Boating School Information

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Boating School - Seamanship

Seamanship is an art and is, specifically, defined as the art of operating a boat. A sailor has to be qualified in many different fields before he can progress in seamanship and these range from subjects like navigation and international maritime law to fire fighting and how to deal with dangerous cargoes.

Fortunately, today, instead of spending many years being apprenticed at sea, sailors can attend boating school and qualify in seamanship in a relatively short time. As the field of seamanship is extremely broad, the available training programs have been grouped into several areas of specificity, which would include such seemingly unrelated areas like Fundamentals of Damage and Claims Survey, and Government and Corporate Contracts.

A typical course in seamanship is the Yacht and Small Craft Surveying program in terms of which the student would learn how to prepare appraisals of seagoing vessels, place a value on a vessel for insurance purposes and draft and complete insurance ‘to-do’ lists. This is the ideal qualification in maritime surveying and should be strongly considered by anyone wanting to get ahead in this field.

The Career Development and International Maritime Organization (IMO) Compliance program is a great way to propel a career forward. Registering for this course at your boating school will ultimately qualify you to become a deck officer and will give you a firm grounding in areas such as bridge resource management, basic safety training, able seaman training and marine radio operators permit training. The Professional Mariner Training program, on the other hand, is aimed at qualifying you for career opportunities in the pleasure and commercial yacht industry and can be taken by beginners and experienced seamen.

Another option would be the USCG (United States Coast Guard) License Training course, which is specifically aimed at those mariners who have had plenty of experience at sea but who have not yet received any certifications. Once a student has completed this course, he or she will be ready to seek licensing in the Operating of an Uninspected Passenger Vessel (OUPV). Finally, the Fundamentals of Damage and Claims Survey program teaches one how to assess and report on yacht damage while the Government and Corporate Contracts course teaches the basics of maritime contracts on a local, state and federal level.

If you want to get ahead in boating, one obvious way would be to go to boating school and obtain a seamanship qualification.

A typical boating school will offer students classes in many different subjects and it will also usually group these classes into different courses so that students become adept in specific areas like small boat sailing, cruising and sailing keelboats. Powerboating offers a whole different series of challenges and also has its own set of extremely specific subjects that a student has to learn about. And then there are the sailing calculations, which comprise all the formulas that sailors and navigators have to know so as to be able to handle a boat correctly.

If you decide to take a class in small boat sailing, you will most likely learn about the following:

• Knots and lines: learn all about the different type of Nylon, Kevlar and Dacron lines (ropes), their strength and the knots that you can tie with them, including the fishermen’s bend and the clove hitch;
• Weather: no one can sail without understanding how weather conditions affect sailing and where to locate information of prevailing conditions.

Next come the keelboat courses, which include in-depth tutorials covering subjects like:

• Design and stability: this course covers concepts like ballast displacement, motion comfort and load waterline length and is essential if you want to have an understanding of how a boat handles in the water;
• Boats and rigging: find out about the different types of sailboats, hulls and boat parts (including rigging and sails).

Cruising is another specialist sailing course, and here you will learn about:

• Navigation: course content contains information on latitude and longitude, current, planning a landfall and related matters;
• Docking: you will learn how to move a boat in a marina and also how to dock (pier and slip) and how to anchor.

Powerboating is regulated by an entirely different set of rules to sailing and here you will be taught about:

• USCG Rules of the Road: including detail on inland navigation lights, inland sound signals and inland lights and shapes;
• Powerboat handling skills: learn the difference between interesting manuevers like hawse turns, pivot turns, axis turns and barrel turns.

Sailing Calculators are among the most difficult concepts that a boating school can teach and include formulas for:

• Speed/time/distance;
• Landfall fix;
• Maximum hull speed;
• Angle of vanishing stability; and
• Sail wind load.

And once you have a firm grip on all of the above theoretical subjects, your boating school can begin teaching you all the practical aspects of sailing.

Boating schools offer varying curriculums for those of different experience levels or those looking to accomplish different things.  For the purposes of this article we will assume that you are looking to learn some basic boating skills that will enable you to safely pilot a sail or motor boat in the 30-50 foot range. While most of these types of classes last from a few days to a week it is important to remember that boating skills and good seamanship are the accumulation of skills and experience over time. If you do not get out on the water and actively practice the skills you learn in a boating school you will not receive the full benefit of the training.

A good boating school will teach you a set of skills, as well as a system for applying them in the real world. Most programs will begin with some classroom time where you review items like weather, rules of the road, basic navigation, crew operations and skills, preparing to depart, emergency procedures and safety best practices. Some boating schools also cover some of theory involved like sailing theory, leaving a dock or mooring, anchoring, boat control in confined waters, boat control in open waters, dead reckoning skills, man overboard recovery methods and others in the classroom.

While all this classroom time is a valuable part of the learning experience there is no substitute for actually getting out on the water in a real boat and practicing. Some new companies have recently begun to offer “online” boating schools, while these types of programs are a great supplement to an on the water class, an online program alone is no substitute for real experience on the water.

After a few hours in the class room most good boat schools will get you out on the water for some real firsthand experience. You may wish to consider the type and size of vessel the school has available and request one that matches or comes close to what you think you will be piloting when you complete you training. Some instructors will even provide training on your own boat.

We recommend trying a boat club that offers a good training program because it will give you the opportunity to participate in an accredited school, and then get out on the water to practice those skills on a shared boat without the time and financial commitments of boat ownership. Visit our sponsor WindPath Fractional Yachting for more information.