Attending a school that's a certification facility for either ASA or US Sailing (in our case, both) assures you that they and their program have met certain minimum standards.  It also offers you the opportunity to earn certification at your experience level, which is a nationally recognized "diploma" that can make your life much easier when renting or chartering sailboats.

ASA and US Sailing Certification are not in themselves legally required for sailing, or even for renting or chartering.  However, some facilities will not rent to you without it, and some will waive "checkouts" if you produce a valid ASA or US Sailing Log Book.  And in a growing number of states, including New Jersey and Connecticut, a safe boating certificate is legally necessary in many cases to operate recreational vessels.

ASA and US Sailing Certification satisfies these and other states' requirements.

We'll let them fight over why there are two, and leave it at that.  They're both here.  There are affiliates of each organization that won't mention the existence of the other, pretend that it doesn't exist, or promulgate the one they belong to as the be-all and end-all with misleading quotes or propaganda.

Leaving the politics aside, the chief difference between the two is really only their respective histories.

One school describes US Sailing as the “only National Governing Body for Sailing,” which is misleading at best.  They are referring to an act of congress that conferred this titular status (with no special authority) on US Sailing.  Conversely, ASA happens to have a very large majority (perhaps over 90%) of the commercial sailing schools in the country as affiliates.  But again, this doesn’t make it the “official” or “only” anything.

The only authority the two organizations has is to ensure certain minimum standards are met at different levels if schools, instructors and students seek those organizations’ approvals in the form of certification.  Certification is not required by law anywhere in the US, although some facilities will not rent or charter boats to those without it.  Other facilities will scrutinize you much more carefully, or give you an on-the-water check out, if you don’t have certification.  And others don’t care whether you have it- as long as you can prove yourself on the water.

What’s similar about them?  They are both advocacy organizations dealing only with sailing, and the certification levels and standards for each level are surprisingly similar.  Either one will provide the student with excellent  proof of training at different ability levels which can be very helpful for renting and chartering, both domestically and abroad.

There is no federal license or permit required to operate recreational boats in the US.  However, proof of safe boating education is increasingly required by individual states, and both the ASA and US Sailing basic keelboat courses now meet these requirements.  Licenses are required when operating power vessels, or auxiliary powered sailboats, for hire.

In a nutshell, their certification systems are far more similar than different, down to the individual levels (or standards) such as basic keelboat sailing, basic cruising, bareboat chartering, etceteras.  Either one is an appropriate choice, unless you have some compelling need for a specific organization's certification (which is rare).  It matters least which one to have when it matters most to you - before chartering a yacht from a large charter company such as Sunsail or The Moorings.  Either one's Bareboat Charter certification is carte blanche for taking a large cruising yacht out for a week or two in the Caribbean, Mediterranean, even the South Pacific and other exotic destinations.

So that we can choose the finest instructors available, regardless of their certification, and have access to more of them.  We're the only school in the Tri-State area that isn't restricted by being affiliated with only one of the two organizations.  Any instructor we use can legitimately sign off on your certification.

Yes.  You automatically get one upon successful completion of the course and written exam.  (You get the certification your instructor has).  You can get the other one by simpy taking the written test for that organizaion as well; we're the only school in the Tri-State region that can offer you this.  The extra cost is either $10 or $40, depending on the organization (different price structure on their materials).

As we've said elsewhere, the best location, equipment, boats, etcetera won't do much good unless you have a great instructor.  Your instructor brings it all together;  we at New York Sailing Center YC bring all the great instructors together!