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That's it, it's decided, I'm taking my coastal boat licence!
I chose Paris Nautique, a boat training school, one of whose training centres is located in Saint-Cloud, on the banks of the Seine. To register for the licence (not for the training), all you have to do is fill in a registration form, obtain a medical certificate of aptitude and buy the tax stamps required for registration and passing the code, for a total of 108 euros.
To give myself the best possible chance, I decide to follow the "Success" training (595 euros) consisting of two days of full courses (14 hours of theory at least and 2 hours of practice on the 2nd day of the course) e day). Success" training also includes access to an online platform that allows you to review courses, take tests or mock exams.
A little advice, read your code book before the training to know what the trainer is talking about!
Tuesday morning, 9 a.m. - Quai Marcel Dassault in Saint-Cloud - Péniche Paris Nautique
Here we go! Located in the basement of the barge, the examination room accommodates 19 people, including 4 women. Average age: 45 years old. So far, the present population corresponds rather well to the target of boaters. Patrice our trainer - always the right word for joking - explains the course of the day and the generalities of the coastal licence.
Code book by hand, I follow the course and regularly annotate the pages during the explanations. Patrice then explains the code, following the chapters in a different order than the booklet, but quite logical:
- General
- Regulations (6 miles from the coast...)
- Going on the road (running aground, moving forward, with or without wandering...)
- Marking (side markings, isolated danger, clean water, special markings...)
- Entrance to the port (lights...)
- Navigation and beach beacons
- Cardinal buoys
- Boat lights (ship priorities, diving flag, sounds, marker lights...)
- Helm rules (sounds, distress signals...)
- Design category (EC...)
- Wind force and weather
- Navigation and regulation
- Fishing
- VHF (radiotelephony ...)
- Safety (vest, round crown or horseshoe buoy, regulation armament...)
The day is divided into two half-days: from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in the morning and from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. in the afternoon. From 1 to 2 p.m., Patrice and the rest of the team (Sandy at the front desk and Gérald, 2 e trainer, but absent on Tuesdays) suggests that we all go and eat together in a small brewery nearby. Rather nice to be reunited and the opportunity for us to meet each other and to discover each other's motivations for passing the boating licence.
"Basically, I'm a sailor, but I want to switch to the engine. First I pass the coastal license, but then I go on to the offshore license." explains François. " I often wakeboard with a friend, but since he's the only one with a boating license, I'd like to pass mine to relieve him and take over." announces Sophie. "Me, it's so I can rent small boats when I go on holiday in the Arcachon basin" says Joel.
Back in the classroom, the training continues the rest of the afternoon with a practical course and multiple choice questions to test our knowledge. This lunch break allowed us to discover ourselves a little and we are much more relaxed in the afternoon.
Throughout the day, Patrice leads the course with detailed drawings, mnemonics, nautical charts... We can ask our questions without problems and get clear and precise answers. He does everything he can to make us feel comfortable and gives his class in a good and relaxed atmosphere.
After the end of the theoretical training, we collect our candidate's booklets (which will be mandatory to pass his code) and start the practical part:
- Boater Safety
- Boater's must-haves
- Boater's Responsibilities
- Vessel handling
- Ship's maneuvers
Finally, the day ends with a series of 30-question multiple-choice tests to validate our knowledge. And the goal is to make 5 mistakes or less to get your code! There's still work to do! At 6:00 pm, the day ends, everyone greets each other and wishes each other good luck for their code. Out of the 19 present, 6 of us have chosen the " training is really useful and complete, based on good humour and exchange with the trainers and students. While the first day, I made about 11 mistakes, I finish at the end of the day between 0 and 4 mistakes! Proof of the effectiveness of the training! And then you realize that with these two days, we covered almost all the tests and questions asked during the exam.
Now, we'll have to remember nothing before we pass the code in 15 days! Fingers crossed!
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Paris Nautique, a training boat which has 4 branches in the Ile de France (Pantin, Saint-Cloud, Lagny and Bastille) for receiving us in its centre in Saint-Cloud for the coastal licence. In Paris, there are 15,000 boating licenses per year, it is the first French center for passing the boating license. Among these, Paris Nautique passes about 2500 per year: 75% of them are coastal licences, the rest are divided equally between river and deep-sea navigation.
