Posted by admin on December 29, 2008 under Rules of Right of Way | 
Since we have just launched this new FREE rules of right of way for sailing vessels course, this is the first blog. The free online sailing course has many visuals of right of way situations as depicted here. There is a lot of thought out there that sailboats have right of way when in actual fact there are many instances when they must give way. So hopefully this course can dispel those safety hazards in discussing the rules of the road for vessels. The free online sailing course for rules of right of way for sailboats is at http://www.nauticed.org/courses/view/rules-of-right-of-way
In this situation the blue boat must give way as it is on port whereas the red boat is on starboard.
Posted by admin on December 24, 2008 under About NauticEd |
West Marine, the USA’s largest (by far) chandlery sailing and boating supply company, has become the latest sponsor for NauticEd by providing a link through to NauticEd. This is a leaping bound for NauticEd in gaining this kind of exposure. West Marine made the link on their sailing category page in an effort to promote popularity and safety in the sport and lifestyle of sailing. West Marine believes that NautidEd is making a significant contribution through it’s online sailing courses and clinics. More companies are following suit. Beneteau USA will soon be linking through and NauticEd has attracted additional commitments from several other large companies. “It’s a testiment to our Commitment to bring quality, easy to access sailing courses to the world” says Grant Headifen – NauticEd Educational Director.
Posted by admin on December 22, 2008 under Skipper |
I recently finished my Coast Guard Captain’s license and then further completed my Master Mariner license with a sailing endorsement. I took the course through the Mariners School (www.marinersschool.com). The experience was good. The requirements to get your USCG Captain’s license are extensive so here’s a quick list.
- About 3 full weekends in class
- Very extensive test out in 3 sections in a 4 hour exam. Multiple choice but there was plotting involved to attain the answers.
The sections were:
- Navigation
- Rules of the road
- Deck General
- You need to have spent 365 days on the water since you were 15 yrs old
- To get an offshore endorsement you must have had 90 days outside a demarcation line from the USA (which is usually less than 5 – 10 miles out)
- Practical time needs to be documented
- any practical time where you are not the owner of the boat needs to be signed off by the boat owner.
- Completed a Red Cross first aid course – about 1 evening.
- Present your social security card and proof of citizenship
- Present 3 letters of character recommendation
- Do a drug test
- An in person trip to the local Coast guard office
- Total all up cost is about $1500 and about 120 hours of time
Beyond all that it’s an interesting process. What it gets you is the ability to charge money to up to 6 people when captaining a boat. With out the USCG Captain’s license it is against the law to charge money.
Once you get through the whole process, even if you were completely competent before, you have definitely learned some things. Many of the people in the class that I took in Austin Texas were solely doing it for safety/knowledge purposes because they were planning extended trips. So the course is not just for people wanting to charge money to captain a sailboat.
I can certainly say that most of the boating knowledge is contained in the Courses and Clinics of NauticEd but I’m also recommending that if you have the time on the water documented then you should go through and get your USCG captains license.
The course is all theory knowledge and theory test out as the Coast Guard assume that if you have 365 days on the water then you probably have some decent experience.
What’s really interesting is that most countries through out the world require this kind of process to just operate a boat. Some states in the USA require a water safety class but still no where near what some of the European countries require. Here in the USA we tend to have a Laissez Faire attitude when it comes to water. ie Let us govern ourselves. It’s an interesting debate and we are staying out of that argument. However, we are certainly promoting boat knowledge and handling education as we believe this will reduce accidents, increase water sports participation and generally increase peace on the planet because every one is having too much fun on the water – right? We’d all like to think that the other guy operating the boat heading towards you is competent and responsible.
There are about 12 states right now that require a water saftey class and i did read a blog somewhere where the USCG is considering federally to require everyone to have a boating knowledge certificate before operating a vessel. That may be a while but I’m still sure that the course will be pretty watered down (pun intended).
However – right now regarding real boating knowledge and certification, in the USA there is the USCG Captians License and nothing below that except various associations offering boating knowledge certificates such as by the American Sailing Association and US Sailing. Power boat certificates are almost non existent. Similarly, the NauticEd Certificate represents that you have passed a boating knowledge course and is not federally recognised because again the only one recognized is the full on USCG Captains license. That’s it!
But with a short plug for NauticEd if you don’t mind, the NauticEd courses have been written by practical training authors who have really experienced what it takes to have the knowledge and be safe on the water. The courses can be adjusted as needed because of its online nature and therefore are about as uptoday as you can get and with contributions via this blog we can monitor the wishes of our students. Thousands of hours have been invested in the courses and major companies like West Marine, Beneteau, Sunsail, Moorings, Profurl, Blue Water Sailing magazine, Latitudes and Attitudes Magazine are linking in and endorsing the NauticEd courses and certificates. Additionally, sailing schools themselves are linking in and using the courses as part of their coriculum.
As stated in previous blogs, NauticEd does not propose it is a replacement for the USCG Captain’s license or any of the current association offered Certificates. What NauticEd is proposing is that the knowledge is at the finger tips of everyone in the world and therefore the information can be accessed simply and easily and therefore more people will be safer because of the simple access to information. And having taken the courses here, a person showing up for practical training will be so far ahead of someone who has not.
So… in summary – if you want to be safe on the water, be confident and be able to deal with the situations that will arise, get as much education as possible. You will never regret it.
Posted by jeff k on under Skipper |
I have been sailing with friends over the past several years and decided that I want to get a lot more serious about learning about sailing. While I’ve picked up a lot bits and pieces as a “deckie”, I had very little knowledge of sailing beyond my topside duties.
The NauticEd skipper course was exactly what I needed to gain conceptual and technical knowledge of skippering a sailboat. The course was comprehensive, easy to understand, and covered a very broad range of topics at an appropriate level including on board systems, rules of the water, safety, sailing, navigation, emergency procedures, and others.I also plan to take additional NauticEd courses…Maneuvering under Power most likely.
I’m anxious to get back out there and put all of what I learned into practice, so that I can continue building my actual sailing skills, and perhaps own my own boat in the future 
Posted by Eric Perlinger on December 20, 2008 under Sail Trim |
What a difficult course. I read and re-read the material 5 times and still failed the test, several times. I finally passed it on my 4th try. I then took it a 5th time to better my score. The clinic is really worthwhile. I feel I have a good base it what powers a sailboat.
Posted by Grant Headifen on under Bareboat Charter, Maneuvering Under Power, Skipper |
Docking, maneuvering, handling, parking a boat while under power is an easy skill to learn. Many people are intimidated when entering the marina and with good cause – that is where 99% of damage to boats occur. But with some practiced skills, the intimidation changes from fear to excitement to see how close to perfect one can dock their boat.
Given a perfectly calm day (altho why would a calm day be perfect for a sailor?) I still see sailors with that nervous look on their face docking a boat. And it’s understandable, I remember those days my self.
The day when I was able to replace the nervous look was the day I picked a buoy in the middle of the lake and just started maneuvering the boat all around it pretending that the buoy was the dock. I’d back the boat up to “dock”, park next to it, spin around it. Then I started doing donuts in the boat to see how it handled under full power, low power. On other days when the wind was howling strong I’d do the same.
maneuvering docking handling a sailboat
All this lead me to be able to develop and teach a maneuvering under power course and looking high and low there is no other course out there quite like this one. But even if you don’t take the NauticEd maneuvering under power clinic, just doing the above will keep you out of trouble.
So get out there, and learn to dock a boat in any marina by learning how a boat behaves under power. Soon you’ll be grading yourself a 9out of 10 on your docking skills.
Similarly this will give you a huge boost of confidence when chartering a sailboat in the Caribbean, Pacific or Mediterranean. Usually when chartering we go for a bigger boat than we’re normally used to and so docking and handling a sailboat skills become important. And besides it’s just plain embarrassing when you hit something right in front of the guy who just checked you out on the boat. There is an unwritten competition rule to make a perfect docking maneuver when bringing the boat back after a week. and the way to do that is to do some maneuvering as above on your own boat before you charter a sailboat and once you are there practice it again with the charter boat next to a mooring buoy or something but make sure other boats are out of the way.
In the Maneuvering under Power clinic there is a printable set of exercises that you can take out to the boat with you to practice with. These exercises will simulate almost everything you’ll need to know when docking a sailboat perfectly.
Posted by Grant Headifen on under Crew, Skipper |
One of the best forms of cure for seasickness when sailing a sailboat is for the skipper to give up the helm to the ailing crew member. Strange and unnatural as it may seem this will usually work within 3-4 minutes. Why? Well you’ve always heard that a seasick person should concentrate on the horizon – and my dad always made me do this when he and I would go out fishing on his 16 foot cuttycabin in New Zealand. We’d sit out about 4 miles all day on anchor riding the swells up and down up and down. Uhw making me sick now. Seasickness is a nauseous reaction from imbalance in the inner ear with what your seeing from the surrounding environment and the body becomes confused. Concentrating on the horizon reduces that confusion. However, what is even better about sailing is that there is other stimulus inputs when controlling the helm. Not only are you concentrating on the horizon but you’re having to use your motor skills to control the boat. The brain activity defocuses from the confusion of the inner ear and concentrates on the job at hand.
This is an almost guaranteed form to instantly remove seasickness. Now there are other things you can do as well like the watch shocker, some drugs, patches and the age old tried and true ginger. I still go back to New Zealand to go fishing every year and one of the things my sister always has on her boat are ginger snap cookies (Ginger nut biscuits as they are called in Kiwiland). If you’re into natural, then ginger is a good place to start.
If you’re wanting to learn to sail and are afraid of becoming seasick – we can almost guarantee that when you’re behind that helm – you’re probably not going to suffer like you think. Come on – lets get out sailing. And skippers, stop being greedy with the helm and give it up.
Posted by angusever on December 18, 2008 under weather |
As a ASA & CYA sailing instructor as well as being a delivery skipper I am often surprised by the lack of weather knowledge of sailors at every level and quite frankly feel the level of weather training incorporated into most of the sailing course curriculum is in my opinion fairly superficial. I would be interested in hearing from others if a) they have found the same thing b) what if any sources of information have they been able to use that are practical and easy to apply on the water to increase their weather forecasting ability and subsequently be a help to their students or crew in improving their own awareness and application of that knowledge.
I have only had a cursory read of the new weather course yet so don’t wish to comment on it as yet.
One text that I have found of a practical nature for mariners is Onboard Weather Handbook by Chris Tibbs,
Posted by syilmaz on under About NauticEd |
These courses and the site are the greatest virtual education tool for sailing. I would suggest to developer to add actual video’s into the courses particularly the one related to crew, sail trimming, boat parts, etc..
Posted by admin on under About NauticEd |
Sailing schools are starting to use NauticEd online sailing courses and lessons. And while NauticEd does not suggest that online learning is a replacement for practical sailing training, there is still a vast need for delivery of the theory of sailing. If there was no theory in sailing then no books would have ever been written. So NauticEd delivers theory and sailing schools can build upon that theory when one on one with the student as well as deliver all the sailing practical hands on training.
So…there are several reasons that sailing schools are using NauticEd.
Meeting modern day student’s time demands: Most people are busy and the thought of sitting in a class room on a Saturday morning or Tuesday evening achieves just the opposite of what we are all trying to do which is to get more people enjoying the sailing lifestyle. Having the material presented in their own time in a modular format so that the student can come and go under their own time constraints is much more conducive to peoples desires.
Removing the intimidation factors: Students that complete the NauticEd online sailing courses are more apt to sign up for practical lessons once they find out that this mysterious sailing phenomenon is actually not that difficult to understand after all. This gets more people off the internet and into the hands of the schools.
Brand loyalty: NauticEd has created a technology whereby Students that visit NauticEd through a link from a sailing school see the logo of that sailing school on all pages through out the NauticEd site. This gives the student a brand recognition with that school and keeps them loyal to that school when selecting a school for practical training.
Off Season training: Seasonal schools still have the ability to be offering sailing training during off season times. Often during the winter, people are thinking about spring – yet they can’t get any training until the ice thaws. With NauticEd a school can get and keep a student excited until they are ready to get on the water.
Consistency of training: When multiple students are being trained on one boat at the same time, often the instructor has to spend more time with one student because of the lack of theory understanding. This is frustrating to the faster students. When all students show up with the NauticEd skipper certificate then the instructor knows that all students have reached the same understanding level. Giving all students a better experience during the practical exercises.
Increased ranking in search engines: Google, yahoo etc base most of their page ranking on who is linking to you. A school with more high level links coming in is thus ranked better and better means above their competitors. NauticEd creates not only a link back to the school but also provides good tasty searchable keyword text back to the school – further increasing the school’s search engine ranking.
Taking nothing away and only adding: With an alliance to NauticEd, nothing is removed from the schools ability to teach in a good and professional manner. Students show up more informed and their learning experience is enhanced.
More time spent “behind the wheel”: In a given amount of teaching time, focusing more on the practical exercises rather than having to re-cover the theory, gives students more practical understanding. Thus students showing up with the theory already under their belt increases everyone’s experience.
Instructors would rather be sailing: Face it – we’d all rather be on the water than in the classroom. Students that have taken NauticEd online sailing courses spend less time in the class room – good for them and good for the instructors.
Theory knowledge can still be built upon on the boat: Having a basis in theory knowledge whilst ont he boat will undoubtedly lead to newer and higher level questions. These can be answered by the instructor on the boat, again giving everyone a higher level experience.
Taking nothing away from the current certifying bodies: NauticEd is taking nothing away from the current certifying bodies such as ASA, CSA, US Sailing, RYA. In fact NauticEd recommends that students get certified using these associations in addition to gaining the online sailing theory knowledge to simply increase the students overall practical and theory experience.
Additional Income for the sailing school: All sales in all commerce is rewarded with a commission. It’s standard and accepted practise for moving products and services to the people who desire the product of service. NauticEd rewards the Sailing School who provided the NauticEd educational sailing service to the student. When a Student links through from that school and for ever more – that school is rewarded on each and every NauticEd online sailing course taken by that student.
