Auckland Sailing School — Local services in North Island

I completed a theory refresher and a four day own boat tuition course with Phil and the team at the Auckland Sailing School.

I had completed a Yacht Master Shorebased course two years previously, pre-Covid, elsewhere. Phil quickly refreshed and plugged the holes in my knowledge. He has put together a great repository of material accessible via his virtual classroom. The material is backed up with exercises and readings. Questions were answered quickly and the at home tuition was very effective.

The own boat tuition was preceded with a thorough briefing and list of exercises/objectives. Each exercise starts with a "why" - why are we learning this. So they are practical and useful. Every day commences with a briefing and importantly, finishes with a debrief. The days are long, 12 hours into the night. Phil has a well honed instructional technique and the days went quickly. I learnt a lot!

I have no hesitation in recommending the Auckland Sailing School as a professional environment to learn, and develop...

Like many kiwi sailors I have plenty of experience but lacked any formal qualifications and needed to sit the RYA ICC, as I was chartering a yacht in Greece for a holiday. I made contact with Phil Bishop who was quickly able to explain exactly what I needed to do and sent through all the relevant information, which provided much needed clarity and brought the challenge down to a manageable size. He was also able to arrange a yacht for me to use to sit the exam. Thanks Phil for all your help, you made the process go very smoothly. As I suspected, I also learnt quite a bit in the process as I had some gaps in my knowledge, so I feel even more comfortable on the water now than before. Phil has a great style and was eager to pass on even more knowledge and training than was required which was...

We purchased a 60ft Riviera having absolutely no experience in operating launches, only trailer boats. Phil took us right through the theroy from on boarding the boat, engine checks, electrical checks, GENSET checks, disconnecting shorepower, GENSET operation and helped us build our own personalized checklists for the boat.We also did a refresher on boat rules of the road and theory. We spent 3 days with Phil and 1 night, covered docking, fueling up, anchoring the works. After 3 days we are confident in taking our boat out by ourselves. I thoroughly recommend Phil, he is relaxed yet professional and makes learning an...