With the need for qualifications becoming more and more prevalent in everyday life, it’s not surprising that the requirements for bareboat yacht charter, particularly in Europe, are becoming more stringent. Gone are the days when it was possible to charter a yacht through merit alone. Now, if you want to charter a yacht bareboat style, you need a ‘ticket’ to do so, with one of the minimum requirements an RYA Day Skipper qualification.
As a competitive dinghy and keelboat sailor and, through my career as a yachting journalist, which has given me the opportunity to sail on many a high-performance racing yachts, qualifications have not been necessary. The same goes for Julio my husband, who is a competent sailor but has less competitive experience. With no official qualifications between us therefore, we thought it was high time to face the challenge and sign up for our RYA Day Skipper course.
We wanted to combine our course with a holiday in the sun, so Sailing Holidays was the obvious choice for us. Its glowing reputation as a professionally-run company was a good indication of what to expect and thankfully we were not disappointed.
This British based company that has been running top class charter holidays and training courses in the Mediterranean for over 40 years, is owned and run by Barrie and Heidi Neilson. They have the whole range of sailing holiday options covered including charter, flotilla and training in Greece and beyond, which means whatever level
