RYA Competent Crew

Your first step into sailing — learn the basics of crewing a yacht safely and confidently.

Course Overview

What is it?

The RYA Competent Crew is a practical, hands-on course that teaches you the fundamentals of sailing as a crew member on a cruising yacht. By the end you can be a useful member of a sailing crew — handling lines, helming, keeping a look-out, and operating safely on deck. It is the universal first qualification in the RYA cruising scheme.

Who needs it?

Complete beginners who want to learn to sail; anyone joining a yacht as crew for the first time; flotilla participants; aspiring liveaboards. Often the first step toward Day Skipper.

Duration

5 days (typically a week aboard a training yacht). Some schools run shorter weekend variants but the standard is a full week.

Cost Range

GBP 600 – 1,000 in the UK; EUR 700 – 1,200 in the Mediterranean. Liveaboard cost includes berthing, fuel, food contribution.

Prerequisites

No prior experience required
Minimum age 12 (some schools require 16)
Basic swimming ability recommended
Reasonable physical fitness — you will be on a moving boat for a week

What you learn

**Boat terminology** — port and starboard, bow and stern, sheets and halyards
**Knots and ropework** — the five essential knots every sailor must know
**Sail handling** — hoisting, lowering, reefing, trimming sheets
**Helmsmanship** — steering by compass and by sail trim
**Mooring and anchoring** — taking lines, fendering, weighing anchor
**Safety on deck** — moving safely, lifejackets, harness use, MOB drill
**Watch keeping** — look-out, log keeping, basic radio listening
**Galley duties and life aboard** — cooking at sea, water conservation, head etiquette

Certification

RYA Competent Crew certificate. No expiry. Internationally recognised as evidence of basic sailing competence.

Boat Terminology

Port, starboard, bow, stern, sheet, halyard, tack, gybe. The vocabulary you must learn before the first day — otherwise the instructor's words will all blur together.

Sailing has its own vocabulary, much of it preserved from Age-of-Sail English. The vocabulary exists because in a noisy, stressful situation you need words that are short, unambiguous, and never confused with normal-conversation words. 'Port' is not 'left'; it is its own word that means one specific thing.

Direction terms

Bow — the pointy front end of the boat
Stern — the back end
Port — the left side when facing the bow
Starboard — the right side when facing the bow
Forward / aft — towards the bow / towards the stern
Windward — the side the wind is coming from
Leeward — the side the wind is going to (opposite of windward)

Memory aid for port and starboard: 'Port' has 4 letters, like 'left.' Port wine is red, and the port-side navigation light is red. Starboard is everything else — the green side, the right side. Once you have learned this, you will never need to think about it again.

Major parts of a sailing yacht

Hull — the body of the boat
Keel — the heavy fin under the boat that provides stability
Rudder — the moveable underwater plate at the stern that steers the boat
Mast — the vertical pole that holds the sails up
Boom — the horizontal pole at the bottom of the mainsail
Cockpit — the recessed area where the helmsman steers
Cabin — the interior living space below deck
Galley — the kitchen (yes, even on a sailing yacht)
Heads — the toilet (named after the head of the ship where it traditionally was)

Essential Knots

The five knots that get a Competent Crew through their first week — and the next ten years of sailing. Bowline, figure-of-eight, round-turn-and-two-half-hitches, clove hitch, reef knot.

The bowline (pronounced 'bo-lin') is the most important knot in sailing. It forms a fixed loop at the end of a line that does not slip under load but unties easily afterwards. Use it for: attaching sheets to sails, throwing a loop around a bollard, securing a halyard, almost anything.

Tying a bowline (the rabbit story)

Form a small loop in the standing part of the line — this is the rabbit hole
Take the working end (the rabbit) — bring it up through the hole
Around the back of the standing line (the tree)
Back down through the hole
Pull tight. The 'rabbit comes out of the hole, round the tree, back down the hole'

A bowline holds 65–70% of the rope's breaking strength. Properly tied, it cannot slip. Improperly tied, it unties itself under load — which is why the Competent Crew exam will test that you can tie one with your eyes closed.

Exam Tip: Practise the bowline until you can tie it in 5 seconds, in the dark, with the rope wet, behind your back. Sounds excessive — but in a real MOB situation you may need to throw a line and tie a bowline at the same time. Muscle memory is the only reliable execution.

Sailing Basics

Points of sail, tacking, gybing, and the wind awareness that turns a Competent Crew into a useful crew. The mental model that the rest of cruising builds on.

A sailing boat cannot sail directly into the wind. It can sail at any other angle — but the speed and feel of the boat change depending on the angle. The named angles are the points of sail, and every sailor must know them.

The points of sail (relative to the wind)

Head to wind (irons) — pointing directly into the wind. The boat stops; not a sailing position
Close-hauled — sailing as close to the wind as possible (~45° off the wind direction). The boat heels, sails are sheeted in tight
Close reach — slightly bearing away from close-hauled (~60° off the wind). Fast, comfortable
Beam reach — wind on the side, 90° off the wind. The fastest and easiest point of sail
Broad reach — wind on the rear quarter, 135° off the wind. Fast and stable
Run (or running) — wind directly behind, 180°. Sails out wide, can be unstable

Memory aid: the clock-face works well. Head to wind = 12 o'clock. Close-hauled = 1 or 11. Beam reach = 3 or 9. Run = 6. Every point of sail is named for where the wind is on the clock around the boat.

To go from one point of sail to another, you either tack (turning the bow through the wind, from one tack to the other) or gybe (turning the stern through the wind). Tacking is normally easier and safer; gybing requires more crew coordination because the boom swings across quickly.

Safety & Life Aboard

Moving safely on deck, lifejackets, lookout duty, and the etiquette of living on a small boat with other people for a week.

Most yacht accidents happen on deck — slipping, getting hit by the boom, going overboard. Competent Crew teaches the deck-safety habits that experienced sailors have made instinctive: one hand for the boat, one for yourself is the rule that summarises all of it.

Deck-safety basics

Wear a lifejacket whenever you are on deck — automatic and worn properly, not slung loose around the neck
Clip on at night, in rough weather, or when on the foredeck. The harness D-ring on your lifejacket attaches to a jackstay or a hardpoint
Move on the windward side of the boat — if you slip, you slide into the cockpit, not over the leeward rail
Stay low when moving around — hold the granny bars, the boom, anything fixed. Standing up makes you easier to lose
Watch the boom — never put your head where the boom can hit it during a tack or gybe
Tell someone when you leave the cockpit, and tell them when you are back

Sailing footwear matters. Wear shoes with non-slip soles and a closed toe (so a fitting cannot snag a toe). Crocs and bare feet are tempting in the Med but unsafe on a wet, sloping deck.

The single most dangerous moment for a crew member is going forward in a gale to reef the genoa. If your skipper sends you forward in heavy weather: clip on first, brief on what you are doing, take your time. Speed kills here, not slowness.

Test Your Knowledge

Ready to see how much you remember? Try these related quizzes.

RYA Competent Crew Basics