Passed my Day Skipper in 2020, crewed with my Dad for a bit, and recently got my own little racing yacht in spring 2023. Join me on my learning journey on the chilly North Sea.
Looks like you had good fun and that's all that counts really. Build confidence and experience. I've done pretty much everything you did many times! :)
Hi, Your doing great, it’s all a big learning challenge, it would tack a load better if you had a small head sail to pull her round with the effort in front of the rudder,but when you look at videos it’s so easy for armchair sailors to comment, you’re doing fine.
@Ajojets I actually really appreciate the comments at this stage in my learning journey. I've actually managed to aquire a really small sail (not a storm sail) but I need to put a runner on it so it will go up the track I have in the forestay. Once I get that sorted I would feel more comfortable I think. Thank you so much!
There is no substitute for experience with the sea, she is a force to be reckoned with by anyones standards. The RYA dayskipper qualification is the minimum for peope to be able to hire sailing boats in many parts of the world, particularly the mediteranean. While I realise that there must be a lower bar for entry into this activity, I am constantly made aware that many people who get this award are incapable of handling these boats. If you sail you will know that when conditions are great its fine, but the sea isnt so forgiving and many 'dayskippers' -not to mention their 'crew'are still with us today by the grace of the good lord. I have always maintained that for gaining experience sailing dinghies is the only way to learn how a craft behaves under sail, and a capable dinghy sailor will easily transfer their skills onto a 'yacht' . Most dayskippers I have encountered know nothing about sailing and make some dangerous and foolhardy decisions whilst under sail, particularly in relation to how much sail to have up versus different weather conditions, and the fact that crew need lifejackets and harnesses at a certain point with the prevailing conditions. I think the bar needs raising maybe to coastal skipper. Sermon over, stay safe and never forget the responsibility demanded on a skipper .
Another great video. Your doing the right thing by buying a boat to learn the lines on , you won't believe how much you'll learn fixing up an old boat , we did exactly the same with out first yacht a jaguar 25 , we kept that for 2 years then we out grew it ( we have a dog as well , stue a whippet cross ) and bought a 32ft etap , what a lovely boat that was , fast and luxurious compared ro our old 1980s jaguar.. we have now sold our etap and looking for our final home (yacht ) . Again great vids keep them up and I'm sure we'll bump into you one day as amble is our home port .
I really enjoyed this. Was very authentic unlike some other sailing channels that seem to gloss over the everyday challenges of sailing in the uk. It ain’t easy!! I feel like I’m at the same stage as yourself in that I’ve got a boat (28 footer) after crewing for a number of years. Fighting with my lack of confidence and hitting similar situations such as heavy healing in relatively low winds etc. keep up the posts, you’ve already inspired me to stick at it and not give up.
This comment has honestly made my day. Thank you so much. That's exactly why I am doing it and it's what I was looking for myself. I nearly gave up a few times as I've had so many challenges and very little resources. I ended up going out in 20knots with my mate a couple of weeks ago (she has a little less experience than me) and I'm gonna post the footage in the next couple of weeks. We made some mistakes and it's definitely entertaining to watch haha. But. I'm still alive to tell the tale!!
Your attitude towards the lessons you are learning is brilliant. We all wish each other 'Fair Winds' and 'smooth sailing' but how dull would it be if the wind, sea and rain behaved all of the time? 😀 Cair Vie 🙂
This time next year or sooner, maybe change your started boat. I would like a more luxurious sailing boat, however is it practical for me at this probably not. We can both dream until the time is right. Happy sailing.
Yes it really is! So yeah I've been crew/passenger for ages so still a novice of sorts. The model of the boat is called Popcorn and its a mini tonner. It was built by Seamark and Nunn in 1986 and designed by Judel Vrolyk (not sure of spelling). I think there were only 5 made.
We had a great weekend sailing glad you enjoyed your birthday hun the highlight was definitely seeing the dolphins🐬. too many more sailing adventures x
Be a bit careful about information people give you the lower the number on the s plug the hotter it is. Not sure what fuel ratio you are using but 50-1 is pretty standard mix.
So I was using a mixing jug thing which I think was 10 parts to 100. I have a 4 stroke now though so no mixing anymore. Yeah haha I did a little bit of reading around the number on the plug.
Just binged watching all your vids , absolutely think there great please keep them up we are realy enjoying them . We are sailors ourselves but currently boatless as se recently sold our yacht and now looking for out final livaboard yacht so we can sail around the world ,our local marina is amble so might bump into both one day . Fare winds and all the best on your adventures.
Oh wow!! Please say hi! Will be lovely to meet you. I'm always up on Star these days even if I'm not sailing. What amazing plan you have I want to do that too. Good luck finding your new home, I have subscribed to your channel in the hope I will get to see some of your adventures xx
@@donnasailing thanks for that , you'll have to be patient as we won't be doing our vids for a while , finding our final boat has been difficult as there is just not many around that meets our requirements.
Oooooh it was a few years ago now so I can't remember. But I do remember I had 3, one for rules of the road, one for lights/signals/bouyage and one for sounds and shapes. Hope that helps!
I admire your passion for sailing and unlike many others you are always honest in your abilities which is the best way to be. Every day on the water is a school day and conditions can change very quickly. Get yourselves over to the west coast and you will be blown away by the sailing.
Thank you so much. I want to be honest as possible, as someone who is learning I've always wanted to find a channel on here that shows the journey of progress. The west coast is definitely at the top of my list! I did the forth and Clyde canal, Crinan, Kyle's of bute and Oban with my dad about 8 years ago but I was just a passenger then really and thought actually doing any sailing was beyond me. I will be back to the Hebredes and West Coast as my own skipper one day in the near future.
Hello from 🇦🇺 🦘...just a little message to say hi & am enjoying your channel alot. It's a refreshing change to all the cashed up Med cruisers with the supermodel wife/gf on the click bait thumbnails 😢😂. >I think your channel is what most of us are looking for! I'm also refurbishing/upgrading my 26ft yacht all on my own (currently working on the Yanmar 1gm10). It's hard, it's frustrating, it's lonely but the successes, no matter how small, are fantastic 😊. As someone else wrote on here, learning to do it yourself means that if anything were to go wrong out on the water you will have the knowledge & confidence to fix it yourself; that's worth everything in the end. Kudos to you for filming your journey too. I'd considered it but at the moment I'm too selfish with my time: 100% is boat work. I know how hard it is filming, editing & uploading thus my 🧢 off to you. Looking forward to seeing where you end up on this journey, keep at it!
I know!! I love watching sailing on RU-vid but I am so bored of the same old thing. The ones I like to watch now are Sailing Brothers, Wind Hippy, Patrick Lane and NBJS. I give up clicking on the click bait now as it's always an anti climax haha. I don't blame you not filming as it does slow you down and it's also a lot to think about and a whole new thing to learn aswell. Best of luck with the boat work and thanks so much for the feedback.
I know I have got my hands on an electric one but stowed away for emergency. I also have a manual one in the cockpit but the handle stows away so not easy to spot.
No I haven't done that yet and didn't really think to be honest. I actually took the boat on a little cruise last week so luckily its still OK. Thanks for pointing that out, will be my first job this weekend.
Getting 'hands on' with as many aspects of maintenance and upgrades is 100% the best way to be as you will be in a better place to troubleshoot and repair in the future. Agree with the British weather, first week in June and there was a report on the radio an hour ago claiming a quick hail storm on one part of my island with a downpour in the west, while I am basking in sunshine on the east side. The IOM is only 32 miles long and 12 miles wide 😀 The mast light is to say I'm am using my engine, even if sails are up. So few yachts use it, I assume they want to keep their 'Stand On' status over us poor Power Driven Vessels. Definitely worth fitting though in case of reduced visibility during daytime. Love the Fairy Lights and your expression when showing them 🙂maybe not a priority, but absolutely a necessity 😀 Good video, nice clear dialogue and explanations, New mic for the voice overs? Well done all round!
That's a really good point with the mast lights actually. To fix them I would have to take my mast down which I can't afford at the moment but I'm thinking I could improvise with a good led light on a magnet and hoist it up and pull it down. Have a few lines I don't use much such as spinnaker halyard, foreguy and downhaul thing, so perhaps one of them. Yeah I have been using a rode mic but not putting its fluffy little hat on so will try with that next video as I thought the voice over sounded very tinny. We were saying that we would love to sail over the Isle of Man for the TT sometime so maybe it's a goal for next year!
As someone who is just wrapping up with the online theory course, I have to second the idea that doing it in a classroom if you've got no background in sailing is incredibly important. There were dozens of places where I was making mistakes and it took a ton of effort to figure out the mistake I was making before submitting my end of module quizzes because it will tell you what you got wrong, but not why or how, and without a teacher who understands the material it is very easy to walk into a mental blind alley with a topic if you don't know anything about it before going in. I'm trying to find a local school to do my practical with, and honestly watching this video helped tremendously.
Outboard well is a better place in terms of keeping the prop in the water and the engine out of it in more testing conditions. You can -with difficulty - gain a lot of manoeuvrability turning the outboard but you usually lose rudder control under power at slow speed because water isn't being blasted at the rudder. Not critical but be aware.
Hey, thanks for that. Yeah I actually learned this the recently while reversing the boat off my pontoon in the wind. Had full lock on but no control whatsoever. In regards to the prop coming out of the water, I did have it out in 1.5m swell the other day and it did come out a lot but the boat still moved in the direction I wanted it to. I guess if it got really bad then as long as I have someone strong enough with me, I could maybe lift it over. I'm also considering keeping a spare on the stern, although my spare is a short shaft so not sure if that would stretch the length of the well. Feel like I have the lesser of all evils at the moment but we shall see....
@@donnasailing the other lessons I learned the hard way are that the motor may steer itself when bumping in and out of the water unless tiller is secured. Friction screw does not seem to be effective enough alone. Also, best choice is an outboard with F&R controlled by twist grip and a tiller extension. I don't have that but I do have steering lines I can connect to boat tiller or tie-off to lock steering if it suits me. If tank it integral, will be very difficult to refuel. I could not tell which you have. Working well, the rope steering works almost like having a bow thruster. Rudder and motor moving together.
I lasted 3 days on the course, full of useless outdated info practices etc. Teacher spent more time on his phone talking to family etc, very amateurish to be honest, learnt more by crewing, self study etc, was helped by having 15 yrs windsurfing experience, £200 wasted
@@bonvoyage5377 yes they need a complete shakeup However they do not want to pay for any advice ( feed back ) These schools are being found out a little now
Thanks so much. Legal Action is a mini toner and the model is called Popcorn. There were only 5 made in 1986. They were designed by Judel Vroklijk and built by Seamark and Nunn.
Hi as a day skipper you should not passage at night as your insurance will not cover you.also your Limited to 20 nautical miles in familure waters only. I was a skipper out of North Shields for a long time anyway well done Pet 👏
Hi there, im a 58 Y old woman and hoping you can give me some advice. Im trying to figure out how to get a skipper license. I can't do it the easy way by just going down to the Yacht club and doing the expensive course's, so I'm trying to work out how to do all the theories on online courses. And work for free to get the practical. Is that possible? I don’t know the industry at all. Thanks from SA
Hi I'm not sure but you can still sail if you dont have the day skipper qualification as long as you know what you are doing. You could volunteer to crew at your local yacht club. Offer people help with boat jobs in return for some tuition. If you crew for people then you will learn so much. Some yacht clubs run theory courses and may do you a deal in exchange for any help or skills you can offer to benefit their club. You can also do the practical separate to the theory to give you time to save for both. Hope this helps.
Also by offering yourself as crew then you will make friends and meet people who sail. Its amazing how much people help eachother in the sailing community. I wouldn't have got this far with my own boat now without the help of others. I was completely clueless. I'm not sure what the rules are in SA but here you can definitely sail and have a boat without a day skipper licence. I would however 100% not recommend just sailing with no experience and no licence.
Thanks for taking the time to watch and comment. I've made the videos I have, as I guess it was something I was looking for myself. Good luck and just enjoy it, amazing memories ❤
Day skipper is a great course and teaches the basics well. As some old salt once said, in order to be a sailor one must go to sea. You have done that now. Your hardest RYA cse will be YM offshore. Your hours now by yourself will become invaluable.
Really great to see you getting back at it after the crash. Im learning to sail, have a boat on ullswater, i have certainly made lots of mistakes but on the lake its less critial. One day ill get out in the north sea! Keep it up.
Very jealous of your mooring in the lakes though. How beautiful that must be. Yes there are some beautiful spots here to anchor and moor. I totally recommend it (apart from the weather haha 🥶).
@@donnasailing yeah it's pretty special. RNYC looks like a nice spot though and easy access to the sea. So close to Newcastle too so that makes it a bit easier than amble. Hope you have a good season. 👍
