The compass course — four ranks, from dock to bareboat.

What you'll do.

The foundation course. You'll rig a small keelboat, leave the dock under sail, learn the points of sail, tack and jibe, recover a man overboard, and dock under sail in light to moderate wind. By Sunday afternoon, most students are sailing the boat unsupervised on a course set by the instructor.

The course ends in a written multiple-choice exam and a forty-minute solo on-water assessment with the instructor. Students leave with the US Sailing 101 certification card.

Who it's for.

Adults who have never sailed before — or sailed once, on a friend's boat, and want to do it properly. The fastest path from "no experience" to "I can crew, and on the right day skipper, a small keelboat."

It is a prerequisite for every other course on this page. Most students take it on a single weekend; the next course on the ladder starts within four to six weeks.

What you'll do.

Captain a cruising auxiliary up to thirty-five feet on coastal waters. Five days, four nights, sleeping aboard the boat and cooking from the galley. Each evening, the boat is anchored in a different cove on the bay; each morning, the watch rotation puts a different student on the helm by 7 a.m.

Students learn to plan a passage, provision a cruising boat for a week, set and weigh anchor under power and sail, manage fuel and water, and reef under load while the wind is building.

Who it's for.

Sailors who can already crew a small keelboat and want to skipper a thirty-foot cruiser overnight. Most students take this within four to six months of finishing Basic Keelboat.

Coastal Cruising is a hard prerequisite for Bareboat Charter, and it is the certification that, on its own, qualifies a sailor to charter a smaller cruising sailboat from many U.S. fleets.

What you'll do.

The certification that bareboat-charter companies in the British Virgin Islands, Croatia, Greece, the Grenadines and the rest of the world require before they hand over the keys. Six days, five nights, on Trade Wind — our forty-foot Beneteau — covering a multi-day overnight passage, refueling at sea, electrical-system management, dinghy operation, and the small-systems failures (head, fridge, windlass, autopilot) that define a real charter trip.

Who it's for.

Sailors planning to charter — or buy — their own thirty-five to fifty-foot cruising sailboat within the next twelve months. The course is taught with the assumption that the next time the student is on a boat this size, the student will be the captain.

Many students take Bareboat Charter and Coastal Navigation in the same season, with the navigation classroom running on weekday evenings between cruising weeks.

What you'll do.

Pure classroom. Three weekends of Saturday morning and Sunday morning sessions in the chart room above the boathouse. Paper-chart and electronic-chart navigation, dead-reckoning, set and drift, tide and current calculation, the handheld bearing compass, and the running-fix.

Students bring their own dividers, parallel rules, and a 2H pencil. We supply the charts, the workbook, and the coffee.

Who it's for.

Bareboat-track sailors who want their navigation skills to be more than "the chartplotter says we're here." Required by some Atlantic-crossing sailing programs, recommended by us as a prerequisite to any offshore work.

The course can be taken before or after Coastal Cruising. Many students take it the same season as Bareboat Charter, in evenings between weekend on-water work.