Courses at TrawlerFest?

[Nick14]

Has anyone ever taken any of the courses offered at TrawlerFest? Such as diesel engine maintenance, basic boat maintenance, electronics, electrical systems, etc?

Any comparisons with other classes, such as the 'Cruiser's University' courses on similar topics offered at the Annapolis Boat Show?

I'm always looking to learn (and could always learn a lot more!), and am searching for the best courses to do it.

Thank you!

 

[mvweebles]

Has anyone ever taken any of the courses offered at TrawlerFest? Such as diesel engine maintenance, basic boat maintenance, electronics, electrical systems, etc?

Any comparisons with other classes, such as the 'Cruiser's University' courses on similar topics offered at the Annapolis Boat Show?

I'm always looking to learn (and could always learn a lot more!), and am searching for the best courses to do it.

Thank you!

Shortly after Georgs Kolesnikov sold TrawlerFest to Jack & Millie Rose (Georgs right-hand people), Jack approached me and Bob Smith about starting TrawlerFest University. 2-days of hands-on training. Bob would roll a Ford Lehman 120 on a pallet into a hotel ballroom and systematically tear it apart, adjust valves, adjust injector timing, replace injectirs pull head and hone the cylinders, and all sorts of light repairs. At the end of the second day, he'd roll it out to the parking lot and fire it up.

I taught close-quarter maneuvering, including an all-woman's class. Challenge was always finding a doner boat, but always seemed to find something (one year was a DF 44 for the all-womens' class - went really, really well).

That was around 2000-2002. Around 2005, Jack & Millie sold TrawlerFest to Passagemaker Magazine. Frankly, I was about to transition back to Corporate America; and PMMs business model was to have vendors pay to teach TF University vs pay experts to do the professors.

I can't speak to what it is today, but I'll bet its still pretty dang good as long as they don't over-load the classes. I think the diesel class was limited to around 10-students, I limited the hands-on to 4 students each day, so total of 8. Depending on the charge, I would definitely recommend it even though I'm sure it's different than when I knew it. I always wanted to take Bob Smith's class, unfortunately I was always teaching myself. Later, they added a weather class with Lee Chesneau which was really special because I was actively delivering and weather fax was the only game in town - the forecasters all signed their forecasts so I had already come to know Lee. Unfortunately, much of his content went right over my head - wish I had better retention. I blame it on a mis-spent childhood.

There is a lot of learning that happens even when you're spectating. I'd give it a go.

Good luck Nick!

Peter

 

[ranger58sb]

Annapolis School of Seamanship does the diesel course at the Annapolis boat shows. (And maybe at the local Bal'mer TrawlerFest?) Decent, but...

Their own curriculum includes two diesel courses, one being basic (similar to at the boat show), and the other builds on that and is a more intermediate-level version. The second is organized around teams, hands-on... and the "final" is solving a sabotaged engine. On that final day, teams stay, keep working... until they get the engine to run.

FWIW, I found the basic course interesting and useful... but the second course was/has been much more helpful.

We've worked at this local boat show a bit, and wifey has often helped out with the Cruisers University courses (room set-up, etc.)... so she's been able to "attend" several. She always says they're pretty good...

-Chris

 

[twistedtree]

This is a bit of an abstract answer, but here goes anyway....


I think there are two key things to assess about any course:


1) Does the course level match your needs? If you know nothing about diesel engines, or engines in general, an intro course is a very good idea. If you know the basics, but want to know more, then a more advanced course is needed or you will be bored and disappointed.


2) Is the instructor any good or have a good reputation. Nigel Calder, Steve D'Antonio, Brian Smith, Bob Senter are all well know and you can count on quality from pretty much any talk by them.


The danger with a vendor-sponsored/provided talk is that it becomes more a marketing and sales talk vs a service and maintenance talk. I've been sucked into a couple of those and they have been presentations about the company and their product line, how great they are, followed by a very thin and superficial talk with a lot of "contact a dealer or authorized service provider". That's just not helpful, in my opinion. If PMM is charging vendors to come talk, then the vendor will see it as a sales and marketing opportunity, and I think you will get just that. I would be very skeptical.


I would not expect that from Brian Smith, simply because they don't sell engines, just provide support. And I know you won't get it from Bob Senter - he's well above that. And of course Steve and Nigel don't have any vendor affiliation, so inherently neutral.


I have dropped in on a couple of Trawler Fests over the past years, and have been very disappointed. Now I haven't been to any of the seminars, and it looked to me like that was where the real value was, especially for relatively new boaters/cruisers