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RYA Start Sailing (Dinghy Level 1)
Two days, no experience assumed, and by the end you have sailed a dinghy with an instructor aboard.
Start Sailing is the entry point to the RYA Dinghy Sailing Scheme. RYA currently describes it as a two-day course with no previous experience required.
It covers the groundwork a dinghy sailor needs before they can be useful in a boat:
How it actually runs
Most of the two days is afloat, in a stable training dinghy, usually two or three students to a boat with an instructor. Sheltered water is the norm — a lake, an estuary or a protected harbour reach rather than open coast.
The certificate records that you have sailed under instruction. Sailing unaided is the subject of Level 2.
- Who it suits
- Complete beginners who want to learn in a small, responsive boat rather than a yacht.
- What it is not
- Not a licence to take a boat out alone. Level 1 sails under instruction throughout.
Other RYA courses
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.
Which course should you actually book?
Three questions — your experience, the boat you want to sail, and your goal — give you a starting course and the schools that teach it near you.