Plainly put, the charter companies want to see a resume of
current rentals from other companies that they know of or can check out. Having a 18 year old certificate from a foreign country means nothing to them. And why should it, you could have purchased it without benefit of any
training (not that you did, but others can) or even printed it yourself on a home computer.
- - The rental companies know about the major
USA sailboat training companies like US Sail and
ASA and others. That along with a resume of other rentals is what they want to see. And even then they will be evaluating you during the "check-out" of the boat. If the charter company employee thinks or feels that you really don't know what you are doing they will require you to take a hired local
captain (at your expense) with you. Sailboats are not
cheap and they want to be reasonably assured you will bring it back in one piece.
- - Building a resume can be tough as you have to start somewhere with zero or little experience. Usually you can take "courses" from the combination sailing schools/rental outfits. This gets you the
privilege of
renting their boats. Then one builds on that with another charter outfit that knows your
school. Slowly you build up a
record of successful charters from several outfits and from then on it is easy.