1. Charts and position
Everything starts with knowing where you are. The syllabus begins with the chart itself: latitude and longitude, chart datum (the level from which depths are measured, in Australia the Lowest Astronomical Tide), the symbols and abbreviations, and the difference between a large-scale harbour chart and a small-scale passage chart. You learn to measure distance on the latitude scale (one minute of latitude is one nautical mile), to lay off and read bearings with a plotter, and to apply variation (the difference between true and magnetic north, about 12 degrees east in Sydney and 1 to 2 degrees west in Perth) and deviation (your own compass's error).
Then position. A fix is a position from observation: three compass bearings on charted objects, a bearing and a distance from radar, a transit and a depth, or a GPS position. A dead reckoning position is course steered and distance run from the last fix. An estimated position is the DR corrected for tidal stream and leeway, and it is the navigator's best guess between fixes. At Yachtmaster level you are expected to fix your position by several methods, to know how accurate each one is, and to plot an estimated position every hour on passage without being asked.
2. Tides and tidal streams
The tide has two effects: it changes the height of water (can I get over that bar, will I be aground at anchor at 3 am) and it moves the water horizontally as a tidal stream (which way is the boat being set, and how fast). The syllabus covers why tides happen, springs and neaps, and the practical calculations.
Heights
For a standard port (Sydney, Brisbane, Fremantle, Hobart and so on) the times and heights of high and low water are published in tide tables. For a secondary port (Pittwater, Airlie Beach, Port Vincent) you apply published time and height differences to the standard port. Between high and low water you find the height at a given time using the tidal curve for the port, or the rule of twelfths as a rough check. The classic exam question runs: "We want to anchor at Refuge Bay tonight in 2 m of water at low tide. It is springs. How much chain?" and it combines a secondary-port calculation, a curve and a scope decision.
Streams
Tidal streams are given in tidal-stream atlases (hourly chartlets relative to high water at a standard port) or in tables on the chart. You need the set (direction) and rate (speed) for each hour of your passage, interpolated between springs and neaps. Australian sailors must add a subtlety: the tide in much of Western Australia and South Australia is strongly diurnal (one high and one low a day), the gulfs of South Australia have the dodge tide at neaps, and the tropical north has ranges of 4 to 11 m with streams of 5 to 10 knots. The east-coast semi-diurnal pattern is only one of several.
3. Course to steer and passage planning
If the tide will carry you a mile sideways over the next hour, you must steer up-tide to arrive where you intend. The course to steer is found by drawing the tidal vector for the hour (or several hours), then the boat's speed vector, and reading the compass course off the chart. Leeway (the boat's sideways drift from the wind) is added. Day Skipper does this for one hour; Yachtmaster does it for a multi-hour passage across a changing stream, and expects you to recognise when the sums are pointless because the stream is trivial or the passage is short.
Passage planning puts it together: the route, the tidal gates (Port Phillip Heads at slack water, the Wide Bay Bar on the flood, Backstairs Passage with the stream), the weather window, the hazards, the ports of refuge if it goes wrong, the ETA at each waypoint, the fuel, the crew's rest. For commercial vessels in Australia a passage plan is a legal requirement; for the exam it is the document the examiner reads to decide whether you think like a skipper.
Pilotage is the close-quarters version: a plan for entering a harbour by eye using bearings, transits (two objects in line), clearing lines (a bearing you must stay on one side of), depth contours and buoys, written so that you can follow it at night with a torch and a compass. Yachtmaster candidates are examined on night pilotage and it is where preparation shows most.
4. Buoyage and lights
Australia uses IALA Region A: entering harbour, red port-hand marks to port and green starboard-hand marks to starboard. Cardinal marks (north, east, south, west, with their yellow-and-black bands and their distinctive white flash patterns) tell you which side of a danger is safe. Isolated danger, safe water and special marks complete the set. You learn to read a light's characteristic from the chart (Fl(2) 10s means two flashes every ten seconds; Oc means occulting; Iso means isophase; VQ means very quick) and to identify it on a black night with a dozen other lights behind it. Sector lights, leading lights and the lights on shore that are not navigational at all (the traffic lights, the servo sign) are all part of the reality that the exam tests.
5. Collision regulations
The International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, called COLREGs or IRPCS, are the rules of the road, and they are the most heavily examined knowledge in the Yachtmaster exam. The structure is worth understanding:
- Part B, Section I (Rules 4 to 10) applies in all visibility: lookout, safe speed, risk of collision, action to avoid collision, narrow channels and traffic separation schemes.
- Section II (Rules 11 to 18) applies when vessels can see each other: sailing vessels meeting (port tack gives way, windward gives way), overtaking, head-on, crossing, and the pecking order of who gives way to whom (Rule 18).
- Section III (Rule 19) applies in restricted visibility, where there is no stand-on vessel and everyone must act.
- Part C (Rules 20 to 31) is lights and shapes: what a vessel shows so that you can tell what it is, which way it is going and whether it is constrained. Trawlers, vessels not under command, restricted in ability to manoeuvre, constrained by draught, towing, pilot vessels, anchored, aground.
- Part D (Rules 32 to 37) is sound and light signals, including the manoeuvring signals and the fog signals for each type of vessel.
- Annex IV is distress signals.
The examiner expects you to know the lights, shapes and sound signals from memory and to apply the conduct rules instantly with a real ferry bearing down. There is no way round rote learning here: flash cards, apps and a copy of the rules in the heads are the tools. Sydney Harbour, Moreton Bay, Port Phillip and Fremantle all supply live examples every hour of the day.
6. Meteorology
Weather at Yachtmaster level means understanding what the atmosphere is doing, not just reading the forecast. The syllabus covers global circulation, pressure systems, fronts, air masses, clouds as signs, sea breezes and land breezes, fog, and the interpretation of synoptic charts and forecasts.
Australians have a specific advantage and a specific trap. The advantage is the Bureau of Meteorology: coastal waters forecasts, MetEye, the four-day synoptic charts and marine wind warnings are excellent and free, and examiners expect you to use them fluently. The trap is that almost every textbook is written for the Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere winds circulate anticlockwise around a high and clockwise around a low, cold fronts arrive from the west and south-west with the wind backing to the north ahead of them and then swinging violently to the south-west, and the version of Buys Ballot's law that works here is: stand with your back to the wind and the low pressure is on your right.
Local phenomena are part of the syllabus in practice if not on paper: the New South Wales southerly buster, East Coast Lows, the Fremantle Doctor, Queensland's trade-wind reinforcement, Melbourne's four seasons in a day, thunderstorms and the tropical cyclone season. Each region page describes them.
7. Safety and emergencies
Stability and why a yacht rights herself; the safety equipment a yacht should carry and how to use it (lifejackets and harnesses, liferaft, flares, EPIRB, fire extinguishers, bilge pumps, grab bag); man overboard procedures; fire, flooding and steering failure; abandoning ship; helicopter rescue; first aid at sea; distress and urgency radio procedures (MAYDAY, PAN PAN, DSC); and how search and rescue works. In Australia that means knowing that EPIRBs are registered with AMSA, that the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Canberra coordinates searches, that state marine rescue organisations and Coast Guard flotillas provide the boats, and that a logged-on trip report with the local base is expected practice.
8. Celestial navigation (Ocean theory)
The Yachtmaster Ocean theory course teaches you to find your position from the sun, moon, planets and stars. You measure a body's altitude above the horizon with a sextant, note the exact time, look up the body's position in the Nautical Almanac, and use sight-reduction tables (or a calculator) to turn the observation into a position line on the chart. A noon sight gives latitude directly; a sun-run-sun (a morning sight, a run, and a second sight) gives a fix; twilight star sights give a fix in a few minutes. You also learn to check the compass by the sun's amplitude at sunrise or sunset, and to plan an ocean passage with pilot charts and routeing information. GPS has made none of this necessary for day-to-day navigation and all of it necessary for the Ocean certificate, because a sailor who can find a mid-ocean position without electronics is the definition of self-sufficient.
How to study
- Do the theory courses in order and before the practicals. A practical week is wasted if you spend it learning to read a tide table.
- Practise on real charts of your own waters. Work the tides for the anchorage you use, plan the pilotage for your home harbour at night, and then go and sail it.
- Learn the collision regulations by repetition, a rule a day, and test yourself on every vessel you see.
- Read the synoptic chart every day and predict tomorrow's wind before you look at the forecast. In a month you will understand fronts better than any textbook can teach.
- Revisit Yachtmaster theory in the month before the exam. It fades. Two evenings of secondary ports and course to steer are cheap insurance.