ASA or other certifications

[contrail]

Originally Posted by jmschmidt

A friend, a former boat owner/partner on a Moorings boat in French Polynesia, who spent big bucks (travel, meals, hotels, taxis, etc.) to get ASA certifications so the EU money grubbers would allow him to charter their boats in the Med. He is a guy who sailed to Hawaii forty years ago, now owns two sailing cats (47' & 48"), he chartered in the BVI maybe ten times, Belize, Australia, Mexico and other places.

His response was the ASA training was kind'a Mickey Mouse but he did get the certification the EU will buy. He said the instructor was a twenties-something who had very limited knowledge, enough for the curriculum, but very little real-world, open ocean experience.

Well, some of the better schools will let you check out your instructor. Every occupation has those with more and those with less experience.

[dannc]

Originally Posted by Act Three

To add another opinion... Taking the courses separately is also a good solution, though it might be a bit more cumbersome. Couples tend to keep their communication habits from life and bring them on the boat. Sometimes it leads to one person dominating during the course and the other not learning as much as they might otherwise...

This is good advice. We thought about taking separate courses but that would have been difficult. We have been on boats together for a couple of weeks at a time and I knew how to let her do her own thing, i.e., find her own way. This is important in a class to let your SO learn their way. In our classes, when it was her turn to be in command, I just went with what she said and let her learn. She did better docking than I did.

Later,
Dan