Advanced Courses

Beginner, intermediate or advanced — whatever your skill level, our in-depth boating education courses will boost your knowledge and confidence on the water.

The USPS Advanced level courses, open to members and non-members alike, are a series of in-depth courses covering the general topics of Seamanship, Marine Navigation (Piloting), Advanced Piloting, Offshore Navigation, and Celestial Navigation. Although they may nominally be taken in any order, each course builds upon the previous course. As each course is completed successfully, a member would be entitled to add that grade abbreviation after his or her name (e.g., Jane Doe, AP).

Course Descriptions

Boat Handling - builds your competence and confidence on the water with an in-depth look at the practical boating skills. Formerly called Seamanship.

Marine Navigation - You won’t ever get lost or run aground when you know marine navigation, whether for short day trips or long multi-day cruises. Learn the essentials of safe coastal and inland navigation using basic GPS in conjunction with charts and other marine data. The Marine Navigation course teaches you how to use the GPS along with traditional dead reckoning techniques for planning and laying out safe routes, as well as ensuring that you are on-course while underway.  Marine Navigation should be followed by Advanced Marine Navigation to complete your study of coastal and inland navigation.

Advanced Marine Navigation - Coming soon, the follow on course to Marine Navigation! Do you want to navigate unfamiliar waters in limited visibility or take an extended cruise with confidence? Learn to use manual navigation, radar, chart plotters, AIS, and other electronic tools in a variety of coastal tide, current and wind conditions. Learn course planning, extended cruise navigation, hazard and collision avoidance, and navigational aids.

Advanced Piloting - Advanced Piloting continues to build coastal and inland navigation skill learned in Piloting or Marine Navigation, allowing the student to take on more challenging conditions – unfamiliar waters, limited visibility, and extended cruises. GPS is embraced as a primary navigation tool while adding radar, chart plotters, and other electronic navigation tools. Note that Advanced Piloting will be superseded by Advanced Marine Navigation, above.

Offshore Navigation - Always know your location. Learn the practical aspects of daytime celestial navigation using a sextant and the sun to calculate your position. In Offshore Navigation, you will continue to use GPS but also learn celestial navigation as your backup technique. Because terrestrial landmarks are no longer visible to the offshore navigator, you will learn to use a marine sextant and the sun as your reference point, derive a line of position and develop a running fix. You will also learn to calculate your latitude from a noon sight on the sun.  Offshore Navigation should be followed by Celestial Navigation to complete your study of celestial navigation topics.

Celestial Navigation Celestial Navigation is the companion course to Offshore Navigation to obtain the grade of Navigator (N).  It complements the other navigation courses using the ages-old method of using the altitude of celestial bodies, such as the sun, moon, planets, and stars to navigate at sea.  The student uses a sextant to measure the altitudes of celestial bodies, and with data from the Nautical Almanac, develops lines of position and fixes used in offshore navigation.