After spending time on our Catalina in the Cleddau estuary, getting used to the difference between being on a nice calm lake, and being out in open water with tides and currents, we decided to look in to doing our day skipper training. As we plan to sail the med and further afield one day, the ICC license is a requirement, and this can be converted from the Day Skipper qualification.
We looked at a few places to do this , but were drawn to Scotland as we have a love for this area of the world, so we booked a 5 night day skipper course with Scotsail, based in Largs.
Before the trip we bought the theory course and spent long evenings learning chartplotting and how to read tide tables and many other skills that would help us successfully become qualified day skippers.
The trip was great fun, we chartered a Hanse 44, and had an excellent instructor that made the week enjoyable, engaging and also safe. We got to plan our routes and had to complete different tasks along the way like provisioning, hooking mooring balls, man overboard roleplay, and navigating in and out of marinas. We also got to experience the unpredictable weather that Scotland has to offer, and how this can affect sailing. Our children completed their competent crew training at the same time, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. We came away feelng so much more competent in sailing and would recommend this course to anyone new to the sport.
