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RYA Yachtmaster Offshore
The level most professional and serious cruising sailors aim at: passages well offshore, any conditions.
RYA Yachtmaster Offshore is an advanced Certificate of Competence.
Preparation courses exist, but completing preparation does not automatically grant the certificate.
The examination tests the candidate's ability to skipper a cruising yacht safely and competently.
The site should always publish the latest RYA prerequisites rather than hard-coding old mileage requirements because these requirements can change.
- Who it suits
- Sailors with substantial logged miles, night passages and command time.
- What it is not
- Holding it does not make you commercially qualified in Australia. AMSA administers that separately.
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.