This page is made up of good learning resources we’ve found, with a bit of a description about them, as well as some of our favourite published books and resources. We’ve focused on free and cheap!

Introduction- RYA courses

The Royal Yachting Association (RYA) are an internationally recognised body that accredit courses and issue qualifications through different training centres. Be aware that any course you sign up to, while following the same RYA course content, is only as good as the centre and its’ instructors, and your relationship with them! So shop around and make sure your needs are met before paying up.The RYA accredit practical sailing courses and shorebased theory courses.

Outline of the RYA Course Structure – this link gives you an idea how the different practical and shorebased courses fit together. You don’t have to take all of them, in order. It all depends on how well you learn, whether you have prior sailing experience, and of course how much money you want to spend! However, you’ll see at the bottom of the last weblink that depending on the qualification certain knowledge will be assumed, or levels of experience required.

Learning some of the basics

There are a few websites around that contain information that complement or directly follow the RYA course content. These aren’t a substitute for getting out sailing and experiencing for yourself, or being taught by a good instructor (whether on a course or a friend). The ones we’ve listed here have worked well for some people. Have a look and see what you think. If you know of any others please let us know and we’ll add them.

RNLI – obviously the Lifeboats have a vested interest in improving safety at sea. The have an interactive learn and test site that as well as having all the basic safety advice you’d expect, also uses interactive tools to explain how tides work, what creates different weather conditions and what the rules of the road are. There’s the opportunity to test yourself along the way, in a basic computer game style.

Children and young people

For children and young people the RNLI have a whole mini site called Shorething. As far as sailing is concerned, you might want to try out the boating game, where you have to organise a boating trip. Your choices determine the success or failure of the trip!

There are a couple of great illustrated books that are really good at explaining the basics of sailing, and more advanced crusing skills like navigation and identifying lights and markers. They’re called Go Sailing (with dinghies in mind) and Go Cruising (covering yachts and motor cruisers). They’re very practical and both accompanied by an activity book for children, but many adults also seem to find the illustrations and simple explanations a breakthrough in their understanding! By sailing book standards they’re affordable too (£8-10)

Getting serious, Day Skipper and Yachtmaster

If you’re serious about taking an RYA Day Skipper or Yachtmaster ticket you surely want to have copies of Tom Cunliffe’s sailing bibles The Complete Dayskipper/Yachtmaster. These tell you everything you need to know, in digestable stages, encouraging you to but the book down and get out sailing in between those stages. We’re getting into the pricier book range here (£20-25), but they have value beyond learning, worth keeping on board as a constant reference. It’s always worth buying secondhand online through sites like abebooks as the market is flooded with sailing handbooks and yarns.

A key element of learning all the information contained in the Dayskipper and Yachtmaster courses, and of course improving your intuitive knowledge while at sea, is to test yourself. The RYA publish a whole series of books linked to each topic in their courses – navigation, weather at sea, VHF radio, radar – and many are accompanied by exercises. Again, these can be got hold of secondhand. An overview of what is contained in all these publications is contained in the comprehensive site sailtrain.co.uk, with a few self test pages after some of the subjects.

Oh flip, there's a lot to learn!

Who gives way?!
Another useful set of resources are the Flip playing cards. These are small enough to fit in your pocket and while away any spare time while out sailing, as well as shorebased revision.

They cost about £5-6 a pack and are available for the following subjects: lights & shapes, rules of the road, meterology, marine radio, morse code, sound & light signals, buoyage system, sound and light signals and maybe some others.

And finally...

For now we’ll end by bringing your attention to games you can play on the water, mainly in small craft like dinghies and kayaks, that can focus your reactions and observation skills. There are many good childrens' games for playing in groups in the water, but there’s no reason why adults shouldn’t benefit from them too.