Boaters Maintenance Academy

Do you need to take out a second mortgage whenever work is done on your boat? Then the Boater's Maintenance Academy is the place for you. Learn the skills needed to do

your own maintenance and save big.

Enroll Today!

Our converted freighter houses BMA's new training facilities. Located on the picturesque Houston Ship Channel it provides an inspiring nautical backdrop with the most colorful sunsets seen anywhere.

Course work for the real world is our job number one!

Environmental Conditioning:

Our custom designed environmental chamber can accurately create the same conditions you will encounter on your boat. 

Whether it's a Florida 120 degree engine room with 99 percent humidity to Dutch Harbor's -20 degrees we can reproduce it. For sailors it's capable of adding driving rain, and high wind conditions into the mix. For more working environment fidelity we even offer a special pestilence package that includes your choice of mosquitoes, gnats, deer flies and lovebugs.

You will quickly learn how to recognize and deal with the common symptoms of dehydration, heat stroke, and hypothermia. Trained medical professionals will oversee activities for your safety.

Access skills:

  

 How often have you wished you could get to equipment that requires regular servicing in your boat?

Our unique "Access Skills" program teaches you the basic techniques needed to do tasks like checking water levels in batteries, turning off through hull valves, filling a trim tab pump's hydraulic reservoir, or replacing a bilge pump.

This class work also covers managing claustrophobia, working in total darkness, and panic attacks.

*We do offer a masters course in contending with a flats boat's miniature consoles.

First aid basics:

Here we cover what to do when you have the inevitable minor mishap that all too often occurs when dealing with boat maintenance.

Learn how to deal with screw driver punctures, utility knife slashes, cable tie and hose clamp skin rips, manifold burns, removing fiberglass splinters, scrapes, solvent inhalation and much more.

Additional topics include bandage improvisation, suturing with 8 lb test fishing line, and procedures to remove blood stains from white carpet and pleather.

Boat electrical systems 101:  

Good spark, bad spark. How do you tell the difference? This is one of the many subjects dealt with in Boating Electrical Systems 101.

No need here to learn how to read those complex wiring diagrams since they don't exist. Instead you will discover how to tell if there is electricity there in the first place, what can be done about it, and what those colored wires are all about, sometimes.

Equipment ingress:

Finding room for new equipment is one of our most popular classes. The inability to find a few extra cubic inches of space in a boat can be most vexing.

In this program you will learn how the professionals pull it off. These clever methods include the packaging foam corner wedge, wire harness hang, the 2 x 4 site location adjuster technique and the infamous flopper. As our instructors will tell you, "There are always ways, if the customer pays."

Engine Fundamentals:

How many inches of oil are okay to have under an engine? Why are exhaust fumes bad? How come the the oil dipstick so hard to get to? These and other important engine related problems are discussed. Our goal is to teach you how to stop your engine from blowing up, or least not for lack of vital fluids.

*"Access skills" coursework is a prerequisite.

Camaraderie is an important part of our curriculum! 

Create fond memories every evening when you join the BMA instructors for our nightly "Ration of Grog" mixer on the fantail. Exchange maintenance horror stories, learn new pejorative jargon, and enjoy the evening by the light of our production boat designer effigy burning.

Room is still available for the spring semester.  Stop being a slave to your boat and become its master instead. Visit our website today.

* The first aid kit photo was taken by Wikipedia user Riley Huntley
* The contortionist photo was taken by Wikipedia user Keith Allison