• "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
• "Dear Rod, as a RYA Yachtmaster and Cruising Instructor, I will have no hesitation in recommending you to my Competent Crew and Day Skipper practical students when they ask about distance learning programmes. Your courses are thorough and pleasure to work through. I knew nothing of Astro Navigation before completing your RYA Ocean course – I do now! ARC this year for me all being well!" AG of Staffordshire

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• "I applied, received course modules, studied and passed whilst at sea. Rod was true straight and honest in all that he said, I had researched most other distance learning providers and feel that I made the right choice. Professional team that looked at the modules agreed that the layout and the instruction was clear and in their opinion better than they studied. I would recommend Rod to anyone." NE of Devon
• "Excellent course; very well put together materials and an easy to follow structure. I used the 'no support' option and found that the distance learning modules are so well put together that I didn't need to contact Centaur / Rod for support. Standard is much higher than shore based courses that I've attended at RYA schools. Highly recommended." AS of Essex
• "I enjoyed your course greatly. In particular, the pro-formas for celestial calculation are the best I have ever seen around (and believe me I have been browsing quite a lot!). The mechanics of calculation are very well explained, and having myself a good grounding in astronomy I found them a breeze to go through...I particularly enjoyed the parts I was least knowledgeable about, i. e. stars and planets. I have the impression that your course goes above and beyond what is required by the syllabus or by the examination, and I find it absolutely brilliant." MP of London
• "I am happy ex-student of your school and did Ocean course with your school last year. I did pass oral exam for Ocean last winter (along with MCA OOW up to 3000), this year I upgrade it to Chief Mate. I am so happy that I did this course with your school. It was big experience, I learned a lot more that I could in standard 5 day course. Examiner, hired in France, was impressed by quality and amount of material prepared by me for exam. People after 5 day course are not prepared that well for exam. So I said to all of my friends, if you want to do this course (Ocean) this is the BEST way to do it. You will have same ticket, save money, and more important – you will really learn something." KP in France
• "Excellent detailed notes covering all aspects of the course and more, coupled with extremely prompt support made for a very satisfactory course." MT of Midlothian
• "I signed up for an unsupported course well before embarking on a TransAt. both for my own interest, and to further my skills for use in Tall Ships events. Once I got down to it, the modules were straightforward to follow. Some of the concepts are difficult, even with an A level Maths 35 years ago. But the proformas lead you through it, and it starts to make sense. Thank you for laying it out in such simple steps." MF of Surrey
• "All in all a thoroughly enjoyable and efficient way of doing my ‘Ocean’ theory. Course notes were extremely well laid out and background information was both useful and very interesting. I can honestly say I found your approach to be ‘inspiring’." NH of Hampshire
• "Thank you for a very enjoyable course. It is very well put together and made a potentially confusing subject very understandable." and "... I enjoyed every minute of it!" JS of Lincolnshire
• "Thank you very much Rod for the course. It was very well laid out, informative and easy to follow. I did have a few problems with the plotting, but the examples helped me to get over them. I have completed many courses over the years, including correspondence. and this has exceeded my expectations in many ways. Your marking of papers and feedback has been exemplary throughout the course. I have been extremely impressed by your prompt marking and answers to any enquiries. I have recently purchased a Sextant and plan to complete the practical Yachtmaster Ocean next year... I will recommend your course to other members of the armed forces, in particular my colleagues in the Royal Navy Sailing Association (RNSA). Once again Rod, Thank you very much." SP of Somerset
• "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
• "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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