Leg 1 of 4, Competent Crew
Learn the sail
Knots, sail handling, safety aboard and the language of the deck. Your first watch starts here.
A free sailing school, from first knot to ocean passage
Forgetthe£300 RYA course.Learntosailforfree.
Your voyage, in four legs
Leg 2 of 4, Day Skipper
Take the helm
Chartwork, tidal heights, pilotage and the collision regulations. Plan a passage and bring her home.
Leg 3 of 4, Coastal Skipper
Lead a crew
Night passages, heavy weather, radar and watch systems. Command when the coast is out of sight.
Leg 4 of 4, Yachtmaster
Cross an ocean
Celestial navigation, ocean meteorology and self-sufficiency for weeks beyond the horizon.
From the Day Skipper course, a 10 minute lesson
Position fixing
Take simultaneous compass bearings of three charted objects and plot each as a line. Where the lines cross they form a small triangle called a cocked hat. The size of the triangle tells you how far to trust your fix. Try it: add some bearing error and watch what happens.
Cocked hat ≈ 0.73 nm across. Too big — check your bearings.
Everything aboard, free
80+ lessons aligned with RYA/ASA standards, from your first knot to a sun sight.
- Points of sail
- Knots and ropework
- Man overboard
- Weather forecasting
- Position fixing
- COLREGs, rules and lights
- Tidal course plotting
- Heavy weather tactics
- Celestial navigation
Always under way
Lessons are written, corrected and expanded every week. Here is the log, straight from the course files.
- Words of teaching
- 832.9k
- Pages written or revised
- 282
- Releases
- 22
Activity over the last year
Bar charts show the last 30 days. Log last updated 2026-10-08.
How this stays free
This platform is built and maintained as a public resource. There are no paid tiers, no premium features, no advertisements, no tracking, and no user data sold to third parties.
