TAKE YOUR MARITIME CAREER TO THE NEXT LEVEL
Helping you succeed every step of the way
If you’re passionate about the sea and want to advance in your career, you have come to the right place for commercial skipper training.
Depending on your goals, you can choose from various commercial maritime courses, and gain the qualifications to skipper inshore, coastal, and offshore vessels.
Take a virtual tour of our dedicated training vessel!
WHERE ARE YOU ON YOUR MARITIME CAREER PATH?
Gain confidence and safety skills in our Advanced Sea Survival course
If you’re planning on heading offshore on a recreational vessel, it’s crucial that you know how to act in an emergency.
Our Advanced Sea Survival course equips you with critical survival skills that can decide the outcome of an emergency.
Become a deckhand or emergency vessel handler
A great way to start off in the maritime industry is as a deckhand or emergency vessel handler.
These qualifications allow you to work at sea, where you will gain valuable hands-on experience. A fantastic stepping stone on the pathway to becoming a skipper.
Gain your entry level skipper’s ticket
If you have some experience on the water, and are ready to gain your skipper’s ticket, you can either pursue the SRL or the Coxswain grade 1 course.
These tickets allow you to skipper commercial vessels up to 12 metres (or 24m with endorsement) up to 12 nautical miles from shore.
Train for endorsements or a higher-level ticket
If you’re an experienced skipper looking to upskill, you might consider training for endoresements or offshore tickets.
We offer training for the 500GT endorsement and the Master 24 Near Coastal qualification, which allows you to skipper commercial vessels less than 24 metres up to 200 nautical miles from shore.
WHY CHOOSE US?
Our mission is to provide practical skipper training courses to help you take your maritime career to the next level.

Dedicated training vessel
Practical skills aren’t learnt in the classroom! Which is why we operate a dedicated training vessel where you can get real, hands-on experience. Learn more about our training vessel here.

Student focus
You will be paired with a tutor who will guide you through the process from start to finish.

Simplified
When designing our courses, we stripped out all unnecessary roadblocks and obstacles to foster an efficient and enjoyable learning process.
Browse All Skipper Courses
At Skipper Training, we offer a range of courses whether you want to be a skipper or a deckhand.
We also want to give you all the relevant information to choose the course that’s best for you.
Advanced Sea Survival Course
Our Advanced Sea Survival course equips you with theoretical knowledge (classroom), practical knowledge (wet drills) and cover a wide range of emergency scenarios to survive at sea.
Skipper Restricted Limits (SRL)
Its not like school!
We invented practical delivery for SRL after teaching in a traditional polytec and seeing some students struggle in that setting. Complete your Training Record Book on our block course, not before. We have an illustrated activity book to help you prepare, so there isn’t anything online!
EMERGENCY VESSEL HANDLER
An alternative option for companies to employ a deckhand as a mate if they do not hold SRL<24. (Maritime NZ exemption required)
500GT WORKSHOP
This workshop is designed to help those with sufficient
sea time with the completion of their Training Record Book (TRB) to allow them to sit
their oral exam with Maritime NZ.