Certified ASA Sailing Courses

After learning sailing fundamentals in ASA 101, you are now ready to refine and expand your skills in preparation to skipper daytime sailing expeditions. The ASA 103 curriculum includes docking and maneuvering under power, anchoring, crew overboard recovery, heaving to, reefing under way and hove-to, correcting for weather helm, tide and current analysis, and an introduction to basic chart navigation.

Take your chartering to the next level! Gain experience handling larger monohull boats and sailing at night. This 3-day, 2-night course will prepare you for international charter vacations and overnights on San Francisco Bay.

The ASA 105, Coastal Navigation workshop offers advanced chart navigation instruction and prepares students to successfully complete the certification exam. Areas of study include chart reading, tidal current determination, dead reckoning, position fixes, running fixes, danger bearings, set and drift problems, and more. The class is intended to supplement the text rather than replace it, so plan on studying before the class begins.

Since ancient times, human beings have looked to the heavens to find our way around on Earth. It was only a few hundred years ago that we developed systems to plot latitude and longitude fixes based on the positions of celestial bodies, and the common practice of celestial navigation by means of a sextant emerged. The basic premise of celestial navigation relies on calculatingangles between the observer, the horizon, and a predictable celestial body such as the sun, moon, or visible planets and stars.