# Online courses for an RYA and MCA training centre in Italy.

> A maritime training centre recognised by the UK's Royal Yachting Association and Maritime and Coastguard Agency trains leisure sailors and professionals, from the Italian boating licence to command of yachts up to 500 GT. It sells courses, ebooks and video lessons from its own site: we made sure every student finds what they bought, and only that.

- Sector: Marine
- Practice: Software engineering
- Year: 2025-2026
- URL: https://cloudfactory.it/en/projects/online-course-platform-sailing-school/

## In brief

The client is a maritime training centre that presents itself as the first in Italy recognised by the RYA and the MCA, the UK bodies whose qualifications are valid worldwide: from Day Skipper to Yachtmaster Coastal, Offshore and Ocean, up to the professional Master 200 GT and 500 GT certificates. On its WordPress and WooCommerce site it sells courses with start and end dates, flipbook ebooks, video lessons and student packs. We adapted WooCommerce so ebooks and private pages behave like teaching materials rather than plain files, with course dates in order emails and reliable sending through Amazon SES.

- **2** UK bodies it works with: RYA and MCA
- **500 GT** the highest professional qualification offered, Master 500 GT
- **4** sites across Lazio, Tuscany and Sardinia

## Context

The RYA, Royal Yachting Association, is the UK body for leisure boating: its qualifications, such as Day Skipper and Yachtmaster, are among the most widely recognised in the world. The MCA, Maritime and Coastguard Agency, is the UK government agency that issues professional certificates for people working on board, such as Master 200 GT and Master 500 GT, required to command commercial yachts.

Our client brings these paths to Italy, with sites at Porto di Roma, elsewhere in Lazio, in Porto Santo Stefano and a charter base in Sardinia. Beyond RYA and MCA courses it prepares students for the Italian boating licence, leisure-craft officer titles, the GMDSS radio certificate and crew courses, alongside a crew placement agency, charter and a boatyard. Students range from leisure sailors who want to sail safely to people who want to make the sea their job. Orders come in every day.

The site runs on WordPress and WooCommerce, with a Hello Elementor child theme, ACF fields for course data and MailPoet for communications.

## The problem

WooCommerce treats downloadable products as files: one link, one download. A flipbook ebook, though, is read in the browser, and a student pack for a professional course is a page of materials, not a file. Left as it was, students would have found their materials in different places, and a private page reachable by link would have opened for anyone holding that link. For a school preparing students for recognised exams, teaching materials are part of what the course is worth.

## What we did

1. **Redirect downloads, only where needed.** For the flipbook products the WooCommerce download method switches to redirect, so the link opens the reader in the browser. Every other product keeps the standard behaviour.
2. **The student pack in Downloads.** The course-linked protected page is added to the customer's Downloads list, next to PDF and ZIP files. Everything the student bought is in one place.
3. **Pages that open only for buyers.** Custom code checks that whoever opens the page has bought the linked product. Admins and shop managers always get through, for support and checks.
4. **Course dates in emails.** Course start and end dates, held in ACF fields, appear in order emails. On the product page empty elements are hidden, so no page shows blank labels.
5. **Emails that arrive.** Transactional email goes out through Amazon SES via WP Mail SMTP, with a sending policy dedicated to the site.

## How it went

Every student, whether preparing for Day Skipper or Master 500 GT, finds ebooks, videos and course materials in their own account area, and private pages stay private. For the same centre we had already built the crew directory, linked to its crew placement agency.

## Tools

WordPress, WooCommerce, Hello Elementor, ACF, MailPoet, WP Mail SMTP, Amazon SES, PHP

## FAQ

### What is the difference between the RYA and the MCA?

The RYA sets and certifies training for leisure boating, with qualifications such as Day Skipper and Yachtmaster. The MCA is the UK maritime authority that issues professional certificates, such as Master 200 GT and 500 GT, and recognises Yachtmaster qualifications for commercial use. A centre recognised by both can take a student from a first course to working on board.

### Can content be protected without a membership plugin?

Yes, when the rule is as simple as this one: whoever bought the linked product sees the page. A few lines of custom code save one more plugin to configure and update.

### Does changing the download method affect other products?

No. The change applies only to the flipbook products; PDF and ZIP files download as before.

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