*Our curriculum assumes students have experience skippering boat's
30 ft LOA or larger in open waters, that they have some skill and
proficiency in operating boats under power & sail, basic navigation
and basic weather, and can do basic system checks & repairs. Every
student will have the opportunity to learn the skills needed to skipper
sailboats on extended, 500-2000 nm coastal & offshore passages. 

Extended coastal, island hopping and offshore sailing require every crew member know the importance of and have some proficiency in vessel checking, preparation, repairs, advanced navigational procedures, in ssb communications, weather image reception & analysis, night
sailing, making landfalls in darkness, piloting in unfamiliar waters, heavy weather skills,
etc. See our page comparing coastal, bareboat and offshore sailing, (Compare).

Offshore passages sailing 24 hours per day, create a difficult learning environment. It is
made difficult by the constant motion of the boat, by sleep loss, fatigue, seasickness, the
need to stand watches, heavy weather, etc. In our experience, the new skills required for
extended coastal and offshore sailing are best learned in a combined coastal and offshore
sailing format. By this we mean sailing many miles each day, (50-100 nm), day after day,
and making landfalls and being "anchor down" every night. This combined format enables
shorter sailing days, landfall practice in daylight & darkness, and plenty of sleep for the
entire crew. This translates into more hours of quality instruction and practice every day.

Boats and passages: We prefer to use quality built, well equipped, 40-60 foot boats and to plan our instructional passages to enable 500-1000 nm legs, each one being 10-14 days in length. Ideally each leg will involve a mix of coastal or island hopping and offshore sailing. A typical Ocean-Pro instructional delivery might involve sailing from a point such as the British Virgin Islands, west 1,200 nm to Florida. We would typically sail this passage in two 600 nm, 10-14 day legs. Each leg would involve a few days of orientation, checking out and preparing the boat and provisioning. Each leg would involve clearing in and out with customs and immigration offices in the various countries visited. The first leg would be from Tortola, to Puerto Rico, to the Dominican Republic to the Turks & Caicos. We would then typically take a 2-4 day break ashore, to change crews, make repairs, reprovision and prepare for the next leg. The second leg would from be from the Turks & Caicos, through the Bahamas and might end in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. 

"Target Curriculum": We call our curriculum our "Target" curriculum. It is very comprehensive. There is no way we could cover all the material to an adequate depth during any one 10-14 day instructional passage. A single trip, does not allow all the possible situations or the time necessary to fully explore every topic. Much depends on the particular boat, the equipment aboard, the sailing area and itinerary, the season and weather, the experience and motivation level of the crew, etc. Instructional time on a passage is limited by the time required to operate the boat, and by the crew's ability to maintain mental receptiveness and focus. In reality good instructional time is limited to about 4-6 hours per day. There needs to be about the same amount of time, 4-6 hours per day, for each student to practice the elements of each topic and to gain some mastery of it. Hence each topic with practice time will require 2 days. There are 27 topics so our estimate of the time to complete and develop some mastery of them is 5-6 weeks. Even then, some topics will take more time and some will take less. Some procedures will be repeated every day whereas some may be taught but may then never be used again during the passage.

The Ocean-Pro advanced coastal and offshore curriculum:

• Vessel and crew: (selection, inspection, system checks, inventory, evaluation, preparation)
• Trip planning: (using guides, climitalogy, pilot charts, software, time & itinerary planning
• Clothing, health & safety: (clothing, equipment, seasickness, safety & MOB issues)
• Meals & provisioning: (planning, selection, stowage, preparation, service, cleanup)
• Machinery overview (diesel, plumbing, electrical, electronics, checks & maintenance)
• Vessel consumables management: (fresh water, diesel fuel, DC system & batteries)
• Navigation: (DR & GPS, (real world system for day & night, planning, logging, charting)
• Tides: (resources, calculations, heights, currents, navigation, strategies, piloting)
• Piloting: (planning and piloting safe day & night landfalls, especially in unfamiliar situations)
• Weather resources: (historical, local, VHF, SSB, forecasts, imagery, interpretation)
• (Gulf Stream): and currents: (resources, plotting, navigating, effect on wind & weather)
• Communications: (VHF, HF SSB, voice, fax & email, software, services, procedures) 
• (Weather): (local weather, forecasts, and images, (surface synoptic, wind wave & upper air)
• (Tropical): (tropical storm forecasts, plotting, avoidance strategies, vessel protection)
• (Routing): (weather & Gulf Stream imagery analysis, sail trim and route optimization)
• Sail area management: (sail inventory, area control, balancing the sails and helm)
• Sail trim optimization: (evaluating and optimizing sail "trim", "twist" and "shape")
• Downwind strategies: (optimizing downwind sail performance and navigation)
• Windy and heavy weather strategies: (preparation, sail area & balance, helm control)
• Shipboard routines: (organization, meals, vessel clean up, system checks, team work)
• Offshore procedures: (navigation, weather, helmsmanship, sail management, lookout)
• Short handed techniques: (piloting, sail handling, underway, anchoring, docking, etc)
• Watch systems: (balancing crew makeup, ships tasks, itinerary, weather, personal needs)
• Anchoring, docking & mooring: (ground tackle, safety, procedures, etiquette, monitoring)
• Foreign ports: (resources, documentation, flags, customs, immigration, procedures)
• Spinnakers & poles (when available), (types of spinnakers, hoisting, trimming, dousing)

A few words about offshore communications: Having long range communications capability aboard ship and knowing how to use it is crucial to the offshore sailor. This is usually a high power, HF SSB (High Frequency Single Side Band) tranceiver and a good antenna and ground system. In addition, some sailors may have a satellite telephone aboard. An HF SSB tranceiver can be a "marine" unit or an amateur radio, (ham) unit. The two are quite similar in many respects. With SSB a vessel can have daily access, to USCG weather broadcasts, weather images, and can communicate with other vessels and shore stations thousands of miles away. HF SSB communication can be by voice, weatherfax or email. We use an HF SSB daily on all of our instructional trips. For more information on HF SSB, (Marine and Ham), see the "Offshore Communications" category on our (Resources) page. There are links to several good articals on HF SSB, including understanding, purchasing, and installation. Here is a brief introductory article, (Introduction to SSB). Bob has been a ham radio operator since 1958, (callsign K9KKY).

What about seasickness?: At one time or another almost everyone is susceptible to seasickness. Some people, a few, are more susceptible than others. Only experience with motion and how your own body reacts to it will tell you how susceptible you are. It is very important to know how you respond to the motion of the sea before putting to sea. Barring sufficient experience or even if you know how you react it's a good idea to do the following! 1. Read up on seasickness. Understand what it is, what conditions trigger it, how to prevent or avoid it, and what the best remedys are. 2. Know what techniques and remedys work for you, not for the other guy...but for YOU!. This means experiment. Go to sea but only for a short period of time as an experiment and see what happens. Or simulate going to sea, (using the back seat of car, amusement park rides, small planes, etc. Determine how susceptible you are. Then try different remedys. You'll be looking for what works, what doesn't work and for any side effects. There are several drug remedys for motion sickness. We recommend them. But, read and follow the directions. Forget wrist bands, shocking watches, accupressure, etc. 3. Know and follow the specific courses of action you can take or avoid taking to reduce the risk of becoming seasick. These actions would be followed at different times. Some apply well before stepping aboard a boat. Others apply once you're aboard and not feeling any symptoms. And some apply once you're aboard and feeling symptoms. The most important thing to know about seasickness is simply ... that you can beat it, and feel fine every day and enjoy being offshore. Once again, see our (Resources) page for several good links to websites which are devoted to understanding and conquering seasickness.

We have made numerous trips north and south offshore of the US East coast. When sailing a passage north we usually follow the (Gulf Stream), which is usually about 100 nm offshore. One can count on the stream to provide a 2-4 knot boost in speed over the ground. However when sailing in the viscinity of the stream one must monitor the weather and forecast closely. Because of the very warm water the weather in the viscinity of the stream can deteriorate quickly into thunderstorms, very high winds and hugh seas. When sailing south we have followed routes both inshore and offshore of the Gulf Stream. Often when sailing south and inshore of the stream we will stop at Cape Lookout, (Morehead City, North Carolina).

We have made a dozen trips which included short stops in Cuba and we are familiar with most of the ports and anchorages around the island, both on the north coast as well as the south coast. We have made numerous trips across the Gulf of Mexico including having to watch for and dodge the numerous oil platforms one finds up to 100 nm south of the Gulf coast, from New Orleans to Corpus Christie. 

If you enjoy maps and exploring, as much as we do, we've included for easy access a number of high resolution charts of the Caribbean, North America and US coastal.waters. Some of these are digital copies of Noaa navigational charts. To see them the various maps and charts, see our link, (Caribbean). And for a convenient resource for travel and touist information for most of the Caribbean Island, Central and South American countries, visit the "Destinations" category on our (Resources) page. As an example, here is a link to information on (Jamaica).

I believe the daily pace should be fast enough to get the job done yet slow enough to enable exposure to and practice of all the important coastal and offshore skills. I like to stop and go ashore for every 3-4 days. It breaks the routine, allows landfall practice, exposure to foreign port procedures, a little leg exercise, the purchase of any needed provisions, a pleasant dinner ashore and perhaps a half day of interesting sightseeing. On long passages of 750-1000 nm occasional stops ashore can make a big difference in shipboard attitudes and harmony. And especially when sailing in the Caribbean it would be a shame to sail amongst such beautiful islands and interesting cultures and not visit some of the islands.  For some great color photographs from recent passages, see (Passages)

Most folks work and have families, so to keep both the time away from home as well as the trip time and cost reasonable. I find that about 10-12 days is about the maximum most people can get free of family and work responsibilities and also about the maximum time relative strangers can be aboard a small boat and have positive attitudes prevail. Therefore I try to break long passages of 1000-2000 nm, into two shorter legs of 500-1000 nm. With an average daily pace of 75 nm, a 750 nm leg requires about 10 days of underway time. 

I find that a quality 40-50 footer, with 3 or 4 cabins, (3 or 4 private berths, plus the salon berth), can comfortably accommodate the captain/instructor and 3 or 4 student crew quite comfortably. I usually limit the number of student crew to 3 or 4 per leg. For more information on our trips and vessels see (Deliveries), or for information on student qualifications see (Qualify)