One of the main goals of the New London Power Squadron is boating safety through education. We believe that an educated boater is a safer boater. In addition to its public education program, we teach a series of outstanding members-only courses that cover advanced seamanship, navigational techniques, and boat handling, maintenance, and enhancement topics.
Five Advanced Grade courses are offered by USPS. They are designed to be taken in sequence because each builds on skills taught in the previous course.
Seamanship covers basic deck seamanship, marlinspike (knots and ropes), anchoring and rafting, basic boat care and maintenance, and nautical and USPS customs and etiquette.
Piloting is the first and most basic navigation course, covering chart reading, course plotting, and basic coastal or inland navigation, including basic GPS usage. This course goes into more detail than the charting information covered in the public courses.
Advanced Piloting covers more advanced coastal navigation techniques, navigation in tides and currents, and more advanced GPS usage.
Junior Navigation teaches the basics of offshore navigation, including basic celestial navigation using the sun and offshore course planning.
Navigation is the most advanced navigation course taught by USPS, covering more advanced celestial navigation techniques, emergency navigation, and additional sight reduction techniques.
