What is a boating or sailing resume?

To charter a yacht on a sailing vacation (or a powerboat on a boating vacation) you absolutely must have a sailing resume / boating resume. A sailing or boating resume is the same as a job resume – it summarizes, in a very concise format, all of your accomplishments. As with a job, if the resume is poorly organized and not listing the proper information, it will simply be rejected and you will be asked to present it into the proper format.

If you want to create a charter acceptable resume here is what you should list on the resume:

1. Your sailing experience. This will be a list or table of boat length and type (monohull or catamaran), if you were master or crew on the boat, and the recentness of the experience. You can also list any powerboat experience in a similar table/list.
2. Previous multi-day charters including if you were master or crew, size, and type of boat, and sailing area
3. Operational experience as master of the vessel such as the number of times anchoring, mooring ball hook-ups, Mediterranean mooring, night sailing, docking in a tight marina.
4. Any professional sailing instruction. A list or table of the number of days, sizes of vessel, and level of instruction such as basic introduction, skippering training, bareboat charter training, off-shore training
5. Completed theory courses
6. List of sailing certifications from any professional sailing education body
7. Special endorsements that you have been given by an instructor. (ex: catamaran sailing, engine maintenance, maneuvering and docking, and/or heavy weather)
8. List of boats that you have owned, the type of boat, and for how long.

Take note that a resume includes item number 6 – sailing certifications. A sailing resume is not a sailing certification. No charter company will charter a boat to you with just a sailing certification as a stand-alone document. They need more information than that.

To put this point in perspective, here in Austin, we have a nice Beneteau 37 ft sailboat which we share-out using our boat sharing software. A guy called me one day wanting to become a member on the boat. I asked him about his experience and he replied that he had ASA 103. I said fine, but how much experience do you have? He repeated his answer. After interviewing him some more he said he had 4 days of experience that he had gained during his certification. There is no way that I would ever give my 37 ft sailboat to someone who has only 4 days of experience regardless of their training.

Also, note that it is NOT required to have a sailing certification to rent a sailing yacht on a vacation. Adequate experience on a similar sized vessel within 10 feet (3 meters) is the key. However, if you are going to the Mediterranean, you absolutely need a Sailing License in addition to a sailing resume. The NauticEd SLC license is accepted by every yacht charter company in the Mediterranean.

Generally, to be accepted as a skipper to rent a sailboat on a sailing vacation, you need about 50 days of sailing experience with 25 days minimum as master of the vessel and 25 days at least on a boat greater than 28 feet (8.3 meters).

For your convenience, we have supplied a PDF sailing resume document that you can download and fill out here. It is an electronically fillable PDF so when you open it you can just click inside the document and start typing.

For Convenience, since you’ll need one of these as well, here is a Blank Crew List Document.

Make no false or exaggerated statements on a sailing or boating resume. In the case of a serious accident, you could be asked in a court trial situation under oath or in a deposition if you made any false statements. If you had, then you could be held criminally liable for the accident regardless of who caused the accident.

Finally, NauticEd has created some awesome FREE software that you can use to create your sailing resume and have it permanently stored in the cloud for you. You simply enter your sailing experience into our online electronic logbook and the software does the rest. It creates the resume in a yacht charter ready format that every yacht charter company in the world accepts.

One thing that is very cool is that our electronic logbook has an authentication system built into it. Your logbook entries can be authenticated at the click of a button. It sends an email to your crewmate and asks if that sailing venture is real. If they simply click “yes” in the email, the entry is automatically authenticated and the resume reflects as much (plus it creates a simultaneous entry for your crewmate). Additionally, the NauticEd TrackLink app can authenticate the entry using its GPS tracking feature which also keeps a log of the real track. Inside the NauticEd Courses App, you can also make an entry into your logbook so that you don’t have to wait until you get back home to your computer. But wait there is more :). If you book a charter through NauticEd Sailing Vacations, NauticEd itself will automatically create and authenticate the entry. It is all very simple and incredibly convenient. Give it a try.

To access the free resume building software simply set up a free account at www.NauticEd.org. And while you are at it, we’ll give you two free online sailing courses.

If you want to know how you can enter all those past entries onto your logbook to recreate your past history, that’s easy. Just read this article about how to make entries into your sailors logbook.

Sign up for free now at www.nauticed.org/signin