Having completed the RYA Competent Crew last summer the winter seemed a good time to start into Day Skipper (for Sail and Power Craft). I ended up doing the Shorebased RAY/MCA Day Skipper / Watch Leader course at my local Port Edgar Sailing School, studying over a six week period during February and March. The course fills alternate weekends with the weekends in between for revision and exam question practice. This is a fairly intensive format compared with home study or doing one night a week but has the advantage that it can be completed in the short time frame.

The course cost a little over a £100 per person but you may need to budget another £60 for extras to incude a course pack (includes Exercises book and RYA Training Charts 3 and 4), instruments (mainly a Portland Course Plotter and dividers) and for other optional materials such as Admiralty Chart 5011, Symbols and Abbreviations used on Admiralty Charts, and the RYA IRPCS, G2/95, book etc. It is strongly recommended that you complete this shorebased course before doing the practical course and assessment as you will need many of the skills taught on this course for passage planning and navigation. If you do not already have the G15 Logbook then this should also be obtained.

The course culminates in 2 exams, each of 1.5 hours duration. The first exam is a general paper and the second focusses on chart work and navigation, including tidal height curves and tidal streams.

The course was delivered by the very able Guthrie Stewart who runs ForthSail.

This summer was targetted for doing the RYA Competent Crew Course so first task was to select a training school. You can get lists from the RYA web site but it may prove easier looking at other sites such as Sail Scotland and Visit Scotland.

My criteria were:

• West coast of Scotland location


• Short journey to start location


• Reasonable cost with no hidden costs


• Small company or family firm


• Nice boat


• Good web site and that can be viewed from Firefox

With these criteria, getting a short list of two or three schools was easy, and once Second Wind Sailing had a special offer price of £300 with no extras that clinched it. They were nice people to deal with and sorting out the booking was easy. The boat, Chewsy, a Moody 41, based out of Troon on the west coast of Scotland was great.


See photos on the main seb site.


I expect we will be back again once day Skipper theory has been tackled.

First sail of the season, our second season with the Omega.

First ever use of our gennaker, successfully!

Purchased a small telescopic oar, just as well, foggy with not much wind, ended up doing a little paddling.

Attended a very good talk at the PEYC as part of their Winter Talks series on Tides and Currents at Port Edgar, given by Jim Scott.

One tip was that because of the various historical naval uses of the area there has been some very detailed surveying of the currents in the Forth and this can be purchased in the form of the Admiralty Tidal Stream Atlas NP220 - Rosyth Harbour and Approaches.

Having completed the SRC course my thoughts are turning to doing Competent Crew. There is some time to get organised for this while waiting for the weather to improve so it seemed a good time to consider what to do about waterproofs. One option is to hire these for the duration of any course but using someone elses waterproofs did not really appeal and I have a preference for getting something with a good fit and the features I want.

So a couple of trips were made to our local Chandlers, Bosuns Locker, over a couple of consecutive weekends to explore the options, see how the prices compared with the internet and browse through the catalogues. The main brands were Henri-Lloyd, Gill and Musto. They are all well made so it comes down to choices over price, fit and design. Musto seemed to be very well thought out so I settled on a pair of Musto Breathable Offshore Trousers combined with a Musto MPX Gore-Tex Offshore Jacket.

Combined with one other purchase we were able to negotiate a discount giving a deal to rival anything on the internet and having the advantage of using our local dealer.

Attended the one day training course for the Operators Short Range Certificate (SRC) for VHF Marine Radio at the Port Edgar Sailing School. If you have read the RYA guides G22 and G26 beforehand then the course is a little slow but does give the opportunity to practice using DSC with a software simulator and you get to ask any questions you may have. The practical assessment is an area where most candidates (me included) seemed to stumble a little and need a few prompts but the written exam proved very straighforward.

You can find some free simulator software at YachtCom

GMDSS Digital Selective Calling Simulator DSC-D2

Walked up from Blackness castle to find the Blackness admiralty battle practice target, an old barge. The tide was coming is so couldn't get up close and so plan to return at a later date for a better look.

Blackness admiralty battle practice target -
http://forthyachts.tripod.com/Publications/CruisingGuide/cruisingp3.htm

As I am originally born in Stafford and now live in Bo'ness I thought this little bit of history, taken from Bo'ness.org.uk was interesting.



Bo'ness Potteries (c.1766-1963)

First Pottery. Around 1766 brown earthenware pottery from local clay began to be produced in a Pottery on the south side of Main Street.
Although he was declared bankrupt in 1773 Dr Roebuck, by using his sons name, developed Bo'ness Pottery in Main Street, Bo'ness by leasing premises from the Duke of Hamilton. By 1789 it was producing cream coloured and white stoneware by importing clay from Dorset and Devon. In 1791 Dr Roebuck and 40 men, boys and girls operated 3 kilns. On his death in 1794 Roebucks son sold the property to Thomas Cowan. In 1801 it was purchased by Alex Cuming, a customs officer, for £300. He in turn gifted it to his Nephew James Cumings. It was sold to Bo'ness Potters Shaw and James Jamieson in 1827 and operated as James Jamieson, or J.J., from 1827-1854. At this time about a third of the workforce weren't local many coming from Staffordshire. It was Jamieson's brother in law John Marshal, a wealthy corn merchant and J.P., who purchased the Pottery in 1854. The company operated from 1854-1898 as John Marshall and Company. Now also occupying ground on the north side of Main Street he built a reading room for his workers in 1858, encouraged outings and helped found the Potters Guild in 1860. On John Marshals death in 1879 his co-partner William McNay took charge until his death the following in 1880, when his brother Charles McNay and two sons John and James Managed the Pottery. In 1886 Charles McNay founded Bridgeness Pottery and left Bo'ness pottery in his sons care. They were however unsuccessful and the Pottery went into liquidation in 1898.

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