Yup did my dayskipper practical & theory, coastal practical, and yachmaster theory and practical and a cruising instructor course. Not sailed for 4 years though.
The theory used to be pretty easy – evening course or a weeks course for each. Can go straight in at Yachtmaster.
The practicals are a bit harder. My coastal examiner, Alison N, was one of the RYA legends. She was 70 then, doddered on the boat on Friday evening, we thought she wouldn’t make it aboard. Once going though had the boat a 34 footer sailing like a dinghy, and us doing alsorts until 3 am and ,then into Cowes and drinking on the boat until 6am. Saturday was pretty similar. 2 out of 4 passed. Great fun! But my club wanted a hard exam as we would be skippering complete novices quite often. They wanted us to be good sailors not just good exam passers.
My yachtmaster practical was easy in comparison, but by then I’d skippered 50 odd cruises mostly with novices on board so i guess my game was a lot higher.
Back then how easy the exam was depended on which sailing school you did it with.