ASA School Recommendation Please

[diverdr]

Hello everyone. After making my first post several months ago and spending many hours absorbing the incredible supply of info here I have rethought my approach to the dream of adventuring on a sailboat. I do not plan to circumnavigate or give up my land base. I am thinking of beginning with a couple summers on the upper east US coastline, followed by winter months in the Keys and Bahamas. BUT, I don't want to buy a sailboat and realize my dream in reality wasn't for me so I want to do a weeklong charter that includes ASA training. So far water sailing">Blue Water sailing school seems best. Any info or recomendations would be awesome. Thanks in advance, Dan Oh ya, I am based near Syracuse, NY.

[denverd0n]

I have been to classes and chartered boats from here: Florida Sailing - Florida Sailing School - Florida Sailboat Charter - Team Building, Florida Sailing, Florida Yacht, Bareboat Sailing, Florida Sailing Vacation, Florida, Learn to Sail Florida, Bareboat Charters Florida, Team Building, Sunset Cruises, They are located on Tampa Bay, in downtown St. Petersburg.

They have always been good to deal with, the boats are well kept, and the instructors have always been quite competent. I would not hesitate to take another class from them or charter a boat from them, and feel good about recommending them.

For a minimum of two people they will schedule a class whenever you want. Or you can get into a class that is already scheduled. They will be happy to put together a schedule where you can take ASA 101-104, living aboard the boat, and get it done in a week or so.

[tamicatana]

we took some classes at BWSS, but the instructor (Pete Wodraska) now has his own gig in Panama City:

Reef Runner Sailing School Panama City & Key Largo, FL

Pete and Tish are just wonderful folks, can't recommend them highly enough

[Piglet]

I took classes from these guys in Pensacola Florida. They were awesome to work with. We lived aboard the boat for the duration of the class...

ECY Sailing School Courses

[diverdr]

Thank you very much Piglet, Tamif, and Denver for the recomendations. I will be contacting all three for further info. Reef Runner seems to be about $600 less than the others although I still have to see if that includes staying on the boat. Not that I'm mostly concerned about price however my girlfriend and I will be able to go sooner if less expensive. I will have to compare transportation costs of all three. Thanks again for the very helpful info, Dan

[Canibul]

We took four sets of ASA courses from Fairwinds, on a Leopard 42 in the BVI. We would highly recommend Fairwinds.

(If anyone is interested there are photos and the story of that week at
2 Gringos in the Caribbean: The Busman's Holiday... )

note the blistered fingertips.

[diverdr]

Wow, thanks Canibul. It's appears that much effort was put forth to offer such detail of your trip. While I certainly would prefer a BVI ASA sailing week I'm thinking costs might prohibit it. Syracuse to there is generally 3 different flights each way. This is more my dream than my partners so I will be covering part of her expense as well. It would be great to find a member that would accept a "donation" to crew on their boat. While this would not gain us ASA certification it would allow us to find out if the dream is indeed the dream for us if that makes sense.

[chuckr]

We can only tell you what worked for us --

we went to swflorida yachts - web site swflayachts.com and took our asa sailing classes from capt chris day - we was incredible as he made us work as a team and was a great teacher

we still maintain contact with him and when we cruised thru charlottes harbor last year, stopped and bought him dinner - he is very special in our lives

how good of a job did he do??? well we never had much of a desire than to sail the east coast and bahamas -- we kinda exceeded our expectations - currently sitting in portobelo panama after sailing down the west side of the carib - mexico, belize, guatemala, honduras panama, colombia and back to panama --

forgot one thing - we never had set foot on a sailboat until dec. 2000 - we have kinda come a long way since then thanks to chris

chris gave us a sound foundation and we thank him to this day for it

give them a call and see if you have a real good instuctor teach you how to do it right

just our opinion
chuck patty and svsoulmates
on the hook portobelo panama

[diverdr]

Thank you Chuck and Patty. I will visit his website and check it out for sure.

[Phx]

Any recommendations on the west coast?

Noob here.

I hope to earn my sailing certification this summer to start my wake making future (Looking to do San Diego cause its closest).

A few questions related to obtaining my ASA 101-104:

How long will this take (looking for the amount of days required total, due to the time demands of my job)? Can it be done on weekends (a few three day weekends are fine here and there)? Can it be done over the course of a few months, or is it better to just button down and get it done over several weekends in a row?

I'm looking at Marina Sailing as my principal educator. Are these folks any good? I have a friend who completed this program years ago and have been sailing with him for years (20+) and he swears by them as far as competency goes. Just looking for some other opinions.

As I've said above, I've sailed since my adolescence and have sailed Hobie 16's (learned on it) and Hunter 45's as well ((many trips from Marina Del Rey to Catalina (both Avalon and Two Harbors)). I have the understanding of the basic's and am ready to make the jump up.

My only issue is I'm land locked at the moment and my job is fairly demanding of my time. Hence, the wonderment of time required to complete these courses. I have reached out to my buddy but his memory seems to be fading....

Any and all replies welcome.

Thanks and I'm glad I finally signed up (been a lurker for quite some time).

Cheers!

-Rob