The mandatory five-day starting point for every superyacht crew career. Ranked, with a plain-English guide to what to look for.
Every superyacht career starts with the STCW Basic Safety Training: five days covering sea survival, fire fighting, first aid and personal safety. It's a legal requirement to work on any commercial vessel, and no yacht will take you without it. The certificate itself is the same wherever you do it, so what actually varies between schools is the quality of the facilities, how quickly you can get a place, location, and whether they can take you all the way through to your first job. Here are the UK centres we'd point green crew towards, starting with the one I trained at myself.
Some links on this page may be affiliate links. If you book through one, YachtSync may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It doesn't affect the order below; rankings are editorial. Prices shown are pulled from each provider's own course pages, correct at time of writing and may change by date or intake, so always confirm the current price and any accommodation options directly with the provider before booking.
My own starting point. I trained with Flying Fish back in 2018. Purpose-built superyacht training base on the water in Cowes, RYA Training Centre and MCA-approved, with one of the widest course ranges in the UK: STCW, deckhand and interior packages right through to Yachtmaster. Onsite accommodation can be booked directly with them at a good price alongside your course. Book online and hold a place for 48 hours.
From £850 · accommodation option available
Solent University's maritime school near Southampton, MCA-approved with MNTB cadet pathways and a strong academic reputation.
MCA-approved RYA centre near Bristol, with GWO offshore-wind training alongside its yacht STCW courses.
From £850
Liverpool-based STCW centre, MCA-approved and GWO-accredited, handy for crew training in the north.
Clydebank centre near Glasgow, MCA-approved with GWO and OPITO offshore accreditations.
Glasgow multi-sector training centre, MCA-approved with GWO and OPITO, and high course frequency across the year.
Southampton RYA Training Centre offering entry-level superyacht deckhand packages.
Large charity-run academy in Cowes, MCA-approved and an RYA Training Centre, also running full cadetship pathways for crew who want the professional route.
From £850
This is our shortlist. See every provider offering STCW Basic Safety Training in the full STCW Basic Safety Training directory →
Looking wider? See our best STCW courses worldwide →
I did my STCW as part of the Flying Fish deckhand package back in 2018, not as a standalone course. The facilities in Cowes were excellent, a proper pool for the survival techniques and a real fire ground, not a converted classroom.
Doing it as part of the deckhand course made the whole thing smoother. You're not sitting through STCW in isolation, it flows straight into the practical deckhand training that follows, so the safety training actually makes sense in context rather than feeling like paperwork before the real course starts.
If you're choosing a UK STCW centre, here's what mattered to me:
STCW is the same certificate everywhere, but the experience of getting it really isn't. Do it somewhere with proper facilities, ideally somewhere that leads straight into the next step.
Most UK STCW Basic Safety Training courses run in the region of £900 to £1,200 for the full five-day set. Always confirm the current price directly with the school before booking.
The full Basic Safety Training is four to five days. Some schools bundle it into a longer deckhand or interior package with extra practical training.
Yes. STCW Basic Safety Training is a legal minimum to work on a commercial yacht, so almost all crew complete it before or during their job hunt.
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