RYA Powerboat Training Centres - Page 3

Doug Stormforce · 29 January 2007, 14:58

I would be the first to admit that I look sometimes at the number of schools/competitors and wonder how there are so many.

However it's a free market place, its not the RYA's job to restrict numbers. The basic laws of economics dictate how many providers will be operating in a given market place.

Anyone launching a business or new product needs an angle of some form. It would be foolish to invest money into any idea that had not yet been proven

I think there are plenty customers to go round. I also believe that we do not need to compete on price, there are plenty other factors that schools can compete on.

There is a steady increase at the moment in the number of new schools, many of these are RYA affiliated Clubs who are being encouraged to become RYA centres, some of them are new businesses. You can not blame the RYA for wanting to promote, develop and grow its own brand.

I dont believe that an increase in the number of schools will lead to a lowering in standards, there is no evidence to support this idea, in fact an increase in the number of schools may increase the over all number of partiacipants and makes the publics knowledge/perception of the RYA courses better known. If the public know what they are buying into then there is less room for poor standards.

Any one running a powerboat centre who fails to take out adequate insurance needs their head seeing to any deserves whatever comes to them.

In summary I do not feel the RYA should take any action to restrict the number of centres, however I would like to see the requiremnets for recognition to be a bit stricter on the powerboat front. The dinghy scheme Senior Instructor qualification works well and ensures that a Principal/Chief Instructor has two seasons experince of working in an RYA school before setting one up. The Crusing to Yachtmaster Instructor does the same thing.

The powerboat scheme unfortaunaly allows someone who has completed a 3 day basic instructors course set up a RYA Training Centre.

Likewise the requirments for recognition for shorebased courses in particular Sea Survival could also be worth someone taking a look at.

speedy · 15 February 2007, 20:41

The big problem privately funded centres have up here In Scotland is that there are 2 huge "council" funded training centres. You can obtain a L2 for less than a hundred squid! In one case.

I decided some years ago that there is absolutely no point in trying to compete and have found that as a few of you have said, if you concentrate on pure quality in the training then word of mouth is a great asset.

Privately run schools can also offer a flexibility that the bigger centres cannot. The biggest complaint up here is that the bigger centres will not run a course with less that a sizable group.