American Sailing video
Become an ASA Sailing Instructor
December 1, 2009 · 3 min · 26K views
What this video covers
The American Sailing Association's Instructor Qualification Clinic (IQC) is a three-day certification program that qualifies candidates to teach ASA sailing courses at 300 affiliated schools across the U.S. and internationally.▶ 0:11 ASA, founded in 1983, has 1,800 active instructors and offers IQCs across multiple certification levels — basic keelboat, small boat, bareboat, catamaran, and offshore.▶ 0:11 Candidates must pass three distinct evaluations: a written seamanship exam covering rules of the road, knots, and boat handling; a single-handed sailing skills test in a daysailer requiring tacking, jibing, heaving to, reefing, and a figure-eight man overboard drill; and a teaching evaluation conducted in a classroom, on the dock, and underway.▶ 0:54 Classroom grading covers lesson organization, communication, student rapport, and presentation.▶ 2:04 Dockside topics include safety, rigging, and boat parts; on-the-water topics include sail trim, man overboard return, heaving to, reefing, and docking.▶ 2:19 One candidate, a licensed captain, described the written exam as comparable in rigor to the USCG captain's license test and found the clinic required substantial review of general nautical knowledge despite prior experience.▶ 1:05 ASA recommends candidates arrive with excellent sailing and teaching skills and invest significant study time before the clinic begins.▶ 2:48
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