Just got back from a day at the local college - SWMBO and I are now fully 'LRC' certified!!

I mentioned the course a few months back on here - we did it by correspondence from SeaFish, the actual pack took a weekend to work through with an evening of revision. We then arranged with the local nautical college to do the exam - it took a full day (Practice papers and equipment familiarisation from 9am to 4pm and then exam from 4pm to 7pm).

The college fees weren't cheap (Ł120 each for the day plus the exam fee (Ł80 ish)), but it worked out a LOT cheaper than a one week course in Southampton which was the other option!

There seems a lot to it, 1 written paper requiring written answers, 1 paper which is multiple choice, 1 practical exercise with a number of other 'vessels' (Mayday relay etc) and 1 practical exam demonstrating usage of HF, MF, DSC, VHF, Navtex, EPIRB and SART. However, it all went well and was fairly straightforward.

So, I can heartily recommend the SeaFish LRC remote learning pack (although the pack was written in 1997 so some content is a little out of date, but I would say less than 5% of it) if you read it all and do the practice questions then the written parts of the exam and the simulated exercise are straightforward. You do need the equipment familiarisation session at the college before the exam to pass the practical element though.

Jonny