RYA Powerboat Courses
We offer a full range of RYA Powerboat courses

"Navigating your way to success"
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RYA Shorebased Courses
We offer a whole range of RYA Shorebased courses including, First Aid, VHF Radio, Navigation Theory and more.

"Navigating your way to success"
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RYA Online Courses
We offer a the set of RYA Online courses that can be taken from the confort of your own home or office.

These include VHF Radio, Safe and Fun, PPR, Essential Navigation, Dayskipper theory, Yachtmaster Offshore theory and Yachtmaster Ocean theory.

"Navigating your way to success"
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Adventure Sailing
We offer a full range of Adventure Sailing courses via our sister company Footloose Sailing Adventures. Click below to be taken to their website.

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Commercial Sector
We will be offering a range of courses for the commercial sector who work in the maritime industry to support the work that they do and career development. These courses will start in April 2021

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What we offer from the RYA

Humber RIB

RYA Powerboat Courses

We offer a comprehensive range of RYA powerboat courses in our commercially coded 6-metre rib. The range includes Power Boat level 1, Power Boat Level 2, Intermediate, Advance Power Boat and Tender Operator, as well as the Advanced Certificate of Competence Exam. All based from our Lowestoft training centre at Royal Norfolk & Suffolk Yacht Club.

ryaonline

RYA Online Courses
non-RYA Online Courses

We offer the RYA interactive courses for VHF Marine Radio, PPR, and Safe and Fun.

We have partnered with Navathome to offer the RYA Dayskipper, Yachtmaster offshore and Yachtmaster Ocean theory courses via their online delivery system.

classroom

RYA Shorebased Courses

We offer a range of RYA Shorebase navigation courses up to Yachtmaster level. We also offer VHF and bespoke radar & electronic navigation programmes. All these courses can be taken at either our base in Foxes Marina Ipswich or our Lowestoft training centre at Royal Norfolk & Suffolk Yacht Club. 

About Us

We are an established training company offering a range of RYA and Maritime training courses for the leisure and commercial users in the UK and Europe. Under the leadership of the owner and principal Ian Patience, and our Powerboat Chief Instructor Sarah Davies we have a dedicated team of instructors to teach all our Powerboat, Shore Based and Own Boat courses.

We operate out of our training centre in Lowestoft at the Royal Norfolk & Suffolk Yacht Club.

We take the upmost pride in providing a professional and personal service to our clients as well as supporting our suppliers who enable us to deliver what we do. The team’s passion and ethos is to find ways to make boating accessible and fun for all, regardless of experience levels.

We ensure that our instructors are teaching ‘Best Practice’ and we have a process whereby we constantly review their sessions to ensure that you get the most productive experience from your time with us. All our instructors teach because they love boating and we work with them to constantly ‘upskill’ their qualifications and experience.

We are also very proud to work with the RYA providing our boats and instructors for their Continuing Professional Development days and events.

Why Choose Us

When you undertake your course with us the price is all-inclusive, no hidden extras.

Remember in life you pretty much get what you pay for. We don’t pretend to be the cheapest, but the course will be on well-maintained first-rate craft and run by instructors guaranteed to teach current best practice. We have excellent facilities in the marinas offering a great all-round experience.

Our approach follows a few simple steps to achieve this:

  • Understanding our client’s requirement
  • Matching them up with the correct course and solution
  • Deliver the Courses ensuring we meet with their expectations
  • Support our clients going forward with advice and help when required

What makes us different is that we invest our time to ensure our clients get the best possible service, should it be on our Power Boat or in the classroom.

We firmly believe that one of the things we are most proud of as a company is our ability to combine a friendly and professional approach to our business with the ability to serve such a diverse range of clients.

This is feedback from one course in 2020
“Craig and I have just completed our Day Skipper and Competent Crew courses with Ian on Clearlake, on the River Orwell, Ipswich. Fabulous five days. We were complete beginners, keen to learn a new skill and we couldn’t have chosen better teacher. Ian looked after us like royalty on their beautiful boat, he was patient and skilled at showing us the ropes (or halyards & sheets, lol). Ian is a natural yachtmaster with a wealth of experience and knowledge and absolutely loves his sailing, it was an honour to be taught by him. Highly recommend this company.”

Our Team

ian patience

Ian Patience

Owner and Training Principal

Ian is a highly dynamic individual who has a passion to pass on his skills and knowledge. Ian has a hands-on approach, excellent organisational and management skills, and a very clear understanding of the teaching and coaching process.

His priorities when working are safety and ensuring his clients have an enjoyable time while learning. Returning happy clients have been key to Ian’s success.

Ian is part of the RYA Eastern Regional Coaching Team delivering training to instructors and coaches.

He has sailed over 80,000 miles in Europe, the Caribbean and the Far East. He has skippered yachts and powerboats up to 86ft ranging from cruising and racing yachts to luxury power boats. He has competed at World Championships in dinghies. In 2019 over an 8 week period he sailed round the UK with clients on board helping raise over £10,000 for Macmillian Cancer Support.

What does Ian do in his spare time? When not at sea he can be seen enjoying long walks with his second love Bella his Labrador or racing his third love a 1923 traditional Norfolk Broads gaff rigged cruising yacht. And when winter comes he has recently reestablished his love of skiing.

Sarah Davies

Sarah Davies

Chief Instructor and Centre manager

Sarah is an experienced instructor and centre manager having run and worked in a range of centres. She teaches and coaches in a relaxed, friendly and professional manner, understanding the varied requirements of clients at S&PBT. She is passionate about the importance of excellent seamanship skills, developed from her wide background in boating and she particularly enjoys enabling students to succeed.

Sarah is a commercially endorsed RYA Advanced Powerboat Instructor, as well as a shorebased Navigation Instructor and Senior Dinghy Instructor and holds her Yachtmaster (Offshore) qualification, with many thousands of miles sailed.

From small rowing dinghies on the Norfolk Broads to Warships and pretty much everything in between, she has been involved with boating all her life. She was the National Schools’ (girls!) dinghy champion and has competed at international level in keelboats. A keen offshore sailor with a forces background, she has sailed with and skippered a multitude of adventurous sail training expeditions around Europe. She raced in the RN and Army Dinghy and Offshore Racing Teams and was part of Tracy Edwards’ crew aboard ‘Maiden’ in their ground-breaking all female entry into the 1989/90 Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race. With service in the RN and as a trained cartographer, she has experience of ship and ocean navigation and, working alongside the UKHO, the promulgation of Navigation Warnings

When not teaching she enjoys racing and cruising her classic dinghy and small yacht. She also supports locally run charitable projects that enable and support young people to get afloat and to benefit from the challenges and opportunities boating can offer. She also gets involved in a variety of other outdoor activities in hot pursuit of her family.

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Simon Davies

Chief Commercial Instructor

Simon is responsible for our commercial clients. He has a broad background in teaching and coaching and is a commercially endorsed Yachtmaster Offshore, Advanced PB and Safety Boat Instructor, and a Dinghy Senior Instructor. Simon is also a RYA VHF SRC Assessor and Navigation instructor.

His focus is on delivering training in a manner that allows students to develop through experience, recognising that people learn in different ways. He is empathetic and places a strong focus on safe practice.

Simon has been boating for around 40 years and has a broad range of experience from being the Principle of a large RYA centre in Europe with 14 yachts and 5 PBs delivering all aspects of the RYA scheme, to racing dinghies and most things in between. He has sailed extensively in the UK East and South coasts, North Sea and Baltic, and has crossed the Atlantic and Bay of Biscay. He has experience of many yacht and motorboats from 76’ downwards. He is a keen recreational sailor and power boater and owns a small yacht cruiser and powerboat with his wife. He also supports charitable events and junior sailing as a volunteer.

Simon spent most of his career in the Armed Forces and latterly worked in an international educational IT company before leaving to focus on teaching sailing and power boating full time

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Nick Noot-Davies

Senior Instructor

I started boating in 2005 at an outdoor activity centre on the Blackwater Estuary in Tollesbury. I did my RYA dinghy sailing level 2 then decided sailing wasnt for me. It was when they first asked me to crew the safety boats (a Humber RIB, a Porter RIB and a ‘Jaffa’) that my love for powered craft developed.

Since I started powerboating I have worked hard to consolidate my experience into qualifications. I am currently an RYA Advanced Commercial Power Boat Instructor (APBI) with Safety Boat certificate, an RYA PWC Instructor and an RYA Shorebased Instructor (VHF SRC, Diesel Engine and Navigation) this allows me to teach PB1 and 2, Safety Boat, Intermediate Powerboat, Advanced Powerboat, Personal Watercraft (Jetski) and VHF SRC courses aswell as the Diesel Engine Maintenance course and the Navigation courses.

I have my Advanced Powerboat certitifcate and my Advanced Power Boat CoC qualification with Commercial endorsement and also work commercially for boat trips, safety cover, refresher courses etc from time to time.

I am the Assistant Bosun at Nottinghamshire County Sailing Club and ensure their 9 Powerboats are kept in safe running order, performing tube and hull repairs and engine servicing.

When I am not on the water I run a website design agency, work as a cloud engineer, as well as spending time with my young family.

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Tim Miles-Hayler

Senior Instructor

Bio coming soon

Operating Areas

Powerboat & Theory Courses - Royal Norfolk & Suffolk Yacht Club
The Mostly Eastly RYA Training Centre in the UK

Based on the North Sea coast at Lowestoft, we have access to 120 miles of navigable inland waterways and the North Sea, this enables us to provide a rich and wide variety of boating areas for all levels of training.

Our training centre is in a perfect position to see the comings and goings of a commercial port. Clients can experience port control lights and the use of the VHF radio.

No matter what the weather may throw at us we have the added benefit if we cannot get out to sea to move in to the dock areas. Our clients spend as much time looking at the various crafts as they do driving the boat. While clients are in the classroom they get to see the large ships leaving and entering the port.

Our centre is located 5 min walk from the train station and easy access from main roads.

Our Powerboat (RIB)

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Rebel – Humber Destroyer 6 meter Rib – Designed to exceed expectation the Destroyer series promises you an effortless dry ride due to the performance deep ‘V’ hull design but with safety and comfort in mind.

No matter what the job at hand the Destroyer series will come through any task with flying colours. The most amazing characteristics of these superb looking craft are their ability to ‘grip’ the water enabling sharp responsive high speed turns. Any short attempt to become airborne ends with a soft landing as the perfectly formed deep ‘V’ irons out the shock of re-entry.

Driving our rib brings a smile to everyones face.

Length 6.0 m
Beam 2.28 M
Draft 1 m
Built 2008
Cruising Speed 25kt
2019 115 HP Mercury outboard engine
MCA Coded Vessel Cert No R20MV0060002
Coded for 4 but seating for 6

Navigation equipment
Garmin Chart Plotter 2019
Icom Radio Fixed 2018
Icom Handheld Radio 2020

Our Classroom

Training room about

Our Training Room At Royal Norfolk & Suffolk Yacht Club

The recently refurbished facility comfortably accommodates 6 clients attending our theory courses.

Most important is an endless supply of good quality coffee, tea and hot chocolate with yummy biscuits.

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