Fraser Squadron

Seamanship

This 12 week advanced course expands on the knowledge gained in the Boating course. It increases the students understanding of navigational procedures and chart interpretation, as well as the ability to handle the boat in adverse conditions or emergency situations.

Course topics include:

• Hull forms, performance, buoyancy and stability
• Weather, wind, and waves
• Adverse conditions, and emergency situations
• Introduction to the effects of current and leeway
• Running fixes and aids to navigation

This course is subject to minimum enrollment.
Pre-registration is required.

Advanced Piloting

This course follows on from Piloting, and enables the boater to travel with confidence, precision, and maximum safety. It expands the boater's knowledge of wind, tides, and currents, and the allowance to be made for their effect. We will show you how to follow a course requiring the minimum of correction. AP provides techniques in plotting which allow the boater to determine his position at any time in coastal waters.

Course topics include:

• Charts, and the compass
• Tides, tidal currents, interpolation
• Effects of currents and leeway
• Piloting, steering, and timing a course
• Determining position, running fixes, standing clear of danger
• Aids to navigation, electronic aids to navigation
• Introduction to the sextant. (sextant not required)

This course is subject to minimum enrollment.
Pre-registration is required.

Celestial Navigation

This new course (2000) combines and replaces Junior Navigator and Navigator. Successful students will gain 'N' status. The course provides the student with the fundamental knowledge and practical skills of celestial navigation.

Emphasis is on 'how' to navigate, and students with basic math and calculator skills will have little difficulty. Items to be ordered separately include Bowditch, current Nautical Almanac, USPS star finder. Student will require scientific hand-held calculator with trigonometric capability, and access to a sextant.

Finding Your Way with GPS

The GPS seminar for the outdoors enthusiast, back packer, canoer and kayaker. The aim of this book is not to provide an exhaustive course on all of the intricate details and operation of the versatile Global Positioning System. Rather, it will help the new user of the hand-held GPS receiver. In it you will find the information and explanations that are usually missing from the operators’ manuals and brochures of the market place.

Navigating with GPS

This seminar will introduce you to the versatile Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers. With this course you will learn simple explanations of the system which makes GPS such an effective navigational aid, and methods of extracting the maximum navigational information from your equipment.

Improved position information, course planning and real time speed/direction data improves your boating safety and cruise enjoyment but reduces transit time and fuel consumption.

Electronc Charting

This five week course is the second in a series dealing with electronic navigation.

Course topics include:

• The Challenge of Navigation
• The Global Positioning System
• The Electronic Chart
• Navigating with an Electronic Chart
• Electronic Charting on a Computer
• Enhanced Chart Plotters
• Equipment Selection and Installation

RADAR for Pleasure Craft

This course covers the different types of RADAR equipment, including their capabilities and limitations. Understand the available features and how they apply to your needs. Learn to navigate using RADAR, and to determine where you are.

Depth Sounder

This mini-course will introduce the recreational boater to the various types of echolocation devices that are common on smaller recreational vessels. They are at once a safety device, a navigational guide, a method of determining the makeup of the bottom, and a view of fish and plant life.

VHF Maritime Radio

This 3 evening course will lead to your Restricted Operator's Certificate (Maritime), ROC(M), which is the license required for operation of the VHF radio on your boat. The exam occurs on the last evening, and a license is awarded to successful students by the CPS examiner.

Course topics include:

• Procedures, and the phonetic alphabet
• Distress, Urgency, and Safety communications
• Distress simulation
• DSC and GMDSS seminar

This course is subject to minimum enrolment.
Pre-registration is required.

Digital Selective Calling (VHF Update)

This seminar for holders of Restricted Operator Certificate (Maritime) issued before January 1st 2005.

Learn about the new Digital communication channels on new Maritime radios and their use in an emergency situation. Digital Selective Calling could save your life in an emergency situation.

Distress Signalling

Do you know what mandatory distress signals are required for your boat? Do you know how to use them?

Can you signal a distress situation in all conditions, day and night? The Distress Signaling Manual with DVD will train your family on the use of flares as well as alternative non-pyrotechnic signals. Don’t wait until an emergency occurs. Train in Distress Signaling today!

Fundamentals of Weather

This eight week course enables a Skipper to anticipate adverse forecasts, by gathering pertinent information and interpreting weather signs. The course offered by Fraser is slanted towards west-coast weather where applicable. This course is new for 2001 and replaces the previous Weather course.

Global Weather

Global Weather expands on concepts introduced in the Fundamentals of Weather. In this course you will study topics like El Niño, summer monsoons, or lake effect snows. Work with measurements such as air pressure, temperature, dew point and wind direction/speed to sharpen your forecasting skills.

Appreciate the inner workings of tropical cyclones (hurricanes) and chinooks. Develop skills in offshore sailing and advance planning including the use of weather services and interpreting data.

Extended Cruising

To roam upon the seas has long been a dream of many adventurous sailors. In today’s fast paced life, the sea remains one of the few places where one can explore our planet while making a personal journey as well.

To make port successfully after a long sea voyage using your own boat and skills is a great accomplishment, especially as offshore sailors must be able to fill the roles of helmsperson, navigator, plumber, meteorologist, shipwright, radio operator, cook, doctor, sailmaker, mechanic and diplomat.

The Extended Cruising course helps establish the skills required for you to seek distant shores.

Seamanship Sail

The Seamanship Sail Course provides the knowledge required to operate a sailboat safely. Building upon the skills gained in Seamanship, this course will acquaint the beginner sailor with day-sailing in protected waters, and allow experienced sailors to sharpen their skills.

Emphasis is placed on how a sailboat works and the special terminology associated with sailboats and sailing, as well as practical seamanship. While there is no chart work or navigation, the particular problems of piloting under sail, and making progress to windward are discussed.

Marine Maintainance

The full enjoyment of boating includes both the pleasure of using the boat and the satisfaction of properly maintaining it. To many boaters, working on their boat is part of the fun, to say nothing of the savings in costs.

All boats need maintenance to correct for the gradual deterioration from wear and tear, let alone exposure to the elements. A boater should be constantly on the alert for signs of vessel degradation, and make repairs while the problem is minor.

From spark plugs to bottom paint, the Marine Maintenance course covers all the basics for DIY boaters.

Marine Electronics

This is for the boater who wishes to take advantage of modern devices for navigation and safety afloat.

The course covers electrical power systems for boats, wiring, galvanic corrosion, stray current corrosion, radio signal propogation, depth sounders, Radar, Loran C, GPS, fuel vapour detectors, fluxgate compasses, autopilots and other instrumentation.

The development of new equipment and technologies in Marine Electronics is occurring at a rapid pace. The effect of this is being felt by more and more recreational boaters as price and size reductions make it available to even the smallest boats. The course begins with a review of basic electrical theory. An understanding of Ohm's Law and the principles of induction and capacitance will greatly facilitate the comprehension of wiring systems, trouble shooting, and other course material.

This is not an advanced course. Only sufficient technical details are taught to enable the student to understand the general operating principles of the various electronic devices found on recreational vessels. A graduate of this course will be better equipped to choose equipment, in most cases to install it, and in many cases, undertake preventative and corrective maintenance.

This course is subject to minimum enrolment.
Pre-registration is required.

Pleasure Craft Operator Certificate (PCOC)

Fraser Squadron offers self-study materials and administers challenge examinations for PCOC (Operator's Card). The course material is designed for self study at the student's own pace.

Course topics include:

• Boat types, and trailering
• Government regulations and mandatory equipment requirements
• Safety awareness and rules of the road