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Fast Track to
Coastal Passage Making™
Coastal Navigation plus Coastal Passage Making
Setting your sights on some serious, long-distance cruising with only the deep blue sea on the horizon? If you've mastered basic cruising and have introductory navigation skills, you're ready to get down to the brass tacks with our Fast Track to Coastal Passagemaking course. The first four days of your course is spent learning coastal navigation in depth, the next six days you’ll sail day and night on your coastal passage making adventure, putting those navigation skills and more to the test.
If you’re comfortable cruising or chartering on boats 35 feet or more, and looking for a true blue water cruising experience, sailing at night, night time crew overboard and recovery methods, standing watches and cooking underway, this course is for you. A maximum of six students and two instructors are divided into two watches – three students and one instructor on each watch. During this 6-day sailing adventure you will be taught anchoring techniques, med mooring, crew management, passage planning, weather routing and more.
Prerequisite for
Course:
Bareboat
Cruising Certification
Certifications:
Coastal Navigation and Coastal Passage Making
Course Textbooks (2):
US SAILING Coastal Navigation and
Coastal Passage Making
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Your
textbooks are included with course tuition, or can be ordered
here at the Online
Bookstore |
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US
SAILING Certification is also available for this course. |
What You Learn
In the 4-day Coastal Navigation portion of the course, you'll learn in a classroom setting. You'll gain the skills that ensure safe and successful navigation in coastal waters and will come away from this course with the confidence to safely navigate through challenging conditions, shallow waters, changing tides, currents and low visibility.
- Charts, chart types & corrections
- Aids to navigation
- Navigational inputs
- Piloting
- Deviation & variation
- Plotting set and drift
- Bearings
- Running fixes
- Lines of position
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- Ranges
- Tides and currents
- Speed, time & distance
- Log procedures
- Electronic navigation
- Inshore piloting
- Navigating in fog
- Navigating in heavy weather
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| During the 6-day Coastal Passage Making portion of this course, you will learn: |
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- Vessel inspection for passages
- Passage inventory needed
- Passage planning
- Safety and emergency equipment
- Emergency procedures
- Sail inventories for passages
- Leadership underway
- Open water seamanship
- Use GPS
- VHF radio operation
- Rules of the road
- Proper use of ship's log
- Tide and current tables
- Light List and Coast Pilot
- Navigation underway including running fixes, waypoints, danger bearings
- Watch systems
- Heavy weather procedures
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- Safety harness and jacklines
- Proper use of boom preventer
- Crew overboard recovery at sea
- Cooking underway
- How to stow food and secure galley
- Conservation underway
- Towing a dinghy
- Anchoring techniques
- Anchor watches
- Weather forecasting and strategy
- Impact of high and low pressure systems
- Making landfalls
- Navigating inlets, shoals and bars
- Lee shores
- Stopping leaks and holes underway
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Locations and Dates for Fast Track to Coastal
Passage Making
British Virgin Islands
Feb. 18-March 1, 2009 (course full - waiting list)
Oct. 14-25, 2009
Coastal Passage Making may be taken in Tortola without Coastal Navigation Oct. 18-25. 2009 only.
Captiva Island, Florida
May 6-17, 2009
Dec. 9-20, 2009
St. Petersburg, Florida
Aug. 12-23, 2009
The Coastal Navigation 4-day classroom course may be taken alone.
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How it Works
Sample Itinerary
Tortola to St. Martin and Back or
Tortola to the Spanish Virgins (Culebra & Vieques) to St. Croix and back to Tortola
You'll arrive Wednesday and depart Sunday. The 10-day program combines 4-day in-depth Coastal Navigation course ashore with six days of Coastal Passage Making offshore. It includes 4 nights in a hotel during Coastal Navigation course, and 6 nights aboard a cruising yacht, plus your last night in the hotel. Most meals aboard the boat are included. The 4-day Coastal Navigation course may be taken without the live-aboard Coastal Passage Making course. Please call for rates.
For courses taken in the British Virgin Islands – depending on the weather, your instructor will recommend either a St. Martin or Spanish Virgins/St. Croix passage itinerary.
The St. Martin destination is an 80-mile journey tracking east across the Anegada Passage to the island of St. Martin and returning to Tortola. St. Martin shares diverse cultures, with its bustling cruise port and commercial district on the Dutch side, and the quaint and informal French, who emphasize comfort and elegance. Many beaches are secluded, with small cafés and charming bistros.
In Culebra and Vieques, (the Spanish Virgins) you’ll find pristine beaches with a small-town, distinctly Spanish culture, uniquely friendly and casual people, undisturbed anchorages and a year-round lobster season!
Culebra & Vieques embrace approximately 400 square sea miles between the U.S. Virgins and Puerto Rico. You’ll reach these islands sailing approximately 42 nautical miles to the west of the Virgins, then 62 nautical miles south to the distinct Danish facade of St. Croix, the largest of the Virgin Islands, and return to Tortola.
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How
it Works
What
You Learn
Locations
and Dates
Sample Itinerary
 

| The
Offshore Advantage |
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The
best training boats in the world – used only by
the finest maritime institutions |
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US
SAILING certified instructors – ranked #1 among
sailing schools in the United States |
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Over
100,000 graduates since 1964 |
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Founded
and operated by Steve and Doris Colgate - America’s
pre-eminent sailing education experts |
| • |
Course
curriculums take you beyond standard certifications
– ranked #1 in the United States |
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Highest
sailing school reputation in the sailing industry –
partnering with the best of the best manufacturers,
charter companies and service organizations |
| • |
More
quality time on the water than any other sailing
school. Some schools claim more time on the water but
they’re not teaching the whole time; we spend
every minute on the water teaching, and bring you ashore
for lunch and other much appreciated personal needs. |
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