Experience is king. After learning the theoretical and practical skills, it is important for enthusiastic sailors to start putting some miles under their belt. The type of miles may however differ depending on the needs of our clients.  For those sailors that need to build up miles at sea for a Coastal Skipper qualification, we have defined this offering.

This experience builder is an enjoyable balanced mix of making miles, visiting harbours and rivers, and at the same time learning to structure a passage plan, use pilotage, do calculations on height of tide, handling tidal currents, and sailing at night.  

Experience Builder

"Crossing the North Sea to London in 2024 "

Description of this activity:

This experience builder adds a total of about 250 miles to your nautical experience, divided over two routes with stops in various ports, weather dependent.

Example of the route to London  will depart from our base in the Nieuwpoort and starts with coastal legs along the Belgian coastline. We will be experiencing the effects of tide, navigate through shallow sand bank areas and encounter large shipping traffic. We will leave the coastline behind us for an offshore leg towards Ramsgate on the UK coast.  We will be crossing some busy traffic lanes and the North Sea TSS. After visiting Ramsgate, we will enter the Thames estuary with its many wind farms and the mysterious Red Sand Gun Towers, on our way past the River Medway and River Swale.  The next day, we will enter the Thames towards our destination London, where we will tie up for a few days of visiting this lively city. 

Example of the route back to Nieuwpoort takes us back non-stop to the Belgian coast. We will leave the city via the Thames River and the estuary. No more staying over night in ports, but continues sailing across the North Sea towards the coastline of Belgium. One more time, we will cross a TSS and pass some traffic lanes towards our end destination Nieuwpoort.

The miles on this experience builder will be made both during daytime and night-time. A 24 hours leg is very likely to be part of it.

On the route towards London we will be using visual and electronic navigation aids including plotter and radar, for position fixing and navigation.  When returning, you may practice chart work with dead reckoning and estimated positions to find our way towards our destination.

We will be practicing watch keeping in shifts, allowing all students to experience sailing at night under a starry sky.

The responsibility to prepare and execute the passage plan for the mile builder will be allocated in turns. This will give you the qualifying experience as skipper on long passages during day and night.

This experience builder is classified by us as intermediate, and requires intermediate sailing experience.  It is an ideal activity if you are preparing yourself for Coastal Skipper, or if you need extra experience after having obtained your Competent Crew or Day Skipper certificate.

 What do you get at the end:

Your miles and night sailing hours will be signed off in your personal logbook at the end of the experience builder.

What's included:

• Sailing yacht with skipper
• Shared cabin 
• Free parking at our training location

Supporting courses:

We recommend following a RYA shorebased navigation course before departure. Our C-MASTERS Offshore Passage Planning course is also very useful. 

Supporting books: