Yachtmaster Offshore Exam notes

Sueste 1: Beneteau 43: Lagos, Portugal 22/10/10

Having briefed the crew to stay off the yacht for 60 mins.....

I started 0900 in the local café with coffee, then onboard with Peter around 0920. Peter was at pains to say he wanted to see me sail as I normally would, and that he wasn't there to trip me up or derail me, which was nice to hear! Then onto a targeted safety briefing, delivered to Peter alone. I explained we'd be sailing with all hatches closed with life jackets worn at all times, both I suspect unusual in Portugal!

Passage planning exercise 45 mins followed Beaulieu River, Needles Channel to Swanage, two different secondary port/tidal height calculations, with the tidal streams at the Needles timed to Dover. Correctly decided my plan was wrong at last minute and went over why. Important to remember ports of refuge and options when plans go awry! I decided that 45 mins was far too short and he wasn’t therefore expecting perfection! (Very useful to have spent time doing passage planning exercises accross the channel beforehand, particularly where I was unfamiliar with the territory! The old RYA Yachtmaster navigation charts and questions were particularly helpful for this, the current version isn't!)

(Martin gives a good example of passage planning, which is a recommended read Martins Passage Planning Article
as are his other articles!)

Chartlets showing areas from my passage plan:
Beaulieu River, Salcombe entrance Scroll down chartlet for bar at entrance, Salcombe mooring ‘The Bag’

Quizzed re lights and shapes, gas safety, fire precautions and extinguishers. Discussed Mayday procedure, gave simulated Mayday call for the boat, and discussed fact that the charter boat didn't have it in laminated format adjacent to the radio.

Next to negotiate my way out of the shoehorned berth we were in, then to have the bridge opened by Marina Da Lagos, show off correct radio usage 'out'. Motor down the entrance canal, lay off a course between clearing bearings to avoid wrecks either side, warn helmsman to steer course given....repeat. Set sails, lay off course to steer to Portimao, a six mile beat, man overboard, immediate mayday, engine on, crash turn and stop, recover MOB. Almost gybed, but didn't, and thought I'd blown it. Controlled gybe round and back on course. “Times moving on, I've seen enough, please motorsail", I must admit to wondering whether I had blown the exam.

Would you like to tell me why some yachts have backstay tensioners and what they do?

Please anchor just inside the east breakwater at Portimao, on the letter M! Do min depth to anchor calculations (Portimao secondary port to Lisbon, as is Lagos) Wait for cruise liner to depart, watchout for trawlers, ferryboats, pilot vessel, turn head to wind and take off sails, but started to drift into main channel. Motored to M, checked with two cross bearings, but missed to give clearance to other boats, wrong method I was told, next time sail up bearing from one port/starboard harbour entrance marker and use one bearing - then you'll be o.k. Lunch stop at anchor, while we're having it the visibility will drop to 50m and you will navigate to starboard hand buoy no 4 (or whichever it was, high up in the harbour almost as far as the yacht would go). Colregs quiz infront of my crew, correctly answered. Fog instructions to crew, appropriate fog signal every two minutes etc. Elected to follow starboard side of channel as per colregs keeping to 5m contour allowing for height of tide, at 2kn eventually losing the plot. Asked helmsman to stop and prepare to anchor to sit it out, engine off, one long blast every 2 mins, etc. Explained to examiner rationale - we were maybe 100m off. ‘Not close enough’.

OK now you have no engine please sail out, several tacks later - "see the mooring between those two boats, please pick it up under sail", spill and fill, spill and fill, take off half genoa, spill main, take off all genoa, mission accomplished, although we didn't actually stop, never mind! I never was sure if it was wind over tide – rather just a case of doing it! Motor out of moorings, up sails, close hauled out of harbour, lay course for Lagos. Fix, too inaccurate, just lay course to windward of harbour entrance and ensure helm is doing as requested.

Now wind coming abaft the beam, rig preventer, running line up to forward cleat outside everything and then back to stern cleat in lieu of winch to tension it. Tried unsuccessfully to goosewing, then : "What do you do now you're out of fuel, (now you're a Yachtmaster- I heard him, but didn't hear the comment)?" well we're sailing :-) Ah, we never filled up yesterday, we really are empty! Phone base to check how many miles we can run on thin air as no spare diesel on board, Pedro: “you'll be fine”, “ok we'll put some in at the fuel pontoon so we don't run out in the marina. Oh and we'll be late, is that ok?” Fix, laminated chart now splattered in too much ink! Motorsailed for speed not forgetting the motoring cone (you get fined for not showing this by the Police). Sail off, motor to fuel pontoon, Yorkshiremans refueling ie €17 worth. Call up Martin and charter company to apologise for being late. Radio Marina Da Lagos, open sesame, take three goes to line up stern to go astern to far end of pontoons, avoid other boats - two staff waiting to take lines, whooa berthed astern with perfection ;-) Spend 10 mins sorting lines to perfection. Get quizzed on meteorological charts of the day, what wind speed is predicted from the chart using geostrophic scales etc Asked for likely weather conditions at different points on different days at Bay of Biscay and the effect this would have on a passage plan (ie not asked the traditional weather changes on the passage of a cold/warm front). Then asked to show how a course is entered into the GPS and do one for Portimao. Show how to change from WGS1984 to others, which I didn't know. Lastly given a course to steer to calculate as the Algarve doesn't do tides ;-) well the tides are either 0.5 kn east going or 0.5 kn west going if there’s an easterly!

Then congratulations given.....and then constructively criticized, oh and he never saw me do the almost gybe after all!

Thankyou to Martin for his thoughtful instruction, Richard, Pantillus and Natalia for their crewing skills and sense of humour throughout.

As Martin said "You will be put through your paces!" He was correct, and it felt that way! Towards the middle of the day and until Peter told me I'd passed I was telling myself never again!

TIPS!
1) Very useful tip from Martin, make sure you've calculated hourly tidal heights for the whole period of the exam - it makes anchoring a doddle and takes the stress out of doing unnecessary secondary port calculations/tidal heights on the day! Obviously if on a rising tide, just check time you need to leave on your tidal curve. Be aware and have already calculated the min depth to anchor for the day of the exam.
2) You also need to be as happy gybing as going about, and use of a preventer if the wind is abaft your beam!
3) As you will note you need to be pretty fluent in secondary port calculations, whichever way you do it!
4) You must be familiar with the channel (!) and have made passage plans accross/along it, and I recommend looking at a copy of the Shell Channel Pilot by Tom Cunliffe. Note his comments about calculating the cross channel tidal streams (but not when going accross the TSS), read about Cherbourg, the Channel Islands and possible ports of refuge.

Sueste 1