The US-based International Yachtmaster Training organisation is setting up shop in the UK – going directly head to head with the RYA in competing for the business of turning skippers into yacht masters.

But president of the Fort Lauderdale-based company, Mark Fry, says it will be a ‘lot more expensive’ to train with IYT than with the RYA.

Fry arrives in Southampton soon to make a presentation to the National Federation of Sailing Schools about the IYT’s plans which will include instructors dressed in uniforms: ‘There will be no jeans,’ said Fry, ‘we are the McDonalds of yachting,’ he added.