Posted by Grant Headifen on February 14, 2010 under About NauticEd, Crew, Skipper | 
Here is a thread discussion on Linked in that I thought I’d repeat here about teaching points of sail
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What have you found to be the best method to teach new students the points of sail?
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Andrew – sorry for the shameless promotion – but the NauticEd online interactive flash game we have called NED is the absolute best tool. I’ve had hundreds of excellent comments about how it works from customers but also from instructors. It is a FREE application we developed and we’ve made it so that anyone can embed it on their site for free as well. The game is at http://www.nauticed.org/sailing-instructor
NED the Sailing Instructor
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Thanks for the suggestions Grant. In practice, is NED a bit too complicated for students of a 101 class? What has been your experience. There are a few ideas that could be adopted from concepts in the book Emergency Navigation by David Burch that in many ways parallel Dan’s thoughts. Get the student to “feel the wind” and begin to experience simple cause and effect as it relates to the boat.
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Regarding NED, there has two people who didn’t understand the point. But once interviewed they had not read the instructions (which are 1 paragraph long). Otherwise I have over 500 totally awesome wow keep it coming compliments.
Of course we at NauticEd never think about replacing online with practical experience – nothing like having the wind in your face for learning.
But I don’t think that any prudent and responsible educator would ever say that there is only one way to learn something. Some people learn best by reading on their own, some by video, some by feel. What NED does is give some one a real interactive feel of all points of sail and teaches “points of sail” at the same time. The efficiency meter across the bottom of NED allows someone to really see and dial in the proper sail set. t’s also a big advantage to instructors because the last thing everyone else on the boat wants is spending too much time on one thing. If that can be learned/assisted off the boat then that helps everyone. All in all, NED is just a tool. On top of that – the other point with NED is that it is fun and fun is what we all want to create to get people involved in the wonderful sport of sailing.
I showed NED to a 10 year old kid (who wins every regatta he enters) here yesterday and he got so excited about having the sailing clubs use it to teach other kids. I’ve been working on developing a kids version so that will be good. He especially liked the efficiency meter – he says that he races past good sailors all the time purely because they aren’t operating their sails finely tuned. NED is a really good tool to learn that – then see it happen in real life after.
The new kids version will have a window with the telltales in it.
Stay tuned!
One final point is that the FREE advanced version of NED is a game whereby people have to dial in the correct sail angels as fast as possible to get around a course. This acts to really “burn in” the sail angles versus wind with out thinking. This is a huge learning tool.
NauticEd gives NED away for free so that any one can embed NED on their site for FREE. I’d encourage all instructors to at least just add NED to their arsenal of tools for effective teaching.
Posted by Grant Headifen on February 8, 2010 under Bareboat Charter |
On 2/9/10 4:09 AM, “MICHAEL” wrote:
Hello Grant,
Just returned from our bareboat charter in BVI .We were there for 9 days.It was great,though the wind was light 5-10 knots for the last few days but was 30knots for the first couple ,a little much for us beginers we we did ok.I was glad to have used your site to familiarize myself with some things. There is nothing like hands on .
I will be looking through the site more ofeten as i will like to learn more bareboating secrets about provisioning the boat etc.I hope to do a larger cat next time.we did a 38 footer that was 11 years old ,it had some issues that we know to look for next time like the fridge seal did not seal at all on the hinge side. The dingy davit mounts were soft and the side lifting the stern of the dingy caved in. The dingy motor ran rough and would not rev high enough to plane off,which if i was not on vacation was a easy jetting fix im sure.We will look for a yacht with ice maker ac and generator next time and one without so many toe stubbers to get from room to room. Looks like a 44 footer or larger. Will this be a harder boat to handle?
Michael,
You’ll really enjoy a 44 footer – I’m assuming you’re thinking of the Lagoon 4400. Very nice boat! We’ve chartered a 46 footer before and once you get to a 38 ft catamaran the step up is not that much difference. Just be aware of the momentum that’s all. But be prepared for all the extra room and living space on the back deck.
I’m noting your comments about chartering an older boat. If you’re going on a vacation it’s just better to spend the little extra money and get a nice newer boat.
Have you played the Cat NED sailing game?
You might consider joining us in Tonga at out Post Graduate Sailing Flotilla in August 2010. See the details at http://www.nauticed.ord/postgraduatesailingflotilla
Cheers
Grant
NauticEd
Posted by Grant Headifen on under About NauticEd, Bareboat Charter, Coastal Navigation, Maneuvering Under Power, Skipper |
While I’m waiting for the America’s cup race to start and twittering the updates to the delayed start – I thought I’d add a blog update about our upcoming Tonga Sailing flotilla.
The site with all the details is at http://www.nauticed.org/postgraduatesailingflotilla
The dates will be August 30th to September 7th 2010.
Sailing in Tonga
Come join us in one of the most tropical sailing locations in the world. Only seven boats will be in the flotilla so contact NauticEd now at info@nauticed.org
Requirements are that the skipper must have reached the Bareboat Charter Master Rank – see the video about how to get to this rank at NauticEd Certification on youtube.
Essentially you must have passed the following sailing courses: Skipper, Maneuvering Under Power, Coastal Navigation, Bareboat Charter plus have documented a minimum of 50 qualifying days on a sailboat.
This will be one of the most fun sailing vacations you could have. We’ve got loads of fun activities planned every day including a mini regatta. Tonga is known for its whale watching, pure white sandy beaches, the friendliest people and tropical fruit like you’ve never tasted. Come on!
Posted by Grant Headifen on February 4, 2010 under About NauticEd, Bareboat Charter, Skipper |
NauticEd Online Sailing School will begin offering a Post Graduate Sailing Flotilla to its students. Students who graduate to the NauticEd Bareboat Charter Master Rank will be invited to celebrate their graduation by skippering their own charter sailing yacht with their friends and family for a week long sailing adventure.
Grant Headifen, Educational Director and Founder of NauticEd, has previously lead dozens of successful sailing flotillas throughout the Caribbean, Mediterranean and Pacific. “This time we’re spicing it up a little with a sailing adventure to the Kingdom of Tonga” says Headifen. “Tonga is ideal for this type of trip. It’s navigationally a simple sailing ground and is a safe introduction to yacht charter sailing vacations for someone who has not ventured beyond local and familiar waters. It’s also a pretty awesome location to ‘come and get your feet wet’ ”.
The Moorings charter sailing base in Tonga is owned and operated by Shane Walker. “Tonga has always been an excellent sailing ground but has not been highly publicized because it is slightly off the beaten track – but that’s part of the allure – untouched beauty. NauticEd has chosen well, during the flotilla participants will almost certainly see humpback whales, other incredible sea life, breathtaking beaches and clear clear water, with consistent 10-15 knot winds”. Says Walker.
NauticEd students who have reached the Bareboat Charter Master Rank have logged a minimum of 50 days of practical sailing experience on large sailing vessels and have completed relevant courses online through NauticEd’s online learn to sail, sailing education program. The online sailing courses that are a prerequisite are:
- Skipper course
- Maneuvering a Large Sailboat Under Power clinic
- Coastal Navigation” clinic
- Bareboat Charter Clinic
A video explanation of the NauticEd Sailing Certification system is available at http://www.nauticed.org/sailing-school-student
NauticEd’s electronically managed Sailing Certification allows students and NauticEd to determine automatically if the student has reached the Bareboat Charter Master Rank. Once reached, the student will receive an official invite to the Post Graduate Sailing Flotilla. “This is going to be a really fun and excellent celebration event” says Headifen. “on top of the excellent sailing and fun navigational exercises, we’ll have GPS treasure hunts, a mini regatta, a 100m dash on the beach wearing mask, fins and snorkel, there will be spot prizes for best boat maneuvering, best dressed crew, sand castle design etc etc etc. Reaching Bareboat Charter Master Rank is really an achievement and we’ll be there to make sure the Skippers are appropriately recognized.
The NauticEd post graduation flotilla will take place in August 2010 – with exact dates to be announced. Sailors interested in participating in the sailing flotilla in Tonga lead by a professional Captain should contact NauticEd.
To learn more about NauticEd, goto http://www.NauticEd.org
Posted by Grant Headifen on January 31, 2010 under About NauticEd |
New Zealand has long been respected by the world sailing community as producing some of the world’s top sailors. It’s no wonder! Here is a pic I snapped this week while visiting Torbay, New Zealand of our future sailors.
Kids involved in Sailing is a good thing
The sailing industry is always wondering how to get more people involved in the sport and here it is in the making. Parents wheeling their kids Optimist sail boats down the road to the beach for an afternoon out on the water. The Optimist dinghy sailboat is primarily a solo sailed kids boat and is used extensively thoughout the world for teaching kids. One of the main reasons is that there are thousands of these sailboats in club fleets everywhere. Especially here in New Zealand, kids can join almost any club and be instantly involved in club learn to sail programs and race regattas. How do we get people involved in sailing? Parents – lets get the kids out of the malls and into sailboats.
Watch this space shortly for a cool online kids sailing game announcement. At NauticEd, we’re doing our part.
Posted by Grant Headifen on January 28, 2010 under About NauticEd, Bareboat Charter, Crew, Skipper |
Here is a wonderful email from a NauticEd Student regarding our post on the Heineken Regatta Sailing Adventure.
On 1/29/10 1:55 PM, “Ronald” wrote:
Grant,
Funny you should ask about my Bucket List. You see, that movie is the reason I now own a beautiful Beneteau 423.
I rarely go to movies. I am talking 1 every 5 years. However, my wife really insisted that I see that one. As we left the theater, I told her “I am going to buy a sailboat. To my delight the said “you should”.
You see, I had been dreaming about owning a sailboat for over 40 years. It really started back in the 60s while I was serving aboard aircraft carriers in the Gulf on Tonkin and Mediterranean (as an F-4 and later F-14 Naval Flight Officer).
Now at the ripe young age of 67, I have about 18 months of ownership/sailing inexperience.
I would love to do your Regatta, but 2 things stand in my way; age and expense. Would be hard to convince The Admiral that I should fork out another $5 grand when she sees how much boat ownership is already costing us. And, at 67, though I am in pretty good shape, I fear I would not be able to hold up my end of the team’s assignments.
Ron
Here is my response
Ron,
No worries. Keep your eyes open for our Bareboat Charter Master Post Graduation Flotilla coming up which is more of a sailing cruise rally and I think it would suit you well. It is probably going to be in Tonga in August. We’ll have about 6 boats in the fleet. Each captain will fill their own boat with friends and family. We’ll cruise the islands with the fleet admirals boat leading the way. This is going to be a really fun sailing event and would love to have you along.
More details to come but start gathering your friends.
Grant
Posted by Grant Headifen on under About NauticEd, Skipper |
NauticEd announced today that it would begin providing sailing adventures to it’s students via an alliance with Safe Passage Sailing, a San Francisco based sailing adventure company.
“This provides super exciting sailing adventure events to get our students out on the water and experience the exhilaration that sailing can bring” said Grant Headifen, Educational Director of NauticEd. NauticEd has already well established it self as The World’s Most Advanced Online Sailing Education. Now with this offering NauticEd brings a further dimension to practical sailing experience.
The first adventure will be for students to participate in the Heineken Regatta in St.Maarten in March 2010. Sailing Pro’s Doogie Couvreux and Sally Barkow will be on board to serve as personal mentors throughout the regatta. Doogie will lead a team on a Farr 65 and Sally on a Farr 40.7. Both Skippers have extensive racing resumes and are capable of leading the teams across the finish line with honors.
The event will begin with 2 training days where a professional skipper, tactician, 1st and 2nd mates will ensure that the team of NauticEd Students come together and are ready for the exciting 4 days of racing to follow.
The Heineken St Maarten Regatta, who’s motto is “Serious Fun!”, is renowned for its high energy parties that complement such World Class racing. 2010 will celebrate the 30th anniversary of this world renowned regatta with over 40 countries now being represented.
Headifen added “We’re extremely excited to provide this kind of world class sailing adventure event to our NauticEd Students. If something like this was on their Bucket List, then this is the opportunity to mark another one off.
Learn more about this NauticEd event at http://www.nauticed.org/safepassageheineken
Posted by Grant Headifen on January 21, 2010 under About NauticEd, Bareboat Charter, Skipper, Videos and photos |
Annapolis Bay Charters becomes NauticEd’s first Flag Ship Practical Sailing School
NauticEd announced today that the 30 year old and well respected Charter Sailing Company, Annapolis Bay Charters, would become it’s first Flag Ship Practical Training Sailing School.
To date, NauticEd has successfully established itself as The World’s Most Advanced Online Sailing School and provides 12 online sailing courses and clinics helping students learn to sail – on the theory side. Now with Annapolis Bay Charters joining the NauticEd team, students can learn practical skills alligned to the theory courses offered by NauticEd.
Scott Farquharson, Owner of Annapolis Bay Charters, says that this is an obvious alliance. “We’re allowing NauticEd to take care of the theory while we concentrate on teaching the practical sailing skills on our modern fleet of sailboats. We wanted to bring a high-tech, high-touch approach to teaching our students.” Annapolis Bay Charters will be offering a four-day intensive Bareboat Charter Master practical training sailing course. Students must complete the theory requirements for NauticEd’s Bareboat Charter Master Rank online prior to the beginning of the school. “If you’re taking out a $300,000 yacht on a sailing charter vacation, you’d better know what you’re doing,” says Scott. “This course, combined with the NauticEd theory sailing courses, will get you there under the proper standards and quality deserving of such ventures.”
Practical sail training classes will be conducted on modern 37 to 40 foot, fully appointed yachts matching the requirements that anyone will find when chartering a sailboat anywhere in the world. Annapolis Bay Charters will also offer a one-day NauticEd Skipper Practical Proficiency Checkout. This is designed for students who are already proficient at sailing but want a final tune up and the Practical Skipper Proficiency Stamp on their NauticEd Sailing Certification.
NauticEd online sailing school has long promoted that its students should get on the water training and experience as soon as possible after taking their theory sailing courses and recommendeds various hands-on-schools on it’s website at http://www.nauticed.org. With the new Flagship concept, NauticEd students will be guided through the practical training closely associated with the theory teachings. NauticEd’s sailing courses are self paced online classes whereby the student can learn and test out on their own schedule, suiting the busy lifestyle of people today.
NauticEd’s practical training and experience system works as such: Students, after passing their online sailing courses, can be trained from novice through Skippering their own boat in near coastal waters to Bareboat Charter Master. With the Bareboat Charter Master Rank the student is expected to have enough skills to safely charter a sailboat on a charter sailing vacation. The Practical training sailing schools will “sign off” on the student’s proficiency and a verification stamp will be automatically added to the student’s NauticEd Sailing Certificate. NauticEd developed the web based technology to allow an instructor to log into the student’s profile and click a button indicating to which level the student is now practically proficient. “By the time the student arrives home, their online and downloadable sailing certificate will reflect their new practical proficiency level” says Grant Headifen President and Founder of the NauticEd sailing school.
The NauticEd sailing certification also contains information about the student’s self logged practical sailing experience. This gives charter companies the essential knowledge they need to ascertain the skill level of a charterer prior to accepting the booking. NauticEd provides an online logbook free of charge to it’s students. Students log their past and on-going practical sailing experience through NauticEd’s website and through a free iPhone sailing app available online from Apple iTunes at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nauticed/id326119851?mt=8. Headifen interviewed dozens of charter sailing companies prior to developing the Bareboat Charter Master Rank sailing certification. The conversations resulted in ascertaining that students should have logged a minimum of 50 sailing days experience before reaching charter level competency. The Bareboat Charter Master Rank requires this 50 day level in addition to passing the NauticEd Skipper, Maneuvering Under Power, Bareboat Charter and Coastal Navigation courses prior to being awarded the rank.
The NauticEd Sailing Certification Explained on video
NauticEd touts that it is the only sailing training company offering such a high tech and experience based approach to awarding sailing certificates which are now accepted by most major charter sailing companies. “Now with Annapolis Bay Charters and other flagship sailing schools coming online, the NauticEd sailing certification becomes an extremely strong education program and verification system of a student’s proficiency” says Headifen.
Learn more about NauticEd at http://www.nauticed.org
Posted by Grant Headifen on January 18, 2010 under About NauticEd, Skipper, Videos and photos |
Here is a question posted by Nancy Knudsen Editor Sail-World Cruising. Sail-world is one of the largest and respected online sailing news companies (http://www.sailing-world.com) to NauticEd this week. Followed by our answer.
On 1/16/10 6:47 PM, “Nancy Knudsen Cruising Editor Sail-World” <cruisingeditor@sail-world.com> wrote:
Hi Grant
I have a question about the [sailing certification] video you have sent me. The practical experience that is mentioned in the video. For a sailor not within practical distance of your facilities, how does this happen. Do you take the word of the sailor that they have completed this? – or what happens.
As my readership is international, this is a very important point for me. (I understand that if it is an honour system then the ‘verification’ process at the end would make up for this)
Cheers
Nancy Knudsen
Editor
Sail-World Cruising
www.sail-world.com/cruising <http://www.sail-world.com/cruising>
TetraMedia established in 2000, operates the largest online marine news network in the world. It now has regional sites around the world, with Sail-World UK-Europe, Sail-World Asia, Sail-World NZ, Sail-World USA, Sail-World Australia, Sail-World Cruising International, Sail-World Cruising USA, Sail-World Cruising Canada, Sail-World Australian Cruising, Powerboat-World and Marine Business News.
Each week, more than 165,000 newsletters are sent to subscribers, by its seven editors. More than a million individual boaters have visited Sail-World and Powerboat-World in 2009.
This is NauticEd’s response
Nancy,
Yes - as with all charter company resumes – it is the honor system. It is completely impossible to verify time. Additionally the United States Coast Guard accepts the honor system for the USCG Commercial Captains license as do most other country licenses.
What I’ve been able to do is to also back this up with a Proficiency Verification by a NauticEd affiliated sailing school. Right now we are encouraging schools to be affiliated with us because there are a ton of “students” (we are all students) out there who don’t see the value in taking a basic course if they are already past that point. Thus the entire sailing school network is missing out on touching many students. With the verification check out, schools now can actually add this to their income stream thus it’s a big incentive for them to align. Students benefit by solidifying their resume to charter companies and by picking up a few professional tips along the way.
The technology is simple but clever. When an instructor is finished verifying a student’s proficiency, he or she simple logs into the site and clicks the verification button against the student. Before the student can get home, their certificate is updated with the Verification stamp.
We’re making it pretty simple for a school to sign up with us. They must be an established school with a website and have commercially legal instructors and follow our standard when performing a verification. A new system that we will implement shortly is a way for students to publicly rate the experience with the school on-line on our site. This ensures the school is providing an excellent learning experience for the students else they may get a bad rating. This I think is essential for the growth of the industry – no one in the sailing industry wants a single student to have a bad/boring/unprofessional initiation experience to sailing.
So to answer you question specifically – we plan on expanding our verification-training schools. However even with out a verification the honor system for building a resume is fine. Whats’ exciting to us is our sailing iPhone app which makes it easy for a student to update their resume on the dock in 2 clicks.
If you have any more questions please let me know.
Grant
Grant Headifen
Ph 512-696-1070
http://www.nauticed.org
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/grantheadifen
READ MY BLOG: http://www.nauticed.org/blog – it’s really interesting
PLAY WITH NED: http://www.nauticed.org/sailing-instructor – it’s totally cool
Go Completely Nautical
Take the FREE online Rules of Right of way clinic for Sailboats at NauticEd.org
Or
Challenge our sailing knowledge facebook app at http://apps.facebook.com/sailingrules
The World’s Most Advanced Online Boating Education
Posted by Grant Headifen on January 12, 2010 under Coastal Navigation, Rules of Right of Way, Skipper |
Along with NauticEd’s iphone app to help sailors keep their logbook current, we’ve discovered a new iphone app which helps sailors identify boats at night from their lights they exhibit. It serves as an excellent and handy vessel light identification chart for sailing at night.
Identify boats at night
The aqualights iphone app is very simple to use. It is in a one page presentation where you just click on the arrangement of vessel lights that you see at the top of the application and Aqua lights presents to you a visual arrangement from which you can select the best fit.
I see this as an excellent tool to use and have with you while sailing at night. No more diving down below to get out the light lookup tables and killing your night vision at the same time. Just pull out your iphone and tap.
NauticEd is not affiliated with Aqua lights. We just find it as a useful application. Visit their website at http://www.aquaous.com or see them on the itunes app store when you search for aqualights. Keep an eye on them as they are also coming out with one for sounds.
