ChOff course

[Young sea dog]

Hello all,

I am looking to be doing my Mates course next summer and would like some direction in the preparations I need to be doing before I go?

What books would you advise for getting my head stuck in?

Cheers!

[YoungMariner]

Are you doing SQAs or have you come from a foundation Degree background? How long has it been since you qualified?

[Young sea dog]

Hello.

I've come from the HND route, so I'll be going for the SQAs.

I've been qualified for a year and a half now. Will have accumulated my sea time for next year. I'm wanting to make best use of my spare time to prepare.

[YoungMariner]

Focus on your HND stability notes (just the basics) and try to get some practice onboard with navigation calculations and the nautical publications (ocean passages of the world). Get familiar with the routing charts and try to understand the weather you would expect in different sailing areas.

[HolyNougat]

It is a tough course that 3 month SQA - it is outrageous that people with the FD can bypass it in my opinion.
Anyways, I would really concentrate on the passage planning side now so that you can concentrate on the stability in college - if you can already do all the GC's and other BS you will be ahead of most of the people there... the nav SQA is rather similar to the unit 207 syllabus (I think that was the passage planning one?) for HND.

[Pilot Chris]

Feel your pain - you really need to hit the ground running (I almost flunked it because I thought day 1 I can slack off a bit! and only 3 out of 12 of us passed both first time!)

Sailings, more sailings and more composite GC sailings and then lots of stability and go through all the certificates and cargo securing manual onboard, then do some more sailings and then some more stability!

[YoungMariner]

Feel your pain - you really need to hit the ground running (I almost flunked it because I thought day 1 I can slack off a bit! and only 3 out of 12 of us passed both first time!)

Sailings, more sailings and more composite GC sailings and then lots of stability and go through all the certificates and cargo securing manual onboard, then do some more sailings and then some more stability!

Exactly the same in my mates class, only 3 of us passed out of 12. One guy walked out 5minutes into the first exam and I was later told that he went and called his company and quit never om return to sea again (but I don't know how true that part was).

[Young sea dog]

Thank you all for the replies!

Time to blow the dust off the notes!

Ryan