Florida Sailing & Cruising School

Every course here is a liveaboard. Students board the evening before class starts, the boat is the classroom, and tuition covers the bunk, the instructor, the fuel, and the materials; a course runs anywhere from two to ten days. The school has taught this way from Cape Coral since 1984.

The fleet is shared with sister company Southwest Florida Yachts: the Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 440 runs ASA instruction one week and bareboat charter the next, which keeps it maintained to a teaching standard, while the Beneteau 38 Bluebird, added in October 2025, is kept for classes alone. The teaching water is Pine Island Sound, with Sanibel, Captiva, and Cayo Costa in day-hop range.

The sail pathway runs Basic Sailing (101) through Basic Coastal Cruising (103), Bareboat Cruising (104, a minimum of 48 hours aboard including a night at anchor), Coastal Navigation (105), and Advanced Coastal Cruising (106), which adds night sailing and passages of twenty-plus miles. Graduates step straight into the sister fleet as bareboat charterers: earn the certification on the boat, then take the same boat out.

The unusual half of the operation is power. By its own account the school pioneered hands-on trawler and motor-yacht training in the late 1980s, and it still teaches liveaboard power cruising alongside sail, since August 2025 under American Boating’s AB 101 to 104 curriculum, including courses aboard your own boat anywhere between Tampa and Naples. Instructors are USCG-licensed masters, one holding ASA’s Outstanding Instructor award. Veterans get ten percent off the 101, and additional crew can join a course at half price.