The AGM, and a sail beforehand
The club's AGM is on Wednesday 11 November at the Gaff Rigger, with a fun sail on both boats during the day and berths aboard afterwards.
Read more →RYA Day Skipper Theory, January 2027
Six days of face-to-face RYA Day Skipper Theory in Surrey over three January weekends, open to SOYC members at member rates.
Read more →SOYC Improve Your Skills
Two days of practising the things that matter, run in-house by our own instructors. Boat handling under power and sail, mooring, recovery, and whatever the people aboard want to work on. It serves two purposes. For anyone it is a refresher that builds confidence. For club skippers it is the curren...
Read more →Theoretical Shorebased Courses
The practical courses teach you to sail the boat. The theory is taught ashore over the winter: navigation, tides, passage planning, the rules, radio and radar. Members take it two ways. Surrey Shorebased, an RYA training centre in Woking run by a club member, offers the shorebased navigation, rad...
Read more →SOYC One-Day ‘Skill Byte’
One day, one subject. Power handling, sail trim, mooring under pressure, or whatever the person booking wants to get better at. Our own instructors, our own boats, and a small enough group that everybody gets the helm. One day. £86 in summer, £71 in winter: the ordinary day rate plus £30 for the...
Read more →Speedbird's first summer
The new Bavaria C38 spent her first season in the Solent: swim stops at Thorness, Cowes Week winds, two nights at Yarmouth and the carriers at Portsmouth.
Read more →Competent Crew - The Early Stages!
The beginners' course. Five days to take somebody who has not sailed before to the point where they are a safe, useful member of a crew: steering, sail handling, ropework, and enough of the language to follow what is going on. No experience is needed and none is assumed. It is often taught alongsi...
Read more →Day Skipper - Learning To Be In Charge!
The core skippering course, and the one most members take. Five days, or three weekends, covering pilotage, navigation, boat handling and the business of taking charge of a yacht on short passages by day. You should arrive with about five days at sea, 100 logged miles and four night hours. If you...
Read more →Club Skipper
Club Skipper is the club's own sign-off rather than an RYA qualification, and holding it is what lets a member take a club yacht out as skipper, with a crew of their own. There are four levels, and they set how far you may take a boat: Club Day Skipper within the Solent, Club Coastal Skipper from...
Read more →Coastal Skipper Practical
Skippering more demanding passages, by day and by night, along the coast and across the Channel. The step up from Day Skipper is less about new techniques than about doing the familiar ones when it is dark, tiring and the tide is against you. Recommended experience before you start: 15 days at sea...
Read more →Yachtmaster Coastal And Offshore - The Top Of The Pile!
The top of the pathway for the leisure sailor, and the qualification charter companies and insurers recognise anywhere. Both grades are a preparation course followed by a practical examination with an RYA examiner. Prep and exam together: £840 in summer, £780 in winter. Preparation alone, without...
Read more →Notices To Mariners
Where to find out what has changed in the Solent before you sail: dredging, works, races, naval movements and buoy changes, harbour by harbour.
Read more →Eastbourne and back
Two days and 141 miles the other way, with two sunrises, two sunsets and several hours of downwind sailing with the pole out.
Read more →Club Cruises In 2025
Speedbird spent the 2025 season away from the Solent: St Vaast, the West Country, Brittany and the Channel Islands.
Read more →St Malo and the Brittany coast
A week down the pink granite coast from St Malo: Saint Cast, St Quay Portrieux, Lezardrieux, Paimpol and back. 130 miles.
Read more →Cruises in 2024
Cherbourg, the Channel Islands twice, the West Country twice, and a bank holiday passage to Alderney and back.
Read more →A typical Sunday in the Solent
One ordinary day sail on Concorde, down to Gosport and back, and everything the crew saw on the way.
Read more →Salcombe and back, 282 miles
A week down the coast on Speedbird and home again: Portland, Salcombe, Brixham and Poole, with dolphins in Lyme Bay.
Read more →Two thousand miles home from Croatia
Club member Jim Wallace bought a boat in Croatia and sailed her back to Southampton. Yachting Monthly published his account of the delivery.
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