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RYA Courses in Australia
RYA training is much broader than Competent Crew, Day Skipper and Yachtmaster. It covers adult and youth dinghy sailing, keelboats, multihulls, sail cruising, navigation, racing, foiling, radio, first aid, radar, diesel and sea survival — and it has the strongest school availability of any international scheme in Australia.
RYA sail cruising pathway
For someone whose goal is cruising yachts, this is the usual order. You do not have to start at the top — Start Yachting is an optional taster, and many people begin at Competent Crew. Yachtmaster at the end is not another five-day course: it is an independent examination against a standard, taken after qualifying sea time.
Course guides are being published in pathway order. RYA Competent Crew →
The rest of the scheme
Dinghy
Levels 1–3, seamanship skills, day sailing, spinnakers, performance sailing and foiling — the adult dinghy scheme, plus the youth sailing scheme for under-16s.
Keelboat
A smaller scheme than the cruising one, aimed at sailors learning helm and crew roles on stable boats before moving to yachts.
Navigation
Essential Navigation & Seamanship, Day Skipper Theory, Coastal/Yachtmaster Offshore Theory and Yachtmaster Ocean Theory — the shorebased spine of the whole scheme.
Specialist short courses
Marine radio (SRC), diesel engine, radar, first aid and Safety & Sea Survival — one or two days each, and the courses that make a sailor self-reliant.
What an RYA Training Centre is
RYA courses can only be taught by recognised RYA Training Centres, and recognition is held by the school rather than by the instructor. That matters when you are comparing two schools advertising the same course name: check the centre is currently recognised, and check which vessel the practical course actually runs on.
An RYA certificate is a recreational qualification. It is not permission to work commercially — Australia’s domestic commercial certificates are administered by AMSA and sit outside the scheme entirely.
Schools teaching RYA courses
RYA has the strongest Australian availability of the three international schemes
Starting from zero experience
Whether to begin in a dinghy, a keelboat or straight onto a cruising yacht
IYT courses
Dedicated catamaran certificates at every skipper level
Australian Sailing courses
The domestic dinghy and keelboat scheme, taught nationwide
RYA vs IYT vs ASA
Three vocabularies for one pathway — and where they genuinely differ
Every RYA course, explained
RYA Sailing Pathway
The whole RYA cruising route in order, and where you are allowed to skip a step.
RYA Cruising Level 1: Start Sailing
A short introduction aboard a small cruising yacht — the shortest way to find out whether yachting suits you.
RYA Cruising Level 2: Basic Skills
The follow-on from Level 1, adding real boat handling on a small cruising yacht.
RYA Start Yachting
Two days aboard a cruising yacht, for complete beginners who want a genuine taste of yachting.
RYA Day Skipper Theory
The classroom half of Day Skipper: charts, tides, buoyage, collision regulations and passage planning.
RYA Day Skipper Practical Sailing
Five days in which you stop being crew and start being the person responsible for the boat.
RYA Coastal Skipper Practical
Skippering beyond familiar water and beyond daylight — longer passages, night pilotage, heavier weather.
RYA Coastal Skipper and Yachtmaster Offshore Theory
The advanced shorebased course: tidal work, passage planning, meteorology and collision regulations at Yachtmaster depth.
RYA Yachtmaster Guide
Not a course. An examination against a published standard, taken after qualifying sea time.
RYA Yachtmaster Coastal
The first Yachtmaster level: competent to skipper on passages near safe haven.
RYA Yachtmaster Offshore
The level most professional and serious cruising sailors aim at: passages well offshore, any conditions.
RYA Yachtmaster Ocean
The ocean level, and the only one that still requires you to find your position by sextant.
Which RYA course should you start with?
Three questions — have you sailed before, what boat do you want to sail, and what is your goal — give you a starting course and the schools that teach it near you.