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500 Sails, Adam’s Marine Seminars offer OUPV captain’s license class
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Posted on Jan 17 2023
500 Sails’ Culture of Maritime Training Center director Marjorie Daria and Chris Adams of Adams’ Marine Seminars pose for Saipan Tribune inside the 500 Sails classroom in Lower Base. (CHRYSTAL MARINO)
Helping aspiring mariners take the first step toward obtaining their own captain’s license, 500 Sails has teamed up with the U.S.-based Adams’ Marine Seminars to provide what’s called OUPV captain’s license classes that will allow students to earn their license to be able to captain a boat that’s up to six passengers.
The first seminar, held yesterday at the 500 Sails boatyard in Lower Base, Puerto Rico on Saipan, filled the 24-seat regulation of the U.S. Coast Guard, with individuals of various ages attending the class, and even had several names on a waiting list, showing the demand for such a class.
Chris Adams of Adams’ Marine Seminars leads the course, which began yesterday and continues daily from 8am to around 4pm. The classes will cover topics such as learning navigation rules, charting plotting, steering based on compass guidance, international and inland rules for boating vessels.
The course duration lasts eight days for the six-packs captain’s license, and then the upgrade sessions require an additional three days and there are tests for each course. The classes are under 500 Sails’ Culture of Maritime Training Center, one of the two sub-divisions under 500 Sails that focuses on ways to help train individuals interested in maritime.
500 Sails’ Marjorie Daria, director of the organization’s Culture of Maritime Training Center, said the OUPV track, or Operator of Uninspected Passenger Vessel, is more popularly known as a six-pack captain’s license that allows students to earn their license to be able to captain a boat that’s up to six passengers, excluding their crew. …This will allow them to operate their own dive boat, take tourists out on the water, work on getting their merchant mariner’s credential, which is what the license will help them accomplish, so they can work on ships out there.”
