America’s Boating Course – ABC – The Squadron offers this course each year on three dates. The next class is February 29, 2020, with an optional free on-the-water teaching cruise in partnership with Wilmington Water Tours on March 1. This course is designed for the first time mariner and is especially useful for couples. Many RB folks have taken the course and found it a great aide to their boating knowledge. Graduates receive their certified boater card from the Coast Guard.
The on-the-water cruise is a two hour review of course material on the Cape Fear River. The teaching cruise ventures down the Cape Fear River into the Intracoastal Waterway and back where dolphins and freighters are often spotted. The cruise enhances topics covered in class and adds discussions on chart reading, tides, currents, and weather. For more information and to enroll go to www.weteachboating.org.
The Cape Fear Weather Class Has Been Scheduled for 2020! – Taught by Rick Sorrenti who has provided us with NOAA weather briefings during Florence and Dorian. The course focuses on the particular weather patterns in our region.
Even the most experienced Captain will tell you that boating is always dependent on the weather. This course provides a basic understanding of atmospheric stability; forming the foundation of how weather systems build, move and interact with one another. You will learn how and why weather patterns circulate on earth, the effects of the atmosphere, oceans, air and land masses, wind pressure, ocean currents, jet stream, water, humidity, fog, clouds, and precipitation. The level of information about our earth’s weather is guaranteed to give you a new-found appreciation and understanding of how daily weather can help or hinder your boating experience. You will get hands on training on how to predict anticipated weather along with insights into automated tools that every boater or weather enthusiast will find extremely useful. This course will benefit the most seasoned mariner as well as those to who never intend to venture out into the water but admire what “Mother Nature” can produce.
Each student will receive:
- United States Power Squadrons® Weather Textbook – an explanatory text with full color photographs and drawings covering weather in the United States and its coastal and inland waters
- Set of 3 millibar charts – to introduce weather forecasting and weather station symbology
- NOAA’s Sky Watcher Chart – a reference identifying all of the cloud types – which serves as one tool to help identify approaching weather
- A personal tour of the NOAA facility at ILM
Schedule: 4/29, 5/6, 5/13, 5/20, 5/27, 6/3, 6/10, 6/17, 6:30pm – 8:30pm
Cost: $65 members (additional family members living in the same household can share the textbook for an additional $10)
$90 non-members (additional family members living in the same household can share the textbook for an additional $25)
Cape Fear Community College, Union Station Building – free campus parking.
I would love to see my friends at these top quality programs. Questions? Send me a text at 480-363-0776
All the best,
OJW
Otis J White
Commander, Cape Fear Sail & Power Squadron