Bareboat Charter Master Course

Multi-day Sailing | Near Coastal Passagemaking | Bareboat Charter Master Certification | International Licensing

  • Sunrise at Bahia Agua Verde, Sea of Cortez

  • Avalon, on Santa Catalina Island

    Avalon, on Santa Catalina Island
  • The beach bar at Petite St. Vincent, The Grenadines

  • Culebrita, Spanish Virgin Islands

Why Bareboat Charter Master?

For many sailors, the prime motivation for pursuing sailing is to take a sailing vacation in an exotic location – Tonga, the Seychelles, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, just to name a few.  With the Bareboat Charter Master Course and Certification, you’ll gain the confidence, competence, and the credentials to do just that.

You’ll benefit greatly from the training and experience of near coastal passage making as well as multi-day sailing. Both require comprehensive knowledge and skills to become competent – you’ll get that in our Bareboat Course, hands-on and online.

This 4-7 day course trains you how to become a competent Bareboat skipper with near coastal passage making, multi-day trips, and on large keelboats 30 to 45 feet. You’ll learn how to skipper on a bareboat charter, which includes coastal and electronic navigation, anchoring, mooring, and more advanced sailing and boat management skills.

Become a Bareboat Charter Master  –

A Bareboat Charter Master is an individual who possesses comprehensive knowledge and competence in sailing. This training and certification enables you to confidently lead your friends and family on sailing vacations along coastal waters for multiple days. Becoming a Bareboat Charter Master requires a combination of practical experience, comprehensive online coursework, on-the-water training, and a demonstration of your sailing skills.

At Santana Sailing, our Bareboat courses cover all the essential aspects of multiday sailing. You will learn navigation rules, buoy systems, various sailing techniques, effective boat management and systems, boat handling skills, coastal navigation, electronic navigation methods, and much more. Our sailing school offers a charter-ready program designed to immerse you in practical on-the-water education. Additionally, you will have access to six in-depth multimedia knowledge courses available online.

By completing the Bareboat Charter Master certification program with Santana Sailing, you will develop the necessary skills and knowledge to confidently navigate and manage a sailboat during extended trips. Our comprehensive training will prepare you for the challenges and responsibilities that come with leading a crew on a bareboat charter vacation.

About Bareboat Charter Master

Practical On-the-Water Training:

Course Options:

Online Coursework:

This course is all about multi-day voyages, the kind you’ll want to do on your own. You’ll learn passage planning and provisioning, navigation, anchoring and mooring, and how to handle systems and maneuvers under sail and power, on a large sailboat, on multi-day voyages.

  • Intermediate to advanced sailing skills
  • Intermediate to advanced maneuvering skills
  • Weather and Sea Conditions
  • Bareboat preparation and provisioning
  • Charter processes and tips
  • Vessel management
  • Dinghy tips
  • Boat troubleshooting
  • Managing your crew
  • Quick fixes for an engine
  • How to manage the energy on your boat
  • The Charts and how to use navigation tools
  • Dead reckoning, running fixes and triangulation
  • Tides including apps and online digital data
  • Rate and Direction from wind, tides and current
  • Techniques for Setting the Anchor
  • Anchorage Selection: Charts & Guides, Picking Your Spot, Swing Radius

This practical on-the-water course utilizes NauticEd’s online Bareboat Charter Master course bundle ( includes 6 courses) sold separately. Additionally, you can also take the included free Navigation Rules and Basic Sail Trim courses (highly recommended). Learning the theory and knowledge online integrates perfectly with our practical on-the-water instruction – letting you learn the knowledge-theory at your own pace, improved retention, and online testing (that you can retake as many times as needed). Overall, this maximizes the amount of time available on-the-water training (and fun).

Certification

Upon successfully passing the online knowledge testing and practical training assessment, and logging appropriate experience, you’ll earn the NauticEd Bareboat Charter Master Rank certification with a Near Coastal Endorsement. Learn more about how the BBCM certification.

Optional International License: Upgrade your training to the SLC (International Sailing License and Credentials), accepted by Port Authorities worldwide. The SLC is especially needed when chartering in the Mediterranean and is accepted in lieu of the ICC (International Certificate of Competence).

Assessment: Knowledge and theory competence are assessed online, whereas instructors assess skills and on-the-water competency continually during training or separately and according to a rubric to meet standards. View the Bareboat Charter Master rubrics >

Schedule & Registration

View Bareboat Options below for more schedule and pricing information.
Please contact us for scheduling, Pricing, and Registration.

Contact us to register: please submit the following form and we’ll contact you to discuss pertinent details, and we’ll certainly answer any questions you may have! Alternatively, please feel welcome to contact us at marc@santanasailing.com or 949-939-8123.

Course Registration Form
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Training You Can Trust

Our Commitment to Your Sailing Competence: We really want you to have the skills - we know that you do too.  So when you continue training with us through Skipper Large Keelboat level, you will be ready to charter a boat on your own or we’ll invite you back for more training, free of charge. That’s our commitment.

See all the details at Commitment To Sailing Competence. Limitations apply.

American National Standard - Sail

Our training methodology meets the U.S. Coast Guard's prescribed On-Water Recreational Boating Skills Standard – SAIL, the newly released 2017 American National Standard for on-water instruction in entry-level recreational sailboat operation.

 

Professional Sailing Instruction

Santana Sailing's instructors are extraordinarily well-qualified: experienced, mature, trained to American National and International Standards, and assessed to the highest standards and expectations in recreational sailing.

Trust through verification: please feel welcome to read Santana Sailing's student reviews ›

NauticEd - 21st Century Sailing Education

NauticEd Flagship School

Santana Sailing offers fully-accredited NauticEd Training and Certification. NauticEd is the international leader in sailing education and certification, which affords our students the best educational resources and certification in the United States as well as abroad when sailing internationally.

Which course is right for you?

Santana Sailing's instruction focuses on goal-based competence -  aligning our instruction with your sailing goals and experience. We do NOT offer "zero-to-hero" or require unneeded courses like many other schools. Instead, Santana Sailing's courses are designed to train competent sailors, based on their prior experience, to the highest training standards in the U.S. And the approach works well - read our student reviews >

You can start with any course below based on your goals and if you have the experience or prior training for that course. Select a course below for more information, and certainly contact us with questions or to discuss which course is best for you.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Prerequisite: NauticEd Skipper Rank, or ASA 103, US Sailing Basic Cruising Certification, or equivalent experience. Please contact us to discuss your level of experience prior to registering for this course.

  1. Complete the NauticEd Bareboat Charter Master bundle of online courses.

  2. Join one of our Sail Training Adventures to complete the training and assessment for the BBCM rank. See this link,  BBCM Rubrics, to see exactly what the training and assessment covers. If you have experience and can execute the skills in the rubrics, get your practical competency verified with a one-day assessment – contact us for details.

  3. Log 50 days sailing in the free online sailing logbook, and you’ll receive the Bareboat Charter Master Rank Level III, accepted by Dream Yacht Charter, The Moorings, Sunsail, and charter companies around the world.

ASA schools have a list of skills they train you on, and you’ll get what amounts to a certificate of attendance. ASA 103 is usually conducted in three days, totaling about 32 hours of training in total. Additionally, critical near coastal and multi-day sailing topics such as Coastal and Electronic Navigation are barely covered by ASA 103 or US Sailing Bareboat.  In fact, Coastal Navigation is a separate ASA course that’s not included in their 103 / Bareboat training (which we find absurd – navigation is an essential part of sailing).

At Santana Sailing, we train for a minimal 4-days and 7-days cruises. The online knowledge courses includes a full suite of Bareboat related courses, including Coastal Navigation, Electronic Navigation, and Anchoring/Mooring – all of which are practiced on the cruise. More importantly, we train you to become competent in all of these required skills.

We think you really want a certification of competence, not one of attendance. When you train with us you’ll be ready to charter your own sailboat. See our Commitment To Sailing Competence.