National Marine Correspondence School

[justintyers]

Hello all,
Does anyone have a set of NMCS course manuals they would like to sell?
The manuals I'm interested are for the 'Offshore Skipper - World' course.
The NMCS was dissolved in 2011 - I did the course back in the late nineties and then stupidly lent my manuals to someone and that was the last I ever saw of them. I'd love to have the manuals again.
I don't recall the exact name of the course - but there were two sets of manuals (or possibly three) covering practical desk skill; chart work; and celestial navigation.

Fingers crossed then!

 

[bedouin]

Anything in particular you are looking for? I did a course with them (i don't recall the name - it was YM Offshore syllabus with a few additional topics included) in the early 90s and while the content of their material was good I would have thought you would be able to find the same information online or in other books.

I probably have the course materials somewhere but I haven't seen them for a long time.

 

[justintyers]

Hi Bedouin,
Thanks for your message. I'm looking for the complete set of manuals for that course.

The reason being that they were written by someone who had risen through the naval ranks and knew what he was talking about: I remember gems like the advice that every new arrival - at a quay, for example - securing his mooring line to a 'busy' bitt should pass his bowline up through the eyes of all the others and then over the bitt; that way the lines can be retrieved in any order.
That's just one example from many; his meticulous manuals were written with the authority of experience ...hence my interest in replacing them!

 

[ylop]

Hi Bedouin,
Thanks for your message. I'm looking for the complete set of manuals for that course.

The reason being that they were written by someone who had risen through the naval ranks and knew what he was talking about: I remember gems like the advice that every new arrival - at a quay, for example - securing his mooring line to a 'busy' bitt should pass his bowline up through the eyes of all the others and then over the bitt; that way the lines can be retrieved in any order.
That's just one example from many; his meticulous manuals were written with the authority of experience ...hence my interest in replacing them!

That advice is not going to be unique to the NMCS course though (and it relies on everyone “dropping the eye”). However you’ll certainly find Tom Cunliffe advocating that approach in his books

 

[justintyers]

Hi ylop,
Thanks for your message.
Yes, I've got one or two of Tom Cunliffe's books.
The NMCS manuals - which I would love to have again - cover an extraordinary range of knowledge beginning with basic principles through to predicting tides anywhere in the world from harmonic constants (ie, writing tide tables).
What makes them so readable is that they impart their knowledge free from bravura, opinion or prejudice and confine their comment merely to the art and science of seafaring.