None at all. These courses are designed for everyone, from complete novices who have never set foot aboard a yacht before, to seasoned sailors looking for a formal qualification or to hone their skills. Naturally, these are superb courses for those thinking of bareboat chartering or buying their own yacht.

Whilst the aim of these cruises is to offer guests the opportunity to pass an internationally recognized certification on board an ocean-going yacht, we also remember that this is a vacation – and thus leisure time will be available for swimming, snorkelling, diving, or exploring ashore. The Instructor will run the course at the pace of the guests, with their safety and comfort of prime importance and guests will have every opportunity to participate in the planning of the itinerary and daily schedule.

Because our courses are live-aboard (no falling asleep behind a classroom desk), you’ll find that the learning curve is pretty steep – you will be there, on board, doing everything yourself, hands-on – and the result is that most folks are surprised at just how much they were able to get through. We will do our best to match up guests with similar objectives and to enable them to achieve the level of certification that equates to their experience. Because of the small number of guests on board the yacht (usually no more than 4 plus the Instructor, though we can take larger groups if requested), instruction is highly personalized and therefore differing levels of experience amongst the guests does not necessarily present a problem.