• "Extremely enjoyable course with incredibly prompt support and marking of assignments. While the amount of practice questions was initially daunting it has made all of the difference in terms of eliminating errors and building confidence. Very comprehensive notes and clear worked questions." MR of Hampshire
• "You’ve obviously put a lot of time and effort into developing your course and course materials and it shows." MB of Cheshire
• "I have thoroughly enjoyed the course, finding self study to a great way to understand new subjects. The course notes and exercises will form the basis for my continued practice of navigating by the stars, which is a fascinating party piece whilst sailing but more importantly may one day be a life saver. Thank you very much I will be happy to recommend your courses to my friends and colleagues." JG of Lincolnshire
• "I am convinced and would tell anyone who asked, that if you really want to become proficient at celestial nav, you'd be far better off studying your distance course rather than cramming a five day, or more realistically, 4.5 day full time course. There just cannot be anything like sufficient time for practice of all the elements and I thank you for the high quality and testing nature of your course." and "I think this was a very valuable course, well presented and extremely effective for distance learning. I’d have no hesitation recommending this to anyone else who wishes to learn celestial navigation." RP of Suffolk
• "I found the course organisation and materials very good and highly efficient and response to my emails was incredibly quick. Also the “distance learning” by email method of learning worked well for me as I am not in the UK all of the time and I could tailor my studies to the rest of my life. Finally, I thought it was very good value for money." RM of Somerset
• "Thanks very much for all your help and support ... (and) for the opportunity to study with no support, as it has actually allowed me to complete this RYA course, while the expensive with support shorebased classroom course would have never been possible with time commitments and sheer cost. I’m really grateful that you’re out there with Centaur Sailing offering these courses, without you, I’m sure the sailing learning world would be a 'poorer' place both in pocket and skills." AN of Carmarthenshire
• "I believe Centaur Sailing to be one of the most professional RYA training establishments I have dealt with. The Yachtmaster Ocean Shorebased Course is very detailed and takes you through worked examples showing you how to calculate each of the different sights and plots required. The less numerically based sections are described with copious diagrams and pictures to reinforce the course text." DL of Hertfordshire
• "An excellent course – really enjoyable and very comprehensive. Thank you." SC of Shropshire
• "Excellent course! The materials are thorough and clear and the support is amazingly fast. I would certainly recommend it for anyone wanting to do the Yachtmaster Ocean Shorebased" SBG of Essex
• "I enjoyed this course and learned a lot. It was well organised and very comprehensive in terms of what was covered, with lots of detail and practice exercises, which if done in full, gave a comprehensive grounding, particularly in celestial navigation, and not just restricted to sun sights (as I understand some other courses are). The quality of materials was high and made it easy to learn what initially seemed a daunting subject. The supporting materials and proforma were very valuable, as was the opportunity to try out trial versions of commercially available software, such as Astrocalc and Almanac. I much appreciated the very quick turnround of material- despite doing this over the summer holidays, all modules were marked and returned within 24 hours- often within a couple of hours. Top marks for service levels!" CD of Devon
• "Many thanks. I enjoyed doing the course very much, as I did the previous courses of Centaur Sailing [this student had previously completed Day Skipper & Yachtmaster Offshore with Centaur Sailing]. I found the course modules well presented and they had an approach that made the methods of sight reduction and other methods relatively easy to understand. My aim now is to get as much practical experience as I can. Many thanks again." SB of Moray
• "The correspondence course you offer is easy to follow, the materials are excellent and your replies extremely fast - once again many thanks." MM of Leicestershire
• "In my part of the Midlands shore-based courses for Yachtmaster Ocean seem to have died out, due to lack of support in the GPS era. I decided therefore to embark on a correspondence course. I researched the options very carefully, and as an RYA instructor for shorebased courses at Day Skipper and Coastal Skipper/Yachtmaster Offshore level, my requirements and expectations were high. I liked what I saw on the Centaur Sailing website and signed up. My expectations were fully met from the moment of my first contact. The swift turn round of submitted answers brings to mind the expression 'like a rat up a drainpipe'. When I looked at the material on the course CD, I instantly recognised the careful planning that made the subject digestible, as well as the enormous amount of work that went into its production. The modules on The Centaur Sailing CD are in my opinion outstanding. Having looked at proformae for the sight calculations in a variety of books on celestial navigation, I can say none was a patch on the Centaur sailing proformae. The button by button explanation as to how to do the calculations with a scientific calculator was also excellent, and necessary for me since it is over 45 years since I had done scientific calculations and in those days it was with log tables! I enjoyed the course immensely and congratulate Centaur sailing on a highly professional course." RG of West Midlands
• "Having recently completed my second course with Centaur Sailing, Yachtmaster Ocean, I found this to be both educational and highly enjoyable. As a correspondence course, support was available as needed, but thanks to Rod and Centaur there was a good balance between that support and working things out for yourself; essential for a course at this level. The course was well contracted and excellent value for money, and compared to a classroom set-up previously experienced, good reference material was provided including useful tools and templates, particularly for anyone contemplating an ocean crossing. Overall, I would thoroughly recommend Centaur Sailing and this course, it took me about two months to complete working on it most days, but the modular approach allows it to fit easily around anyone's lifestyle who do not currently have the luxury of daily spare time." MK of Surrey
• "Thanks very much for your help on this course. The encouragement you gave and extremely quick turn-around of exercises and the mock exam certainly made it easier to fit in and complete the work. I do now feel confident in the reduction of sights from the sun, stars, moon or planets and being able to plot an accurate observed position. The passage planning, and particularly meteorological, chapters bring out some very interesting points. I look forward to putting what I have learnt to good use during the qualifying passage! It is extremely satisfying to have passed the qualification, especially as I have been able to fit it around a busy work schedule and not lose any sailing time!" OG in Germany
• "I wish that I had your proformae all those years back when I did my degree in Oceanography. It would have saved a lot of brain ache!" AD of Cumbria
• "Another excellent course from Centaur Sailing, once again the quality of the study material is excellent. The Ocean course in a lot of ways was the most interesting [this student had previously completed Day Skipper & Yachtmaster Offshore with Centaur Sailing] and also where I learnt a lot about a vast topic where I had zero knowledge. The course has certainly sparked an interest in being able to identify the stars in the night sky. Now I need to go out and do the practical part, getting in the miles and hopefully get some real practice using the sextant. Rod – many thanks for an excellent course." AS of Hampshire
• "Nearly four years ago, I knew nothing about the sea, apart from the fact that it is wet. I then started to attend your night school classes to learn about navigation and sailing: Day Skipper and then Coastal/Yachtmaster Offshore. In between these theory classes you have encouraged me to take practical exams as well, having had the pleasure of sailing with you I felt confident to try them, and last year what I thought would be the pinnacle of my sailing career, I took and passed my Yachtmaster practical. But as you know this wasn't to be the end of it, I'm happy to tell you that after your superb correspondence course for Yachtmaster Ccean and a four thousand mile sail across the Atlantic Ocean, today I passed the oral exam. I'm sorry it's a long e-mail, but it would take a book to tell you how you have inspired me to this achievement, your teaching and patience are unrivalled, you have taken me from knowing nothing about sailing, to the competent, confident and hopefully a safe sailor I am today. My sincere thanks for all you have done for me over the years." SJ of Hampshire
• "You are very fast on correcting modules, even if its Sunday it takes less than 2 hours - services minded! Keep up the good work." MD of Sweden

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