This section will cover two questions.
1. Can I charter any sailboat after taking lessons from LivingSkySailingSchool?
2. Can I hire you to be my skipper in.. Croatia, Caribbean, Mexico…?
Answer to #1:
My standard answer is you can APPLY to charter to ANY company after taking lessons from us.
EVERY charter company in ANY country will have its specific requirements. What every company wants is your sailing resume. This will include such things as:
--> what courses have you taken --> where have you sailed --> how long have you been sailing --> what size boat have you been on --> what conditions have you sailed in and of course --> can your credit card cover the insurance deductible.
Standard requirements are:
-Basic courses from ANY sailing school in the world. The more familiar the charter company with your source of lessons the better.
-A navigation course that is not dependent on powered electronics or a cell phone.
-A VHF operators certificate.
-A basic first aid course.
-Someone else on board that has the ability to support or take control of the vessel if something happens to you.
The charter company prefers that you have sailed in their region and on boats of a similar size.
All of these requirements do not have to be held by one person on board.
North American sailing organizations I am aware of:
CRYA: Canadian Recreational Yachting Association. This is the organization we are affiliated with. It is based on the West Coast of BC. They offer Competent Crew, Day Skipper, Coastal Navigation, Advanced Coastal Cruising and Yachtmaster. They also offer a Catamaran endorsement.
Sail Canada:
Our National organization.
This source provides the curriculum from dingy sailing to yachtmaster. Schools are across the country. If you want to sail in the Olympics you will have to go through this curriculum. Currently in SK, they only offer the dingy sailing and nothing in the keelboat or beyond level of instruction.
IYT: International Yacht Training
This is an international organization that has instructors in Canada. They cover all levels of training. They offer a unique certificate called ICC. International Certificate of Competent. The holder of this certificate is recognized as a qualified sailor in any country.
ASA / Nautical Ed:
These are USA based sailing organizations. They offer the same content as our Canadian sources.
Single instructors, sailing school or a charter company?
When looking for instruction you may find Charter companies, Sailing Schools and solo private instructors to get your certification.
Private instructors:
Many instructors acquire their certification from more than one source and can offer lessons from Sail Canada, CRYA and/or IYT. When you are getting an instructor, ask to see what all they can offer. They may or may not be affiliated with any specific school or organization.
As they are private, they may own their own boat. This is likely a good thing as it may be well maintained, and they will have good working knowledge of the vessel.
Private instructors maybe willing to teach you on your vessel if you own one.
Charter companies:
Charter companies are generally an umbrella of services. (Sailing School, Chartering, Marina store, Boatyard, etc.). They will have a large selection of boats to offer and may have access to instructors from various sailing organizations. Their websites usually promote a defined schedule and specific lesson dates. As they do have many options, give them a call if you don’t see what exactly works for you. Hopefully they can accommodate your request.
It is possible for you to build your own lesson with charter companies. You find an instructor through any organization, charter the boat of your choice and determine your own itinerary.
Sailing Schools:
A sailing school can vary from one person having one boat to international franchise organizations such as Sunsail. Most sailing schools will be affiliated with a specific organization.
Who/What is Living Sky Sailing School?
We are a Sailing School affiliated with CRYA.
We offer Competent Crew, Day Skipper, Coastal Navigation and can test you for your VHF Operators Certificate.
We offer a mileage building service. These sessions help you to add hours of experience into your logbook. Often, we combine our mileage building crew with open spots on our lesson days. These participants get a refresher on instruction and have crew to practice with.
Our primary goals are to:
• Provide that very first experience of sailing a keelboat.
• Take students from complete novices to being able to apply to charter.
• Teach current and future boat owners the essential skills of sailing.
• Offer sailing time to practice and refresh skills.
• Use our BC boat to bridge sailing in SK to Coastal cruising on the Pacific.
After completing our courses, you ARE eligible to APPLY to charter anywhere. I completed these courses in BC in 2015 and chartered my first boat in 2016. I invited three friends who had never been on a sailboat in their life. Nanaimo yacht charters accepted my application but required us to hire an instructor for our first day. For my second charter, no extra requirements were necessary.
Since then, I have acquired my ICC and chartered a sailboat in Croatia in 2023. It was not mandatory to have my ICC but certainly helped to make my application easier to accept.
Answer to #2: Can I hire you as my skipper in another location?
This is my opinion and we have not done this .. yet!
Likely the best approach would be for the LivingSkySailingSchool instructor to charter the boat and “invite” your crew to join and share the costs.
We continue to investigate offering this service as we have been asked to do this by a number of you. Here is what we are currently looking into. Let us know if you are interested in these locations or others.
Are you interested in sailing in the Caribbean. Jan/Feb of 2025?
Does New Zealand Feb 2025 interest you?
How about Croatia or Turkey in fall 2025 or spring 2026?
FAQ’s
Are courses transferable between organizations?
Most sailing schools want to take you from where you are to where you want to be. At LivingSkySailingSchool, if you have experience and/or previous lessons with different organizations, we will start you where you think is the best fit. After having this conversation with you, we may decide to add an extra day to your lesson as a refresher instead of paying for a full course.
Do I need to start with CanSail dingy lessons?
No. CanSail dingy lessons are a great way to start but not required. These lessons teach you very quickly the basics of sailing skills. Everything happens fast and you often get wet. These lessons cover sail handling skills but do not cover anchoring, docking and crew overboard keelboat skills.
What do I need to show a charter company?
Every student at LivingSkySailingSchool will receive a logbook. Each course completed will be certified with a seal from the instructor. It has room to record all future sailing experiences and will be your primary sailing resume.
They will want to see any certification you have for other courses such as PCOC, VHF, First aid and any certification from other schools.
