On-Water Training Guides

USPS courses—from America’s Boating Course to Navigation—and their related boat handling and navigation seminars teach skills that boaters will need to perform as part of pre-cruise planning, on the dock and on the water. They teach how to operate a boat using marine electronics and what to do should electronics and their back-ups fail.

USPS’s approved on-water skill development guides provide a framework for supplementing classroom instruction with skills training. The training involves skill demonstration by one or more approved trainers and supervised practice by students, with appropriate coaching and feedback from the trainer.

Each guide has two parts:

Policy and procedure preliminaries that fully meet the standards of the American National Standard Institute (ANSI) for recreational power boating. These preliminaries were prepared by the Boat Operator Certification – On the Water Training Committee.

Lists of skills that may be taught, each with a reference to the corresponding course chapter used in classroom instruction. The skill lists were prepared by the EdDept Committee responsible for each course.