RYA Powerboat Instructor Course in North Wales

You must hold the RYA Powerboat Level 2 certificate, a valid first aid certificate such as RYA First Aid, and be an RYA member with your membership number to hand. You also need at least five seasons of powerboating, preferably in a range of boat types and sizes.

If you use powerboats as an integral part of your full-time occupation, that period is reduced to one season. On successful completion you will be asked to sign a health declaration, or a medical questionnaire if you cannot sign the standard wording.

The course typically spans four days. Day 1 is a skills assessment on the water and in the classroom. Days 2 to 4 are the instructor course itself, with a second trainer moderating on the final day.

Advanced instructors may need extra training days depending on what they are working toward. The four-day pattern is the standard Powerboat Instructor route from Menai Bridge.

Day 1 is a skills assessment day on the water and in the classroom, where we assess your current ability. We are not trying to catch you out, just to make sure your powerboating skills meet the level required to attend the course.

That check covers both helm work and the theory you would later teach. If the standard is not there yet, it is better to know on day one than halfway through the teaching week.

Days 2 to 4 cover the principles of practical instruction, lesson planning, teaching style and methods up to Level 2, questioning, visual aids, student assessment, presenting theory subjects, the structure of the scheme, progressive teaching sessions, and preparing boats and equipment.

You will also give a ten-minute presentation on one topic from the RYA Powerboat Level 2 course. Your topic is allocated on the first day, so it helps to familiarise yourself with those subjects beforehand.

Yes. You complete some pre-course work from a pack sent before you start. That work gets you into the Level 2 subjects you will later teach, so the classroom days can stay on how to teach rather than what the syllabus says.

Set time aside for it before you travel. Arriving without the pack done makes the presentation and the teaching sessions harder than they need to be.

During the course you give a ten-minute presentation on one topic from the RYA Powerboat Level 2 course. Topics include hull shapes and sea keeping, engines and drives, advice to inland drivers about coastal waters, use and limitations of GPS, sources of weather information, distress signals, rules of the road, charts, symbols and buoyage, and tides.

Your topic is allocated on the first day. Recommended reading includes the RYA Powerboat Logbook G20 and the Powerboat Instructor Handbook G19, which help you prepare that talk and the lessons that follow.

Instructor training runs from our training centre in Menai Bridge on the Isle of Anglesey. The classroom is at 40 High Street, with the training boats a five-minute walk away, so lesson planning and time afloat sit in the same day.

The same sheltered water and Menai Strait that your future students will learn on is the water you teach on here. Pay and Display parking is across the road from the classroom.

On successful completion you become an RYA Powerboat Instructor, able to teach up to Powerboat Level 2. You will be asked to sign a health declaration stating that you are not suffering from any physical or mental impairment which has an adverse effect on your ability to properly discharge your duty of care as an instructor.

If you are unable to sign the standard declaration, you complete a medical questionnaire instead. Keep your RYA membership current, because the instructor ticket sits with that membership.

Recommended reading includes the RYA Powerboat Logbook G20 and the Powerboat Instructor Handbook G19. If you want them, the Start Powerboating Handbook G48 and the Powerboating Handbook G13 are useful as well.

Those books are not supplied as part of the course. Having G20 and G19 before you arrive makes the presentation and the lesson planning much easier.

The course is taught by an RYA Powerboat Trainer and is moderated on the final day by a second trainer. That second pair of eyes is part of the RYA instructor scheme, not an extra add-on.

Seawake instructors come from varied backgrounds but have tonnes of experience and boating know-how in common. They have different teaching styles and will do their best to accommodate anyone who wants to learn how to teach powerboating well.