Petrol Engine Maintenance
Booking details
No dates currently available. Please contact us for more info.
Course Information
Joining Instructions: Please click here for course joining instructions
Recommended Reading: Sailing magazines and newspapers, but this is not essential
Course Prerequisites: No assumed knowledge
Minimum Age: No minimum but Under 16’s must be accompanied by adult. Persons aged 16+ can be unaccompanied subject to other pre-requisites having been met
Who is the course for:
This course is perfect for anyone who feels they need to gain some knowledge in how petrol outboard engines operate and are maintained, as well as understanding how to fix them should the worst happen at sea.
What we cover on the course:
The one-day course teaches the principles of petrol outboard engine operation, the systems and parts of the engine, fault finding and rectification of common problems, routine maintenance and winter lay-up procedures.
You will have plenty of hands-on time with our training engines. They are all fully-functional working engines that we use for training purposes.
Each year the Coastguard get hundreds of distress calls about non-functioning engines and related issues. Don’t become one of those calls!
We’ll teach you how to service and maintain engines, including things like changing waterpump impellers, oil and fuel filters, bleeding the fuel system and injectors, diagnosing faults and how to rectify them.
We will highlight which issues are the most commonplace and how to avoid them in the first place. We’ll talk about engine servicing regimes and how to schedule your engine maintenance each year and the parts needed.
Course formats & details:
Courses are run in a choice of two formats:
- 1 day: (Saturday or Sunday)
- Also available mid-week
During your Petrol Engine Maintenance course you will cover practical engine maintenance and fault diagnosis.
Fancy going VIP and having your own exclusive private course for you and your friends or family? You can book the whole classroom just for your own exclusive course from only £TBC per person. Enjoy the course in style, with up to five persons being taught by one of our friendly, experienced Yachtmaster Instructors!
Our Chief Instructor says this about the Petrol Engine Maintenance Course:
This course is an essential for any skipper. It’s vital that you know how to trouble-shoot your boat engine should the worst happen.
Your engine is your secondary means of propulsion, so being able to change the engine and gearbox oil, waterpump impeller, bleeding the fuel system and changing a drive or fan belt really is something all boat users should know how to do.
With marine engines some parts such as impellers do not have a guaranteed in-use lifespan, they could last a day or a year. So knowing how and when to change these parts will help you avoid typical issues a lot of sailors face each year.
This course really is an essential for all sailors and crew. A failed engine at sea can cause immense stress, so having confidence in your skipper and crews ability to diagnost and resolve issues is a great comfort. Lets face it, no-one wants to make that distress call on the VHF for something which could easily have been avoided.
Booking details
No dates currently available. Please contact us for more info.
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Customer reviews
Exciting Channle islands exploration!! This will be my third time with Commodore, no regrets. 😁 Such a great trip exploring the Channle islands and northern France. We got to see lovely towns in Guernsey and Jersey as well as a fab market in Cherbourg. The sailing was so great! Over 350 miles covered and well over doubled my night hours. Big shoutout and thank you to our amazing skipper Ed who always had to the best recommendation and was so flexible to what we wanted to do as a group. He was an amazing support through out the trip, gave great MOB training and help in passage planning. Boat was great as always. Amazing experience and can’t wait to go on similar trips with the company.
Orla Simpson29th August 2025
We did a mile builder channel crossing with Karen. She was absolutely brilliant, a great combination of confident and relaxed to help us build our feeling of confidence. Would highly recommend the mile builder with her. Overall a tiring but extremely rewarding experience. Thank you Karen!!
Ana Sofia Almagro25th August 2025