teacher said "Would you like to do practical training to navigate with radar only" and we responded "Yes that would be helpful", is that when we got to the boat that this was not a small motor boat that does 5-6kn, this boat is probably what the military use and could run at 25-30kn and he wanted me to navigate, I realised, under a blanket without any vision, just my radar through the Archipelago of Stockholm (and for those that do not know Stockholm Archipelago, it has 30,000 islands and there are many passenger liners navigating through these as well) at a minimum speed of 20kn. But wait, there is more!

He is not guiding us, my wife has to look on a chart and guide me:

Based on what she says, I have to turn to Port (Left) or Starboard (Right) understanding the 360 degrees of navigation. I also have to look at my radar and try to avoid what looks like red aliens attacking me from all directions... and Tracy has to keep track on what I am doing to avoid aliens and keep track on the chart where we actually are and give me the next direction (and remember things are moving fast at 20kn - I mean who wants to go at 5kn where you have time to make a decision, when you can do 20kn), but with great proudness, 45 minutes later we had gotten back to the docking station without hitting anything!

Go Team Tracy and Eric!

I have to admin it was a fun part afterwards and I learnt a lot! Thank you Sjösportskolan!!

Medical Course

So next step we needed to do was some first aid understanding in case of a medical emergency. we decided to do this close to where we had the boat berthed at Port Owen Marina, so registered our course at St Helena Bay who offered the required course we needed for sailing, Sea Safety Training Group SSTG.

For some reason Tracy was super excited about this course thinking she could learn to amputate a limb?! I was a little concerned about her excitement about this part of the course, but off we went and did our week worth of training and got certified as being able to do first aid at sea, no amputations... phew

An intense week of learning about medical situations, practicals and then also written exams to get our certification finally.

Yachtmaster Offshore

So I decided that I would go the one step further and qualify for my Yachtmaster Offshore course, allowing me to captain my own vessel accross an ocean instead of having to get crew (Again not that many sailors have any education).

Went back to the same training center in Sweden where I did my Coastal Training and booked myself a private tutor to take me through the requirements to qualify for the training which was done with a Naval Officer of the Swedish Navy. Pär was really nice and put me through my paces, but at the end I learn a lot and can now proudly say I have my qualification as a Yachtmaster Offshore.

So what is next? Putting everything to practical excersizes and cross the first ocean to begin our journey of exploring the world and different cultures and learning as we go along.