I own a sailboat located in Xinta harbor near Tainan, just next to Anping . I get my Taiwan license and I practice once a week but I am still a beginner. I am looking for someone with little experience to come with me sometimes, during the week or the week end .
The ship is a 9 meters long , 6 places.
I’m thinking about getting a licence too. Can you write a bit about the process involved? Are the classes/exams available in english?
Hi ,
You must first register on class, there are quite a lot ( Taipei , Taoyuan, Keelung, Kaohsiung… Almost every big harbor ) and follow course in Mandarin once or twice a week.
The practical part, drive a boat, is provide by the school too.
The good news is that , if the courses are in Mandarin , the exam for you will be in English and since one year, the manual containing the exam questions ( around 700 questions ) is available in English . ( Me, when i pass the exam , the manual was in mandarin and i must translate all ).
The exam consist on 2 parts the same day : One practical side : You must drive the boat around the harbor in doing some maneuvers : turn, go back, park, put you in position for pick up a MOB…
second part , theory … 50 questions ( in English ) …taken from the questions manual containing 700 questions … you can do only 5 mistakes.
So in fact … you need to memorize the manual and the 700 questions …
if you succeed the 2 parts… You get license… if you suceed only one part, you need to pass the second part again inside one year…
The manual containing all the questions is available on line .
Wayyy better than sitting around a Christmas tree with boring family …
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sailing clubs or places to learn sailing in Taiwan?
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Before you learn to sail, you’ll need to learn to operate a boat, and have a boating license. I would start there, if you haven’t done so already.
In case you haven’t yet:
You can either get a private yacht license or a professional boating license. The latter covers everything, and the test isn’t harder, so most people just go with that. It also allows you to work part-time at a yacht club for practice.
To qualify for the test, you need to go through 48 hours of class time and 48 hours of hands-on boating with a certified training company.
I highly recommend the company I trained with, which also happens to offer the lowest tuition in all of Taiwan. They are in Kaohsiung:
Once you have your boating license, there are many companies that offer sailing training. I don’t have any specific ones to recommend.
(I’m informally learning from a guy I know in the outskirts of Kaohsiung in exchange for work, but he doesn’t offer formal training classes to the public.)
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Just know boat stands for Bring On Another Thousand.
You better be financially loaded if you want to jump into this.
Agreed.
Yea, boats are not only expensive to buy, it’s expensive to maintain too.
Better to rent them if at all possible.
I saw a guy scraping the bottom of one of those small boats in Danshui. I have no idea what the cost is to do this, but it does need to be done every 2 years because marine life loves to stick to bottom of boats, and this will reduce performance, increase fuel consumption, etc.
There is obviously paint below the waterline that is designed to prevent marine life from sticking to the hull but those have to be reapplied every 2 years.
Bigger boats are going to be harder to do this in, and drydocks aren’t cheap.
Oh I forgot to mention… Both the private yacht license and the professional boating license allows you to operate any boat under 24 meters long, which is just a bit larger than the yacht I’m pointing to in this photo:
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Is that some sort of international license you are talking about? Or is it just for Taiwan ?
Also is it 100% in Chinese including documentation?
The license is issued by the Taiwanese government, and it allows you to take a Taiwan-registered boat out to anywhere in the world. It is also recognized by most other countries, including the US, for leisure boat rental purposes.
The tests and classes are only offered in Chinese, although you can request an audio test instead of a written one.
The leisure yacht license card is bilingual, and the professional boating license card is printed in Chinese only.
If you obtain the professional license, you can pay a small fee and they will also issue you a leisure one. However, you can’t obtain a professional license if you only took the test for a leisure one.
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You don’t need any of that to learn how to sail. Just find a local sailing club and sign up for lessons. If you’re in Taipei there’s one in Fulong: 福隆帆船俱樂部 Fulong Sailing Club
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That’s assuming the OP is asking about the little ore-powered sailing dinghies for sport. I was assuming they were asking about full-sized motorized leisure sailing yachts.
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Very true.
yooooo! i feel the chances are extremely low, but are you still looking for hands? hopefully you’re feeling more confident two years later… and maybe would like to pass some of that on?
i have a lot of very low-key experience on boats of a similar size to yours and would love to get more.
Hi Fafili,
Happy Chinese New Year!
This is Chad from north of Taiwan.
I am planning to visit Xinta on Sunday 2/18/2024. Will you be there and could chat for a while about your sailboat and sailing experiences?
Chad
@fafili count me in, if you’re still looking for someone!
I’m a professionally certified small motorized boat/yacht license holder in Kaohsiung, and I’ve taken a motorized sailing yacht out a couple of times around Sinta Harbor with my sailing instructor.
I never completed my sailing certification but I’ve been instructed on the basics. Would love to go back out again!