WATERLINES
In late October, I received an
email from the American Boat &
Yacht Council notifying me that
its Marine Systems Certification
course was being offered here
in Annapolis. Drawing on key
information from 21 of the
65-plus Standards & Technical
Information Reports for Small Craft,
the intent of the course is to
raise the level of awareness of
ABYC standards among marine
professionals and to certify those
who work in the industry as being
proficient in those standards.
The Marine Systems
Certification course targets all
dedicated marine professionals—
marine technicians and surveyors,
yard service managers, USCG
personnel—but doesn’t necessarily
exclude experienced boat owners
with technical or engineering
backgrounds. I wondered how I
might fare in a course with these
kinds of very specific end users in
mind. Certification would require
passing a 200-question exam
with a three-hour time limit
on the final day of the course.
The cost was steep: $1, 130 for
nonmembers; $885 for members.
Only weeks earlier, I had read
Steve D’Antonio’s response to a
letter to the editor sent by John
and Paulette Lee of Little Silver,
New Jersey, (see PMM Dec. ’08)
explaining the mission and
function of ABYC and its
members. As you may know,
PMM is not only an ABYC
member, but it also strives to
support those builders, yards, and
technicians that adhere to ABYC’s
ABYC Certified
voluntary standards to promote
safe boating. The opportunity
was too good, and the field of
instruction too important, for me
to pass on the offer. I picked up
the phone and enrolled in the
course, not knowing whether
the experience I was about to
plunge into headlong would
have relevance for me as a
potential trawler owner.
When the 13-chapter study
guide arrived, I found my answer
in the introduction penned by
Ed Sherman, the curriculum
designer for ABYC.
“As with all of the ABYC
certifications, the knowledge
base is a blend of both Standards
content and experiential content,”
Sherman wrote. “This is not about
memorizing Standards, but rather
knowing when to look at them
and how to find the information
you need to ensure compliance,
and understanding why the
Standards exist in the first place.”
I’ve been involved in
recreational boating for more
than 30 years, both as a marine
journalist and as an enthusiastic
boat owner/operator. I’ve had
the opportunity to crawl in and
out of diverse new and pre-owned
vessels. In short, I thought I had a
shot at certification.
What an experience it was.
Class size was limited to eight
students, and those taking the
course had diverse backgrounds:
there were surveyors, technicians,
Brazilian boatbuilders, boat
brokers, and a marine trades
instructor. Every day, we carefully
followed the commentary of
our teacher, Mickey Smith, an
electrical engineer by training and
a well-rounded practitioner of the
boatbuilding arts. Even though he
had only three days to cover over
150 pages of the study guide, he
was able to field specific questions
from our wide-ranging group and
point us in the right direction
as we learned to search the
Standards for answers.
The exam was a killer,
consisting of multiple-choice
questions that ranged from the
seemingly obvious (those that you
learned to answer very carefully)
to the utterly obtuse (those with
answers that looked like they
were all true, but without an “all
of the above” choice). And even
though we had access to our
study guides and the Standards
publication, there was precious
little time to dither. Two hundred
questions to answer in 180
minutes was an unforgiving ratio.
When the certification arrived
on my desk, I was delighted with
my accomplishment. But more to
the point, I now look at trawlers
and their systems in a new—and
more critical—light.
Would I recommend the course
to boat owners? Maybe. It is a
deep immersion experience, and it
relies on your experience in the
field as well as your commitment
to learn a lot about a wide range
of topics in just a few short days.
To see if an ABYC certification
course might be right for you,
check out abycinc.org.
John Wooldridge
Editor-In-Chief
