An RYA Yachtmaster™ Certificate of Competence is often the ultimate aim of aspiring skippers. It is a well known, highly respected qualification worldwide, proving your experience and competence as a skipper.

There are two levels to this qualification, each with different pre-requisite mileage and experience:

• Yachtmaster Coastal – ideal for candidates with limited knowledge of long passage making. An examination fee of £230 is payable to the RYA in addition to the RAFSA course fee.
• Yachtmaster Offshore – allows holders to skipper passages of up to 150nm offshore. An examination fee of £266 is payable to the RYA in addition to the RAFSA course fee.

At RAFSA, we run this course in two phases. The first 5 days are a ‘preparation phase’ with an experienced instructor. This has no set syllabus and will aim to fine tune existing skills and knowledge over a wide range of situations and with lots of challenging boat handling experiences. A separate examiner will board for the final two days until all candidates have been examined.

All of our RYA courses are sponsored by the RAF Sports Charity, which allows Serving RAF personnel the opportunity to pay minimal fees. Students not currently serving can still attend, and pay a higher (but still extremely competitive) rate.

There is an extra fee charged by the RYA which will be payable on the first day of examinations.

During the course, additional costs will be incurred and shared among the students to cover on-board food, marina fees, and fuel. These costs will vary according to crew choices on victualing, instructor/crew choices on marina locations, weather and on how many crew are on-board but should be approximately £60 – £80 per person.

Our cancellation policy is that full fees are due if cancellation is within 30 days of the course start date. Cancellation prior to that will result in loss of deposit, but this can be carried forward to another course with RAFSA(O).  For Serving personnel who are unable to attend for Service reasons, a full refund will be offered once confirmation is received from the individual’s chain of command.

Should the course be cancelled for reasons attributing to RAFSA, an alternative course will first be offered. If the student is unable to take this up, then the full cost of the course will be refunded. This will not include any additional costs relating to travel or subsistence.