Top 12 Sailing Instructor Skills to Put on Your Resume

In the competitive world of sailing instruction, the mix of skills you spotlight on a resume matters. Technical mastery. Judgment under pressure. Calm communication when the wind pipes up and the tide turns sly. Show them both the know-how and the people work—together they paint the picture of a safe, effective, memorable instructor.

Sailing Instructor Skills

1. Knot-Tying
2. Navigation
3. Weather Forecasting
4. First Aid
5. CPR Certification
6. VHF Radio
7. Sail Trim
8. Man Overboard Recovery
9. Emergency Procedures
10. ISAF Rules
11. Rigging
12. Keelboat Handling

1. Knot-Tying

Knot-tying is the craft of forming reliable, repeatable knots for sail control, docking, anchoring, towing, and emergencies. The right knot in the right moment keeps sails drawing, lines tidy, and boats—and people—secure.

Why It's Important

Knot proficiency underpins safety and efficiency. Instructors who tie quickly and cleanly can rig faster, fix problems mid-lesson, and teach students confidence through muscle memory and method.

How to Improve Knot-Tying Skills

1. Master the essentials: bowline, clove hitch, round turn and two half hitches, sheet bend, figure-eight, cleat hitch, rolling hitch. Aim for speed and correctness without peeking.

2. Practice everywhere: keep a short length of line handy. Close your eyes. Tie by feel. Swap ends and repeat.

3. Teach with oversized rope and contrasting colors so students see turns, bights, and tails clearly.

4. Use drills and timed challenges. Make it a warm-up every session. Repetition cements recall under stress.

5. Quality control: knots should be snug, dressed, and oriented correctly. Tug-test every critical knot.

6. Expand your set: slip knots for quick release, stopper variations, and lashings for odd jobs aboard.

How to Display Knot-Tying Skills on Your Resume

2. Navigation

Navigation is the art and science of getting from A to B safely—combining chart work, position fixing, pilotage cues, tides, and electronics to plan and execute a passage.

Why It's Important

Good navigation keeps boats out of trouble, schedules intact, and students learning—not worrying. It’s the quiet backbone of every smooth day afloat.

How to Improve Navigation Skills

1. Back to basics: read paper charts, use a compass properly, calculate set and drift, and work tidal heights and streams by hand.

2. Blend tools: run GPS and plotters alongside traditional methods. Verify electronic positions with visual bearings, transits, and depth contours.

3. Celestial as backup: sights with a sextant sharpen thinking and provide redundancy offshore.

4. Pilotage practice: build pilotage plans with waypoints, clearing bearings, leads, buoy IDs, and abort options. Execute at slow speed first.

5. Stay current: review Notices to Mariners, local notices, and updated charts before every season.

6. Debrief every passage: what matched the plan, what didn’t, and why. Adjust your playbook.

How to Display Navigation Skills on Your Resume

3. Weather Forecasting

Weather forecasting means interpreting models and observations—synoptic charts, GRIBs, radar, satellite imagery, and local signs—to decide when to go, where to aim, and when to call it.

Why It's Important

Weather calls shape safety, learning, and morale. Choosing the right window and adapting on the fly prevents close calls and keeps students focused on skills, not survival.

How to Improve Weather Forecasting Skills

1. Work multiple sources: compare official marine forecasts, model outputs, and actual observations at buoys and harbors. Look for consensus and outliers.

2. Learn local patterns: sea breezes, funneling in channels, katabatic flows, thermal shifts, and how terrain bends wind and builds chop.

3. Read the sky: fronts, squall lines, gust fronts, cloud types, and pressure trends. Barometer plus horizon tells a story.

4. Use onboard data: wind trends, wave period, and temperature changes. Calibrate instruments; trust but verify.

5. Brief decisively: what’s expected, what’s plan B, and the hard stops for heading in early.

How to Display Weather Forecasting Skills on Your Resume

4. First Aid

First aid is immediate care for injury or illness until advanced help arrives. On the water that includes drowning response, hypothermia, heat stress, bleeding control, fractures, allergic reactions, and wound care—often with limited resources.

Why It's Important

When distance and time stretch, the first five minutes matter most. Competent first aid can steady a situation, prevent deterioration, and save a life.

How to Improve First Aid Skills

1. Keep certifications current: first aid and CPR/AED refresher every two years, aligned with the latest consensus guidelines.

2. Train for marine contexts: immersion hypothermia, near-drowning, prop injuries, and spinal precautions on a moving platform.

3. Run scenarios: short, frequent drills with your team—Mayday to handoff—build calm habits.

4. Stock smart: tailor a boat-specific kit (bleeding control, rehydration, burns, seasickness, splints) and audit it monthly.

5. Document and debrief: incident notes, what went right, what to change. Small improvements add up.

How to Display First Aid Skills on Your Resume

5. CPR Certification

CPR certification confirms you’re trained to recognize cardiac arrest, deliver effective compressions and ventilations, and deploy an AED—skills that bridge the gap until emergency services take over.

Why It's Important

Cardiac events don’t wait for shore. Rapid, high-quality CPR aboard can double or triple survival odds when minutes matter.

How to Improve CPR Certification Skills

1. Choose water-aware courses: CPR with AED plus first aid that addresses aquatic environments and extraction challenges.

2. Refresh often: guidelines evolve and muscle memory fades. Short, regular practice keeps compressions deep and consistent.

3. Team choreography: assign roles—compressor, airway, AED, communicator—and practice swaps to avoid fatigue.

4. Integrate with boat reality: limited space, engine noise, deck motion, and safe AED use on wet surfaces.

5. Record readiness: AED pads in date, batteries charged, spare kits aboard, and everyone knows the grab location.

How to Display CPR Certification Skills on Your Resume

6. VHF Radio

Marine VHF is the primary short-range maritime communication system, operating mainly between 156 and 174 MHz. It’s the voice of safety, coordination, and information on the water.

Why It's Important

From routine traffic to urgent distress calls, VHF connects you to other vessels and shore stations. Clarity and speed on the right channel change outcomes.

How to Improve VHF Radio Skills

1. Optimize the antenna: mount high, keep connections clean and dry, and inspect coax for damage. Height equals range.

2. Maintain the set: test transmission and reception before departure. For handhelds, carry a charged spare battery and a waterproof bag.

3. Know the calls: format for Pan-Pan, Sécurité, and Mayday; channel use in your area; phonetic alphabet; and brevity that still informs.

4. Enable DSC: program your MMSI, connect GPS for position in distress, and practice test calls where permitted.

5. Rehearse: short radio drills with students—hail, handoff, and silence discipline—reduce air-time chaos.

How to Display VHF Radio Skills on Your Resume

7. Sail Trim

Sail trim is the continuous act of shaping and angling sails to the wind for balance, speed, and control—mainsail, headsail, spinnakers all playing their part.

Why It's Important

Trim turns a sluggish boat lively and a lively boat tame. It teaches cause and effect—tiny adjustments, big changes—and keeps crew engaged with the wind.

How to Improve Sail Trim Skills

1. Read telltales: keep windward and leeward telltales flowing, spot stall, and correct fast.

2. Dial the main: use sheet for angle of attack, vang for leech tension and twist, and halyard or cunningham for draft position.

3. Tune the headsail: sheet tension sets angle; move the lead to balance foot vs. leech; halyard tweaks draft and entry.

4. Traveler smartly: control heel and power in gusts without flogging or rounding up.

5. Trim to conditions: flatten in breeze, deepen in lulls; twist up in waves to keep flow attached.

6. Iterate: change one variable at a time, feel the difference, and lock in the lesson.

How to Display Sail Trim Skills on Your Resume

8. Man Overboard Recovery

Man Overboard (more broadly, Person Overboard, MOB) recovery covers the maneuvers, equipment, and communication to locate, return to, and recover someone in the water—fast, precise, and calm.

Why It's Important

Seconds stretch and shrink in emergencies. A drilled crew with a clear script delivers the best possible outcome when someone goes over the side.

How to Improve Man Overboard Recovery Skills

1. Prepare the boat: throwable flotation ready, recovery sling or ladder accessible, engine kill-safety understood.

2. Brief every time: spotter role, pointing and calling, gear locations, and which recovery method you’ll use.

3. Practice the maneuvers: quick-stop, figure-eight, and downwind approach—under sail and power—across wind strengths and sea states.

4. Use tech wisely: personal AIS or GPS MOB beacons, lights, and whistles help you find quickly when visibility drops.

5. Recover safely: plan for hypothermia, entrapment risk near props, and mechanical advantage for heavy lifts.

6. Debrief and refine: after every drill, capture timing, accuracy, and comms. Shave seconds without losing safety.

How to Display Man Overboard Recovery Skills on Your Resume

9. Emergency Procedures

Emergency procedures are preplanned, practiced responses to events like MOB, fire, flooding, grounding, heavy-weather damage, or medical issues—covering immediate actions, communication, equipment use, and handoff to rescue services.

Why It's Important

When alarms go off, you want choreography, not confusion. Clear procedures reduce panic, shorten response time, and protect people and boat.

How to Improve Emergency Procedures Skills

1. Write simple checklists: bold the first actions. Laminate them near the helm and down below.

2. Drill regularly: brief, run, debrief. Keep drills short but frequent so skills stick.

3. Communicate clearly: standard phrases, closed-loop confirmation, and hand signals when noise or wind steals voices.

4. Maintain equipment: inspect fire extinguishers, bilge pumps, flares, radios, and lights on a set schedule.

5. Coordinate with shore: know local emergency channels and procedures; preprogram essential numbers and MMSI details.

How to Display Emergency Procedures Skills on Your Resume

10. ISAF Rules

Formerly ISAF, now World Sailing’s Racing Rules of Sailing (RRS) 2025–2028 define right of way, conduct, and penalties in racing. They keep competition fair, predictable, and safe.

Why It's Important

Instructors translate dense rules into crisp actions—helping students avoid protests, sail smarter, and respect others on the course.

How to Improve ISAF Rules Skills

1. Study by part: right-of-way rules first, then mark-room, starting, and penalties. Build from foundations.

2. Use diagrams: redraw common situations and decide outcomes before checking authoritative cases and interpretations.

3. Simulate on land: cone “marks,” tape “laylines,” and walk scenarios. Movement locks in understanding.

4. Shadow officials: observe protest hearings or umpired events to see how rules are applied in the wild.

5. Teach and quiz: quick daily questions with students reinforce retention and reveal weak spots.

How to Display ISAF Rules Skills on Your Resume

11. Rigging

Rigging is the web of standing and running lines—shrouds, stays, halyards, sheets, and controls—that holds the mast up and shapes sails for power and control.

Why It's Important

Well-rigged boats are safer, quicker to tune, and easier to teach on. Faults hide in fittings and lines; a sharp instructor spots and fixes them before they bite.

How to Improve Rigging Skills

1. Know every part: from tangs and turnbuckles to clutches and fairleads. Understand loads and failure points.

2. Tune methodically: set mast rake and bend, equalize shroud tension, and record baselines for repeatability.

3. Maintain proactively: inspect wire for meat-hooks and cracks, dyneema for chafe and glazing, and hardware for corrosion.

4. Upgrade thoughtfully: low-stretch lines where precision matters, protective covers where abrasion is certain.

5. Teach safe habits: control tails, avoid standing in bights, and keep fingers far from pinch points.

How to Display Rigging Skills on Your Resume

12. Keelboat Handling

Keelboat handling encompasses the practical techniques for steering, trimming, docking, anchoring, reefing, and maneuvering a fixed-keel sailboat in real conditions with real consequences.

Why It's Important

Precision at low speed, control in gusts, and smart risk management teach students trust. Trust in you, trust in the boat, and trust in themselves.

How to Improve Keelboat Handling Skills

1. Rehearse slow-speed control: prop walk, prop wash, spring lines, and momentum management in tight quarters.

2. Standardize commands: short, unambiguous calls and role assignments make crew movements clean.

3. Anchor with intent: select spots, set scope, confirm holding, and brief retrieval plans before it gets sporty.

4. Reef early: practice slab reefing and headsail changes until they’re smooth, then practice in a breeze.

5. Vary conditions: short chop, swell, crosswind docks, and strong current days teach more than perfect afternoons.

6. Reflect and iterate: capture lessons in a log—what worked, what didn’t—and tweak drills accordingly.

How to Display Keelboat Handling Skills on Your Resume