As usual the thread has become seriously side tracked from the original question on a Captains hourly rate. So let me side track it a bit more. For 3 years I taught the Coast Guard Auxiliary Seamanship and
Navigation Course at Orange Coast College in Southern
California. This was a 14 week course and to receive a certificate of completion, I required an on the
water exercise that took the students to
Catalina Island and back for a weekend. When I took my Captains test I spent four days in a classroom studying the questions until I felt I knew them all and then took the multiple choice test and the charting problem. The system may not be the best, but it is what it is. The true test is not how someone acquires the
License, but what their actual skills and abilities are.
Research and
references will help determine who should be responsible for your
boat and not a certificate. The good, experienced Captains should be paid accordingly. For all the others that will
work cheap, you get what you pay for. Chuck