Essential Navigation & Seamanship

The Basic Navigation and Safety course has been renamed to Essential Navigation and Seamanship. With the new name comes a new way of taking it…

The course has been available in the classroom for a few years, but now it is possible to take it online too through the RYA Interactive e-learning site.

However you decide to take the course, it offers a great introduction to navigation and safety awareness for new, inexperienced or rusty skippers and crew.

This course is for anyone interested in sailing, motor boating, sea angling or diving. It’s also the perfect stepping stone to the more in-depth Day Skipper shorebased course or our on-the-water courses such as Start Yachting or Day Skipper courses.

This is a highly informative course with lots of opportunities for you to put your new found knowledge into practice. If you decide to take the course online, you will find many interactive exercises to help reinforce the information and lots of chances to try out what you’ve learned.

In the classroom, the course is taught over 16 hours with exercises to complete along the way. It can be covered as a series of short sessions or over two full days.

Online the course will take around five to six hours, but the beauty of it is that you can work through it at your own speed, whenever and wherever you like. All you need is internet access and your course pack.

You will receive a course pack which includes a chart, plotter, dividers, course handbook, exercises and an electronic chart plotter CD.

Course topics include:

charts and publications
safety
engine checks
buoyage
tidal awareness
visual and electronic navigation
pilotage
rules of the road
anchoring
weather forecasts
passage planning