Weather on courses: When training on our vessels, we are always subject to environmental conditions. Some courses can be more affected than others. We are based in Plymouth, therefore we are subject to the vagaries of British weather. On any given week or weekend, we can have no wind, too much wind, fog, too much sun, snow – sometimes they all happen on the same day….
Sailing courses: On sailing courses wind is the key issue. Therefore there is a rare chance that you may not sail every day. If we can sail safely, we will. In high winds, luckily, Plymouth is a very sheltered harbour from most wind directions, therefore we can often get to shelter and then sail in those areas within our very large harbour and rivers. Please also bear in mind that if we cannot sail, we will cover theory subjects as all RYA practical courses still have approximately 30% theory in the course which we normally break up into chunks throughout the week/weekend, but we may save them for the windy/no wind/foggy times.
Powerboat courses: These are less affected by conditions, as the area of operation is smaller and we can if required run most of the course in the shelter of the river. Once again and certainly on Powerboat level 2 courses, there is a large theory element. Normally we divide the theory elements up into sessions in the morning, after lunch and end of the day – so six sessions over two days – but in poor weather we may group them together to hide from the worst weather etc.
Motorboat courses: These are even less affected by weather as we have shelter and can concentrate on boat handling and electronics. We can also take advantage of small weather windows to get to more shelter. However in poor weather, we will cover theory subjects as all RYA practical courses still have approximately 30% theory in the course which we normally break up into chunks throughout the week, but we may save them for the windy or foggy times.
In extremes: There are also those weekends or weeks when the weather is simply diabolical and we get a week of Force 9-10’s when we may just call and stop the course, usually beforehand if it is well forecast. More often than not we get a day or so of poor weather and work around it.
All courses: On all courses our aim is to complete the course in the safest way possible, covering all the theory and practical elements. We are not able to guarantee courses will have practical sessions on every day as we will work around the weather forecast