What Do You Mean I Don’t Qualify?
My Rant on the Sailing Certification Factories
This actually happened today. A yacht charter client of ours submitted his resume to the yacht charter company. He had sailing certifications from another certifying body from 101 through 105. He was turned down. Imagine the disappointment you’d have when you have done all that work and paid all that money for naught.
So why was he turned down when he had a Bareboat Charter Certification from another company?
Pretty simple really. All you have to do is think about it for at least a microsecond. You simply can not read a book, have a few hours or even days on the helm and pass a paper test and then be expected to be a competent bareboat charter client in the eyes of a yacht charter company. But this is what he was fed.
What is even more strange – funny strange, not funny haa haa at all – is that the charter company itself represents this brand of sailing training in their location. SO THEIR OWN CHARTER COMPANY TURNED DOWN THEIR OWN SAILING CERTIFICATE BRAND. If that isn’t a clue then what is?
The winds of change around competence, certifications and licensing are here.
NauticEd’s Bareboat Charter Master certificate has never been turned down at any yacht charter company. Why? Because in order to gain the certificate you must have a minimum of 50 days of sailing experience in your sailing resume in addition to the other requirements. It means that by the time you reach the rank of Bareboat Charter Master you already qualify for every yacht charter company. Wow, what a novel idea, a certificate that is worth the paper it is written on. Actually, in our case, a cloud-based real-time certificate. The way it should be done in the 21st century.
Additionally, we just released NauticEd’s new Certificate design with a new mod look and feel. A few things to notice: it says Certificate of Nautical Competence and it displays the newly released American National Standard badge for sailing training and assessment.
Bareboat Charter Master Certificate Student
This year the United States Coast Guard released a very intelligently designed sailing training and assessment standard. It was submitted to and approved by ANSI (the American National Standards Institute – the USA representative to ISO (International Standards Organization)). The training and assessment standard uses a 37 point comprehensive training system with assessment rubrics to test the student for competence. Instructors then use the rubrics results to objectively make a decision regarding competence. Only those students who are deemed competent according to the ANSI sailing standard are awarded the Certificate. As above, it is a true Certificate of Competence. NOT a “Certificate of Attendance” as we find other companies are essentially issuing. The certificate also displays the American National Standards seal as proof of a successful assessment of competence.
NOW, because of this new ANSI approved standard, NauticEd has released the new SLC™ (Sailing License and Credentials) which is now internationally accepted. The SLC allows anyone to sail internationally, especially in Europe where a sailing license is required.
The SLC is easy to get but has appropriately high standards. Here are the requirements:
- The Bareboat Charter Master Bundle of courses (Approximately 40 hours of study)
- 50 days of sailing experience (25 as master and 25 on a boat greater than 28 ft)
- SLC comprehensive exam covering knowledge tests of tides, navigation, rules, weather
- Practical on the water assessment to ANSI standards and further to NauticEd’s further Bareboat Charter Master Standards
- Must hold a government boating license. NASBLA for the USA (free at boatus.org/free), PCOC for Canada, local government license for other countries including the ICC.
Here is the link to the NauticEd Sailing License and Credentials (SLC) page.
Here is an example SLC card. When a student presents this card, the Yacht Charter company can go to the SLC page above and enter the SLC number. A full resume is then presented.
In general, for the Caribbean, the Bareboat Charter Master rank/resume/certificate will never get turned down. For Europe, the SLC will work. However, as with all licensing countries, check with your yacht charter company first during the booking process.
Gain the NauticEd Bareboat Charter Master Rank. You will never need to suffer the embarrassment of having your sailing certificate turned down.
