Advanced Courses
Class Schedule
The next class:
This class is not presently scheduled
For more information, please contact:
Boathandling@abcpalmbeach.org
Come for the boating education…..
Stay for the friends
Boat Handling
The Boat Handling course is intended for recreational boaters who have completed a basic boating class (like America’s Boating Course) and want to gain more knowledge, skill, and confidence to boat safely and have more fun in a variety of situations.
Build boating confidence and competence for safe and fun on-the-water adventures. Boat Handling provides a foundation of knowledge and skills in boat handling and maneuvering, boat operation, skipper’s responsibilities, and boating techniques that will advance your boating enjoyment.
Boat Handling covers these topics:
· Rules of the Road: A Practical Approach
· Confidence in Docking and Undocking: Slow-Speed Maneuvering
· Boating with Confidence: Handling Your Boat Under Way
· Anchoring with Assurance: Don’t Get Carried Away
· Emergencies on Board: Preparation for Handling Common Problems
· Knots and Line Handling: The Knots You Need to Know
Each topic is presented as a stand-alone seminar. Our instructor will enrich the course with local knowledge, experience, and discussion that will help you expand your boating horizons.
Course Fee: $75 USPS members, $115 2 members sharing materials, $150 non-members.
This course continues for approximately 8 sessions.
Where: Anchorage Park Activities Building, 603 Anchorage Dr., North Palm Beach, FL
Marine Navigation
Marine Navigation teaches you how to chart and follow a course on the water. It is a full course offered by the United States Power Squadrons, America’s Boating Club. This online, self-study course consists of a comprehensive student guide, six fully narrated online modules, a practice cruise with answers, and an optional online exam. The practice cruise gives the student practical, hands-on experience in charting. The narrated modules present like classroom PowerPoint presentations but give the student total control of the pace and sequence of the slides.
The course covers the following:
• Planning
• Electronic Navigation using OpenCPN
• Paper Chart Navigation
• Navigating Coastal Waterways
• Navigating Inland Waterways
The online test covers material contained in the Student Guide, the online modules and the practice cruise. This course is the replacement for the Piloting course. Members of America’s Boating Club who take this online course and pass the online exam will get credit for Marine Navigation the same as if they had taken the course in a classroom setting. Many boat insurance companies offer savings for America’s Boating Club courses.
Typically, Marine Navigation is taken after Boat Handling and before Advanced Marine Navigation, although the sequence of course completion is left to the individual student.
Marine Navigation is not presently available as an in-person class. However, it is available as an online class from America’s Boating Club site:
Come for the boating education…..
Stay for the friends
Come for the boating education…..
Stay for the friends
Advanced Marine Navigation
The Advanced Marine Navigation class is not presently available.
Junior Navigation
What happens when your GPS fails? Have fun and satisfy your curiosity about boating in the days before electronics in the Junior Navigation course. Learn to use a marine sextant to take sights on celestial objects such as the sun. Even if you are not traveling long distances off shore, remember that GPS is not infallible, nor always available. Be confident when no aids to navigation or land objects are in sight.
In Junior Navigation, you will continue to use GPS as the primary position sensor as you learned in Piloting and Advanced Piloting, but with celestial navigation as your backup technique. Because terrestrial landmarks are no longer visible to the offshore navigator, you will learn to use a marine sextant and the sun as your reference point, derive a line of position, and develop a running fix. You will also learn to calculate your latitude from a noon sight on the sun.
What’s Included?
· Determining precise time
· Using the Nautical Almanac
· Taking sextant sights of the sun
· Reducing sights to establish lines of position
· Determining latitude from a noon sight
· Using special charts and plotting sheets for offshore navigation
· Setting offshore navigational routines for recreational craft
This interesting and challenging course emphasizes the practical aspects of daytime celestial navigation. You will also learn to prepare a sight folder that documents your positioning skills using sights taken on the sun.
Course Fee: $120 USPS members, $180 2 members sharing materials, $240 non-members
This course continues for approximately 12 sessions
Where: Anchorage Park Activities Building, 603 Anchorage Dr., North Palm Beach, FL.
Class Schedule
This course is scheduled
on an as-requested basis
For more information, please contact:
JuniorNav@abcpalmbeach.org
Come for the boating education…..
Stay for the friends
Class Schedule
This course is scheduled
on an as-requested basis
For more information, please contact:
Navigation@abcpalmbeach.org
Come for the boating education…..
Stay for the friends
Navigation
This course is the second part of the study of offshore navigation, following Junior Navigation. It further develops the student’s understanding of celestial navigation theory and includes positioning using other celestial bodies. You will learn to reduce sextant sights by the Law of Cosines method; later in the course you will also learn the Nautical Almanac Sight Reduction (NASR) method. Sight planning techniques are also covered. With this knowledge, you will have the tools to take sights and complete your Navigation Sight Folder. The course includes a chapter on using software-based voyage planning tool and a navigation program. This course also deals with the electronic software tools that can be used to plan and execute an offshore voyage.
What’s Included?
· A view of our solar system; how the celestial bodies appear to us on earth
· Sunrise & sunset; finding local mean time of solar and lunar phenomena and converting the time of these events to zone time
· Taking sights on the navigational celestial bodies and finding Ho, LHA, and Dec by applying corrections as required
· Sight reduction and plotting by the Law of Cosines and NASR methods to obtain an estimated position, running fix, and true fix
· Sight planning to achieve good 2– and 3– body fixes
· And more…
Course Fee: $170 USPS members, $255 2 members sharing materials, $340 non-members
This course continues for approximately 12 sessions
Where: Anchorage Park Activities Building, 603 Anchorage Dr., North Palm Beach, FL.