My Powerboat Journey, part 1
Two years after taking the RYA Advanced Powerboat course, I finally managed to organise and take the exam to be able to get it commercially endorsed. This is a big milestone for me and it feels like a massive achievement – on par with my photography master or the boatbuilding diploma.
But let’s take a step back and see why it took so long, why I don’t think this is a Bad Thing™ and what the exam entailed. This is part 1 of 2, as when I started writing this, and then writing more, and then writing even more, the whole thing became a bit unwieldy. So, this post will cover my powerboat journey up to completing the RYA Advanced Powerboat course. Part 2 will cover becoming a Powerboat Instructor and finally taking the exam two years after the course.
The Back-Story
I’ve been driving powerboats in various shapes and forms (mostly RIBs) since 2006 or so. While I had driven boats before, I first started driving extensively when I became involved with youth sail training at the Yachtclub Achenkirch, who subsidised my first licence, the “Schiffführerpatent Seen und Flüsse (bis 10m)”, which was issued by the Austrian government. This entitled me to drive boats on inland waters (except for waterways used by big shipping) up to a maximum length of 10m.
So I spent the large part of the weekends of 5 summers driving a boat, teaching kids to sail, the occasional safety-boat stint at regattas, and just enjoying the freedom of being out on the water (as one of the few people allowed to drive powerboats on that particular lake).
As alluded to in other places here on this site, life happened, and my boating activities mostly ceased.
Getting Back On The Water
After Covid restrictions were lifted here in Wales, I found myself at liberty and – with the opportunity of being able to explore more than a few miles around the house – I wanted to get back on the water; after all, this was one of the main reasons I had moved to North Wales in the first place.
Having done a VHF course from the RYA, I was aware of their training programs, but hadn’t originally planned on actually doing any courses (funny how that worked out 
). When I started looking at Things To Do On The Water™, I came across Plas Menai’s website. Some years prior, when I was going through a previous soul-searching exercise, I had actually been considering applying for the Instructor Development Program, but as that would have entailed moving away from Austria, which I didn’t want at the time, it was moot. But I digress.
At that time, Plas Menai offered a course called “PB2 Plus”, which was intended as a refresher for people who had previously taken a Powerboat Level 2 course, but had not had much experience since taking the course, or people who simply wanted to brush up on their skills. I thought I fell solidly into the second bracket and booked on a day early in May 2021 as a birthday present to myself.
The PB2-Plus Course
On the day, I turned up at Plas Menai bright and early, and was given a friendly welcome by the two instructors, Mike & John, who would be running the day. There was some discussion about my ICC (International Certificate of Competence, an internationally recognised piece of plastic that documents non-commercial boating competence), as it was only endorsed for inland waters. I explained that I simply wanted to get back out on the water and find out what is different to driving on inland waters. A little bit of humming and hawing (to be honest, from where I stand now, I’d be doing the same in their place) and they agreed to let me participate.
I’m embarrassed to say, while my boating knowledge was good, and my handling skills were passable, I had a number of very bad habits that John & Mike had to drill out of me. Nevertheless, it was a great day on the water. After we had washed the boats down in the afternoon, they took me aside for a separate debrief and told me they had decided to award me a PB2 certificate. The RYA Powerboat syllabus has a provision for a so-called “direct assessment”, allowing instructors to award the certificate to candidates with prior experience who can demonstrate the required skills, without them having to go through a full two-day course. This was completely unexpected – I had initially thought I’d probably have to sit through a complete course in order to obtain the certificate. Once I got back home, I dropped a passport photo in an envelope and a week or so later, had a freshly minted PB2 card in my postbox.
What Happens Next
Some weeks later, I was invited to join some sailing at the Royal Anglesey Yacht Club for a couple of days. This is the club where I learnt to sail many, many years ago, so I jumped at the chance. During one of the post-race “debrief” sessions (i.e. drinks in the sun on the terrace), Trigger asked if I’d be interested in becoming a powerboat instructor. I declined, due to lack of confidence in my abilities, but the conversation turned to commercial boat driving on the Menai Strait. This is where I first heard about the Advanced Powerboat course offered by the RYA.
Some investigation followed once I got home that evening, and I decided this was another course I’d like to do. Some weeks later, I formally joined the yacht club and started to assist with some of the youth sailing activities. In order to safely drive any of the club boats, I would need to take the RYA Safety Boat course – the next available one was early September at Plas Menai, and it was subsidised by Sport Wales.
Safety Boat Shenanigans
This was so much fun. Mike, one of the instructors from the PB2 Plus day was running the course, and Hannah and Johnny, 2 of the IDP candidates at Plas Menai, were the other 2 participants. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much on the water.
We got to play on all the toys: kayaks, paddle boards, windsurfers, dinghies, catamarans, RIBs, O-Boats, etc. It involved getting very wet, capsizing boats and toys and righting them again in many different ways. How to retrieve people and equipment from the water, safety considerations when actively managing events or training course, etc.
I was so knackered after this course, and my sides were hurting – some of that was from the activities, but some of it was definitely from all of the laughing.
The Advanced Powerboat Course
Sometime towards the end of October 2021, I got a text message from Trigger:
Plas [Menai] have just opened 1 space on an advanced powerboat course on 6/7 November.
I was actually sat playing a concert in Bangor when that message arrived, but the next morning, I pulled up the website and booked onto the course. I got back from a work trip to Zürich at 3am on the 6th, so with only a few hours of sleep, trundled over to Plas Menai for the course. On the Saturday morning, we had a short classroom session and then headed out onto the water.
The weather was perfect: wind F4, gusting F5 against the tide, so the waves were stacking up a bit as well, which made for some challenging boat-handling conditions. MOB maneouvres were tricky to say the least, it took me 3 attempts to pick up “Tracy” (which is what they call the MOB buoys at Plas Menai). We then headed up the Strait to Britannia Bridge and played around in some of the swirly currents under the bridge before heading back for lunch and a classroom session on passage planning. This is where we got to plan our night navigation exercise – each of us were given an unlit and unmarked point on the water which we had to find using “old-school” navigation techniques, no GPS or chart-plotter allowed.
The night navigation exercise was amazing. The weather had completely settled down, we had about 1/4 cloud cover, it was 2 days after new moon, so no moonlight and the stars were out in all their glory. It was also Bonfire Night, so there were fireworks going off all up and down the Strait, it was magical – still one of the best nights I’ve had on the water. It was a course, so of course we got things wrong, but Trigger has got a fantastic way of teaching and passed on so much good knowledge. I managed to get within 30m or so of my unlit point, so I was quite happy with that.
On the second day, we started a bit later to compensate for the late night. Boat-handling skills, more navigation, chartwork, weather, colregs, etc. – it was all covered. At the end of the course, I had another shiny bit of plastic with my name and photo on it, and ambition to do more…