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/safepassagesailingheineken
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.
Posted by Grant Headifen on January 5, 2010 under About NauticEd, Bareboat Charter, Skipper |
Here is an explanation of how your NauticEd Sailing certificate will grow with your education and experience.
The Certificate is made up of 3 sections. Completed Courses and clinics, Rank and Level achieved and Practical Verification by a sailing school.
All registered persons at NauticEd are called students. Every student starts out with a Sailing Certificate. On day 1 it will look a little sparse since there will be no completed courses.
NauticEd Sailing Certificate with no courses completed
As the student begins to pass courses and clinics these are reflected on the sailing certificate.
NauticEd Sailing Certificate with the Rules of Right of Way clinic completed
As the student begins to fill out their online sailing logbook, the rank section begins to reflect this. Rank is calculated on both Courses completed and experience logged see http://www.nauticed.org/sailing-school-student for a further explanation of this.
NauticEd Sailing Certificate with the Rank
Now as the student begins to get more serious about their education you can see the Courses section and the rank section really start to fill out. Notice also that this student has completed the Bareboat Charter course and thus gained a VHF radio endorsement which is required by many countries when chartering a sailboat on a charter sailing vacation.
NauticEd Sailing Certificate with courses and rank
Finally, when a student is tested out by a NauticEd Affiliated Practical Training School, the Practical Verification stamp is added to the sailing certificate. The stamp is automatically added when the student’s instructor logs into NauticEd and clicks on the verification button.
The NauticEd Sailing Certificate with Practical Sailing Verification
An incredible security system is built into NauticEd to prevent faked certificates. Any certificate can be verified by visiting http://www.nauticed.org/student_verification. The visitor then types in the student’s email address and a privately held logbook code held by the student. NauticEd will then display the students Sailing Resume including all completed courses, logged experience, Rank and Level, and practical verifications.
