SVN solovelanet

29 So if a stranger showed up with extensive documen- tation as listed above you'd feel more comfortable – right? As do yacht charter companies. Sailing Certifications What if someone showed up having completed a 7 or 10 day "Zero to Hero" program by some school with a paper certification and a shiny sticker? What would you think? Dubious? Sure! But don't get us wrong, we're not knocking these zero to hero programs. To the contrary, all education is good education. But is - suing a shiny sticker of competence when all the ex- perience a person has had is 10 days as a crew mem- ber with some helm time all supervised is not yacht charter ready competence. To prove the point, Nau- ticEd are charter agents also, one time we had a po- tential charter client who had done one of these week- long training programs through a school that was also a yacht charter company down in the Caribbean. The charter client contacted us a year after their training about wanting to skipper a boat with the same yacht charter company. They declined his request citing that he did not have enough experience, yet the same charter company/school had issued him a bareboat certification with a shiny sticker to boot. What happened in that situation above? How is that possible? The reality is that certifications do not stand on their own as proof of competence. The pro - blem is that there is a dichotomy in the marketing and sales messaging that has been sent to the stu- dents by the schools and what the charter company is expecting in terms of competence. Yacht Charter companies have therefore learned the "hard-way" to not trust sailing certifications. The hard-way is damage to yachts, higher insuran - ce rates, lost charters due to the boat being out of action for the next client, and not to mention how the next client is severely disappointed because the boat they chartered is now not available. Thus, yacht charter companies only accept a sailing resume and every resume is reviewed for adequate experience. Sailing certifications do serve a purpose however. They are indicative that the student or charter client has done some sort of formal training. It acts to strengthen the sailing resume. Sailing License A sailing license is a different ani- mal. Much like a car license, it is a NauticEd owns the world's largest onlinesai- ling education platform

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