Ivan Kuznetsov

This was my Yachtmaster Offshore exam. Big thank you to Talan for teaching me to sail, sailing with me, being a great skipper, great friend, and being so generous with the use of his boat, Miura, which I practised on and passed the exam on. Thank you, Talon. Thank you to my amazing crew, Kev, Ivan, Nigel, and Stuart, who were so reliable and skilled, just made me feel like I was in a very safe set of hands. And thanks to Chris, a very fair examiner. Great day. Didn't start smoothly. We had to fix a problem with the foresail, combined crew effort we did. Then we sailed out, a quick MOB, bit of tacking to get across to Whedon Creek, came back, a bit of pilotage, and then home. So all went pretty smoothly. Was not aware of any significant mistakes, and the crew did very well. So great day and feel very happy to be a Yachtmaster Offshore.

Tacks and anchor on blustery day. Sailed back with just genoa with wind behind us, worked well.

Good day out. Nav and sailing worked well. Two snags, tried to short cut the bow spring and have it returned to midships - this didn’t work and almost caused a line snag. The second issue was halyard got caught around thew radar reflector again. Anchoring went well, but we do need to drop the mainsail before dropping the anchor. Felt confident using the lights at night. Remember to change our own lights with each sail/motor change.