For those of you who are negative about formal courses that provide certification, would you advocate that teenagers teach themselves to drive, individuals teach themselves to fly, scuba dive, etc? Of course not; and, sailing is no different. There are too many on the water who have taught themselves to sail, power boat, jet ski, etc who don’t have a clue about rules of the road, boating courtesy, and how to handle a boat proficiently. Boating Education including theory & practical on water experiences make for smarter and more competent boaters. Those individuals who have the desire & inspiration to expand their knowledge and experience over a lifetime are the ones who become real mariners.
So, you haven't driven around Boston lately, have you? I don't think any one there took a Driver's Ed course or bothered with learning the rules of the road. Turn signals? Totally optional. Speed limits? Just guidelines to ignore.
Seriously though, learning to sail from a book or on one's own could be an extremely frustrating process. Whether the instruction comes from a friend or from a sailing school matters less than getting off on the right tack.
My main objection to the Certification courses stems not from an objection to formal coursework, rather it is the marketing hype that goes along with the programs. The word
certified implies meeting some accepted standard established by a third party. The USDA has established standards for Certified Organic foods, state education departments establish certification standards for teachers and other educational professions, boating safety courses required by states must meet certain standards established by the state.
So, what does an ASA 101 certification mean? Let's look at their website:
Earning an ASA certification will become one of your prized accomplishments. Not only does it evidence your new sailing ability to the world, it gives you the confidence to maximize your experience. Visit an ASA school to learn more about how a friendly professional ASA certified instructor can help you accomplish your dreams.
The first 2 sentences are just puffery, basically it says you get nothing in return for your hard earned money, except a certificate to hang on an ego wall. The last sentence is telling, essentially it says give us your money to get a certification that we developed and is taught by people we certified, who paid us money to get certified to get a job taking your money to earn a certification that we developed based on the standards we developed to sell you a piece of paper. ASA sets the standards for itself and profits from selling a piece of paper that is meaningful only because ASA says it is meaningful. That is a scam.
Contrast the ASA business model with US Sailing's certification model. US Sailing sets standards for different courses and levels and sell related instructional materials, however, most if not all US Sailing instructional programs are run by yacht clubs and other local organizations. US Sailing derives no profit from teaching sailing and handing out self-certified certificates. US Sailing provides a third party certification program for schools run by other organizations, while they set the standards, US Sailing does not directly profit from setting those standards.
I've already been accused of getting on a soapbox, so I should probably step down off the soapbox I"m on now.
If you are a person who learns best in classroom or under the tutelage of an instructor, then find a good instructor or take a class from an organization where profit is not the motive. Local sailing clubs and organizations like the Power Squadron and USCG Auxiliary offer courses. Or take a course that leads to a meaningful certificate from an independent third party from an honest for profit business, like NauticEd or the the Colgate Schools. At its core ASA is a self-dealing profit making business selling misleading pieces of paper.