The NauticEd program consist of the central online training courses and on the water courses which are managed by individual schools. I did notice that there are more local ASA schools in comparison to the local schools for NauticEd. If you haven’t read up a little bit on how I pick the ASA course, please read up on my Sailing 101 blog.
Researching the NauticEd schools
- Santana Sailing – https://www.santanasailing.com/
- Southwest Sailing – https://www.swsailing.com/
Criteria for selecting a school
Criteria for Selecting the school
- Budget is a priority
- Review of the school
- Scheduling
- Maintenance of the boat
- The instructors
- Location of the Training
Below is the pricing of the classes as of April 2020
The pricing with Santana Sailing for The Skipper Small Keelboat Certification Course costs about $895 and 8% Long Beach Harbor Fee with a total of $966.60. The course comprises 2 weekend days of two Saturday/Sunday which is 4 days of 6 hours per day. This total up to about 24 hours of sailing time on the water.
Which NauticEd school did I choose?
I ended up selecting Santana Sailing as Southwest sailing no longer has the sailing lesson available in Los Angeles. As for Santana Sailing, the class is based out of Long Beach and it’s still within driving distance for me to commute for four separate days.
The Program
The hands-on class consists of four 6 hours days on multiple Saturdays and Sundays. The four days consist mostly of spending an average of 6 hours per day on the water and it can be quite physical. The class would start about 10 am and wrap up around 4-5 pm.
There is no written examination after the class as all that would be completed online prior to taking the on the water training.
The Book
Since NauticEd digitized their non practical course online, there is no book provided for the entire certification.
When you sign up with Santana Sailing, they will ask you to create an account on https://www.nauticed.org and provide them your LogBook Code. Then you will receive an email that you have been signed up for the Skipper Small Keelboat Course.
Don’t Forget to use the PROMO CODE below to get some discounts.
The online course modules are highlighted below and at the end of each module, you are required to take a test. The modules are fairly long and detailed which provides a lot more information than what’s on the ASA 101 book.
The Boat
For the class, we got to use a Catalina 30 With Bowsprit boat which was probably built in the 1980s. It’s a very sturdy older boat and it has almost a full keel.
The Students
My class had a total of three students and an instructor. The other two students had pretty much no sailing experience with the exception of one of them who worked in the boating industry.
The Instructor
We had a great instructor by the name of Roger and he had a ton of years of experience as a sailor.
What do I need to bring for the class?
- Lots of water as you will be on the water for at least 6 hours before returning back to the dock.
- Lunch as you be eating on the boat.
- Gloves. I would highly recommend getting one as you will be physically pulling the line (sheet).
- Non-Skid white sole shoes. I found this shoe to be great on the boat as it did not skid. I saw a few people had issue with their shoes. Note that they prefer you to have a white sole shoe so that it does stain the boat with black skid marks.
- Hat. The bigger the better and you will need one with some sort of string attached to your chin or it will end up on the ocean.
- Sunscreen. You will need lots of it as I got sunburnt on my first day during my other ASA 101 class.
- Medication for seasickness if you are not sure. I didn’t take any but I had ginger in my water just in case.
- Lastly, Have fun!!!!
LogBook
- Since everything is online and in digital format, NauticEd has created an Apple IOS app called TrackLink which can be used to log all your sailing adventures and can be used as part of your sailing resume. As of when this article was written, the Android version is not available yet.
- Some examples of what the log can produce can be seen further down below displaying the sailing path taken throughout the day.
The Class – Day 1 of 4
- We went through the Checklist prior to starting up the boat. The checklist consist of
- Check Oil Level
- Check Antifreeze Level
- Check the seacock and make sure they are opened
- Check the Filter
- etc…
2. We spent a lot of day learning how to dock the boat as you can see from the picture below.
The Class – Day 2 of 4
- The next day, We learned to sail around the harbor.
The Class – Day 3 of 4
- We spent a lot of time on the Man Over Board (MOB) as you can see from the wriggle lines below.
- We also learned how to drop anchor the boat.
The Class – Day 4 of 4
- The final day we spent all day demonstrating our skill level to show that you are proficient enough to pass the hands-on sailing techniques.
- Not all the students got to pass this class
Certification
Below is the certificate which I received for the training which I participated.
What’s Next
- I have two options, continue with Santana Sailing or Naos Yacht. I decided that to go back to Naos Yacht since they are closer to where I live.
- Would I do anything different, The answer is no as I picked up a lot more experiences from both ASA 101 and Santana Sailing which are priceless. Having the six days of basic training really helped me build my confidence. I believe just having two days of ASA 101 is just not enough and you really need at least a minimum of four days of training.
