wrote in message
oups.com...
Is there any boating courses out there that a person can take to teach
you
how to manuever a boat ?

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No. You will need to rely on private instruction, aboard the boat you
plan to operate. One challenge is that each make and model of boat will
handle at least slightly differently, down to an including facts like
Brand X as built at the factory will handle differently than Brand X
with an additional 150 sq ft of optional canvas catching a cross wind.
Books and videos teach the general theory of docking on a perfectly
calm day with plenty of space available, but some boats behave very
differently from the examples the books and videos use, it is seldom a
perfectly calm day, and count on being required to side tie your
40-footer in a 50-foot gap along the face of the float more often than
not.

You can't simply hire the dock boy or some other marina worker to show
you the ropes. In fact, if you hire anybody, they need to be a licensed
master.

Wrong. I hired one of the marina owners to teach my wife to dock and
maneuver our 32 footer....I did not have the patience.

And who would ever think of hiring the dock boy Chuck?