ISSA VHF Distress Procedure Poster

The ISSA Yacht Crew course takes 4/5 days to complete.  Its a 90% practical course aimed at beginners to sailing. The Yacht Crew course is designed to be a fun course which stimulates people to learn how to sail on a variety of vessels. The course ensures that you can sail on all points, by course end and be an active competent crew on a yacht.  The syllabus is outlined on our main yacht training website.  Check out the handbook syllabus for Yacht Crew.  Assessment is by constant assessment, a practical and hopefully not too demanding process.

Our aim is to ensure we train you to sail and to be compliant and aware of the IRPCS, able to interpret Weather forecast Apps, Trim sails on all points of sail and a host of other skills. The good yacht crew is someone who can listen and be an active engaged member of the crew. Teamwork and communication go hand in hand. By course end you will be familiar with your skippers communications to crew. “Stand by to gybe, bare away, head up, luff up, ready to tack, heave to” etc.  Our aim is also to get you really engaged with the sport of sailing and want to do more.

The Yacht Crew Handbook is carefully illustrated so a beginner to sailing can easily appreciate the various chapters that cover the syllabus. Safety being our priority is covered in terms of personal safety, crew safety and boat safety. The sailing skills are again carefully illustrated as are all the other chapters. This is a Millenial Style” book rather than a ‘Sixties style’ textbook that some other systems used.  We want you to access the knowledge easily and not be falling asleep at page 7. The illustrator conveys whats important in each chapter and this is reinforced by succinct notes and explanations.

topics covered include the following:

• Safety
• Parts of a boat
• Handling a boat under sail
• Berthing Basics
• Handling a yacht under Power
• Tides
• IALA Buoyage
• Collision Regulations
• Meteorology
• Environmentally Responsible Sailing
• Knots and Sails

Check out the Content of our popular ISSA Offshore Skipper Motor Yacht Course which contain  a wide range of subjects. Content includes

• IRPCS
• Chart Work
• Modern Electronics
• Safety
• Berthing / Anchoring
• Seamanship
• Meteorology
• VHF radio
• Engines and Electrics

The ISSA RIB skipper courses are designed for small and large RIBs. The aim of our courses is primarily education and safety. To obtain a RIB Skipper certification one also needs to have a VHF Radio operators certification and ideally a CENI Test should be taken and passed. Sea users should enroll in the Boat Master Course as a progression from RIB Master as it teaches navigation and a range of other marine topics not covered in the one or two day RIB courses.  Talk to SIA if you want further advice or information.

On this important Safety Course we teach students to use a vhf radio to transmit a Mayday, make Urgency Calls, act as a Mayday Relay and learn and understand radio protocol and the use of the radio procedure. We teach you about Search and Rescue protocol and your obligations and imperatives when responding to distress or urgency calls. We teach you to use a radio for everyday communication and for those situations where lives depend on your relay skills.

Students wishing to become  RIB Skippers, ISSA Instructors, Inshore/Offshore Skippers or Yacht Masters, must have completed a VHF Radio course* and students wishing to participate in MOY 200 tons courses must also have this qualification.