Click the "title" for more detail on each course.

Contact our Squadron Educational Officer for the schedules.

"Boat Smart"  This course includes three main sections:

• Getting Started:  boat terms and types, boat handling, anchoring, water sport safety,

• personal watercraft

• What's Needed: equipment, regulations, law enforcement

• Rules To Live By: aids to navigation, navigation rules, adverse conditions, marine radio

"Chart Smart" Chart Smart builds upon the knowledge gained in Boat Smart

covering advanced subjects such as:

• Mariner's Compass

• Conventional Nautical Charts

• Plotting a Course

• Distance, Speed, Time

• Determining Position

• Digital Charts and GPS Waypoint Navigation

USPS UNIVERSITY

USPS has a series of short seminars open to the public on a variety of boating related topics. The materials included with each two hour seminar include a Student Note Book and other take-away guides related to that particular topic. Check each Seminar Title to see more details.  A nominal fee will be charged for the University Classes.  Each seminar will be presented by expert instructors with many years of boating experience.  Please contact the Long Bay’s Educational Officer for more details.

          How to Use a Chart     Using GPS     Anchoring

Boat Handling Under Power    Paddle Smart

Using VHF & DSC Marine Radio   Marine Radar

 Sail Trim & Rig Tuning   Hurricanes and Boats

Onboard Weather Forecasting  

Knots, Bends and Hitches

  Several more seminars are nearing completion and will be available soon:  Onboard Emergencies, Using Digital Charts, and Heavy Weather Sailing.

Advanced Grade Courses for Members Only

  Seamanship is the recommended first Advanced Grades  course for new members, both power boaters and sailors. Students learn practical marlinespike, navigation rules, hull design and performance, responsibilities of the skipper, boat care, emergencies and weather conditions, nautical customs, and more.

Piloting is the first of a two-part program studying inland and coastal navigation. It focuses on the fundamentals of piloting - - keeping track of a boat's movements, determining your position at any time, and laying out courses to a planned destination. Included are such subjects as: charts and their use, aids to navigation, the mariner's compass, variation and deviation of the compass, plotting and steering courses, dead reckoning, and hands-on plotting and labeling charts .

Advanced Piloting emphasizes the use of modern electronic navigation systems and other advanced techniques for finding position. Among topics covered are tides and currents and their effects on piloting, finding positions using bearings and angles, simple use of the mariner's sextant, and electronic navigation - radar, loran, GPS, etc.

Junior Navigation is the first of a two-part program of study in offshore navigation - includes basic concepts of celestial navigation, use of the sextant to take sights of the sun, moon, planets and stars, techniques of accurate time determination, Nautical Almanac, reduction of sights, plotting sheets, and passage planning .

Navigation further develops the student's understanding of celestial theory. Introduces additional sight reduction techniques and develops greater skill in sight taking, positioning and the orderly methods of carrying on the day's work of a navigator at sea. Also, study of offshore navigation using minimal data and/or equipment, as might be encountered when on a disabled vessel or lifeboat .

Elective Courses for Members Only

Cruise Planning    Engine Maintenance   

   Marine Electronics      Sail    

 Instructor Development   Weather  

USPS LEARNING GUIDES   PREDICTED LOG CONTEST

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