RYA Competent Crew – A comprehensive ‘hands on’ course for beginners

 RYA Competent Crew Course on a Classic Wooden Boat

The RYA Competent Crew Course is very much a  hands on course for complete beginners or for those with some experience of yachts and now wish to have a solid foundation of seamanship. If you are a dinghy sailor and wish to cross over to larger vessels the Competent Crew Course will provide that stepping stone. 

We want you to develop a love of sailing, and the best way to make a start on any boat is to feel you are a vital and competent part of the crew.  As you would expect from Classic Sailing, the teaching yachts we use are classic wooden boats that turn heads wherever they go! On the RYA Competent crew course, we will teach you the seamanship skills of steering, setting sails, reefing, and tying knots with conviction! The course is about going places, so you can experience a wide range of sailing experiences:- anchoring in remote bays, mooring in sheltered rivers, coming alongside harbour walls or pontoons and night sailing. The skills you learn will be relevant for modern yachts, but after the RYA competent crew course you should also feel at home on traditional boats and tall ships with blocks and tackles.

There is a whole new language to learn and by the end of the week you won’t be fazed by terms like sheet, fender, windlass or ‘bear away’ and all the things that make going on board a yacht a bit bewildering and intimidating.

Previous experience for the Competent Crew Course: –

None. You can be a complete beginner that has never stepped on a boat before.  

It is also good for those who have done a bit of yacht, keel boat or dinghy sailing and want to be sure they have the basics to sail bigger boats where you can go cruising and live on board.

Learn More about the actual course and some of the things you will be learning.  the RYA Competent Crew Course Syllabus.

Competent Crew Course Syllabus 

Moosk has Competent Crew Courses from Falmouth and Plymouth. Golden Vanity is ideally placed in Brixham to explore South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. From Lands End to Berry Head, Cornwall and Devon offers fantastic sailing waters, friendly ports and secluded locations to explore. 

If you want to learn to sail a yacht, but like the look of our vessels, the following the Competent Crew Course would be the best all round option for a newcomer to sailing. The instructor to student ratio is officially 1 to 5 and on  Moosk and Golden Vanity there is a RYA instructor as skipper and usually another experienced sailor as a cook/mate to learn from.