PER Syllabus What do I have to study to obtain the PER?

In addition to the mandatory practices, to obtain the Recreational Boat Skipper (PER) license you must pass a multiple choice theoretical exam of 47 questions. Do you know what topics you have to study to pass the exam? Keep on reading to know everything.

List of the theoretical syllabus for the PER title

1. Naval technology

The first knowledge What you should acquire are the more basic: knowing and correctly naming the different parts of the boat, as well as being able to fluently use commonly used nautical terminology, are the foundations you need to continue moving forward.

1.1 Helmet designations

Concepts of: Bow, stern, port, starboard, waterline, hull and hull, sides, bows, fins, deck, plan and bilge.

1.2 Dimensions

Concepts of: Length, maximum beam, depth, freeboard, draft and trim. Maximum displacement and arc.

1.3 Structure

Hull, keel, stem, sternpost, frames, beams, gunwale, gunwale, bulkheads.

1.4 Concept of tightness

Brief description and importance of hull maintenance and sealing accessories: Cockpit, scuppers, drains, bottom holes and cocks, engine exhaust, horn, rudder channel, portholes, hatches, ports and ventilation hoses. Bilge pumps.

1.5 Accessories

Handrails, cleats and bitts. Plow and Danforth Anchors. Windlass: Barboten, clutch and brake. Rudder: Ordinary and compensated. Propellers: Pitch and reverse, diameter. Cavitation.

1.6 Lashing elements

Chicote, breast, gaza, boza and firm. Noray, dead bodies, buoys, defenses, boat hook. Artificial fiber ropes: Application of each type.

1.7 Terminology

Heel and right. Windward and leeward. Collect, temper, lascar, lower and release.

2. Maneuvers

We understand as maneuvers both the fact of move and guide the boat as the set of rigging of the boat. In this section you will learn everything you need to know about both questions.

2.1 Moorings

Long, cross, esprin, elbow pad. Use according to wind and current. Rope management: turn, cote, adujar, take turns, make firm, tie by bosom. Knots: plain, bowline, leaf lash and grapnel loop.

2.2 Government

With tiller or wheel, steering speed, starting, propeller effect in reverse. Ciaboga with a propeller: Effect of the predominant current of the propeller on the vessel without starting. Ciaboga with two propellers.

2.3 Agents that influence the maneuver

Wind, current and waves. Free to leeward. Concepts of real and apparent wind.

2.4 Maneuvers

Point mooring, to moor to another boat, moor to a dock or pontoon, moor to a buoy, undock from a dock or pontoon.

2.5 Funding 

Choice of holder, scandal, length of anchorage, bearing circle, grappling. Surveillance during anchoring: Marks, sonar alarms. Orinque. Anchoring with one or two anchors. Weigh.

3. Safety at sea

Training in security is essential and that is why the PER syllabus includes a wide selection of concepts, ranging from precautions that must be observed and what to do in case of possible emergencies or how to act at sea with bad weather.

3.1 Bad weather 

Wind and sea. Way of steering the sea to avoid swings, pitches, swells, and not to compromise stability. Stability concept. Concept of synchronism. Way to break the synchronism. Use of baffles to trim the boat.

3.2 Measures to take on board in bad weather

Inspection of portholes, hatches, ports, hoses and other openings. Stowage and lashing at the sound of the sea. Closing bottom taps. Defeat to follow. Weather or run the storm. Risks of a lee shore. Layer anchor. Maneuvers during a rain shower: motorized.

3.3 Protection from electrical storms and influence on the needle.

3.4 Low visibility

Precautions when navigating in fog, radar reflector, avoiding maritime traffic. Precautions for night navigation.

3.5 Precautions when navigating in shallow waters

3.6 Regulatory safety equipment

For navigation zone 4, which is defined in Order FOM/1144/2003, of April 28. Brief description, recommended use, stowage, and reviews.

3.7 Emergencies at sea:

• 3.7.1 Personal accidents. Emergency treatment of: Wounds, bruises, bleeding, burns and sea sickness or seasickness: Emergency treatment. Medical radio messages: Operating standards and writing. First aid kit for navigation zone 4, which is defined in Order FOM/1144/2003, of April 28.

• 3.7.2 Man overboard. Prevention to avoid this, safety harness, lighting, freeing the propeller, signaling the shipwrecked person, individual marking, launching aids. Approach to the castaway. Search maneuvers when the castaway is not seen. Use of the satellite navigation system in the event of a man falling into the water. Pickup. Hypothermia. Treatment and resuscitation of a castaway: Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and cardiac massage.

• 3.7.3 Breakdowns. Government failure. Rudder of fortune. Staying behind.

• 3.7.4 Trailer. Approach maneuver, giving and taking the tow, way of navigating the tugboat and the tow.

• 3.7.5 Boarding. Assistance and recognition of breakdowns.

• 3.7.6 Involuntary stranding, measures to take to get out of the strand.

• 3.7.7 Waterways and flooding. Points of greatest risk: Horn, rudder file, bottom holes, taps, hoses, clamps and exhaust. Manual and electric bilge pumps, engine cooling pump. Fortunate measures for control and plugging: Spikes and mats.

• 3.7.8 Prevention of fires and explosions. Risk places: Kitchens, engine rooms, fuel intakes, batteries, electrical installation, storage room or paint closet. Factors that must occur for fire to occur. Procedure when a fire breaks out, extinguishing procedures, general measures. Aerate the fire, heading so that the apparent wind is zero.

• 3.7.9 Measures to take before leaving the boat. Risk of hasty abandonment, clothing, personal equipment and material that must be carried, measures to take before abandoning the boat: Message to be issued. How to use the pyrotechnic signs.

• 3.7.10 State Maritime Rescue and Safety Society. Local regional and zonal Rescue Centers. Location and coverage, how to contact them.

• 3.7.11 Request for towing at sea and responsibilities that contract. Scope of mandatory civil liability insurance. Complementary trailer insurance.

3.8 Idea on Marine Ecology

Environmental impacts: identification, magnitude and causes that determine them. Fishing. Tourism. Protection of natural areas of the marine environment: 1) Specially Protected Areas of Importance for the Mediterranean (ZEPIM); 2) Park/Nature Reserve/Monument/Protected landscape; 3) Marine Reserve of fishing interest; 4) Place of community interest; 5). Specific case in the Mediterranean: Posidonia oceanica meadows.

3.9 Giving and loading the rig

Sail center. Decomposition of the wind force on the sail center. Drift center. Heeling torque and evolving torque. Correct orientation of the sails. Their interaction.

3.10 Maneuvers under sail: setting and loading the rig

Order of lifting and lowering. Set sail while at anchor. Tacks: Forward and round; advantages and disadvantages of each. Steering: dead angle, quartering, beam, length, quarter and closed stern. Stop the start: seize, garrison, fachear and pairear. Reduce the sail area: reef, change sails, use of the storm sail and the cape sail. Need To Control Heel.

3.11 Sailing maneuvers in a squall

Precautions to take before the passage of a front. Maneuvers to be performed depending on whether you are sailing upwind or along a length. Search sail maneuvers when the castaway is not seen. Breakdowns: Steer under sail. Fortune rig.

4. Navigation

All the previous knowledge is the necessary basis on which the most important part of the syllabus must be based: navigation itself. In this section you will find all the information necessary to be able to handle a boat correctly in water.

4.1 Theoretical knowledge

• 4.1.1 Axis, poles, equator, meridians and parallels. Zero meridian, and meridian of the place. Latitude and longitude.

• 4.1.2 Navigation charts coastal, landfall, portulanos and cartridges. Information provided by the charts: Coastal features, type, terrain features, reference points, lights, marks, beacons, hazards, prohibited areas. Most important signs and abbreviations used in nautical charts: Lighthouses, soundings, nature of the bottom, veriles, magnetic declination.

• 4.1.3 Nautical publications of interest: Brief description of the routes, nautical guides for recreational navigation and lighthouse books.

• 4.1.4 Coastal navigation charts: Meridians, parallels, latitude and longitude scales, declination.

• 4.1.5 The nautical mile. Knot. How to measure distances on the chart.

• 4.1.6 Directions: circular and quadrantal.

• 4.1.7 Elementary notion of magnetism land.

• 4.1.8 Magnetic declination, how to update it.

• 4.1.9 Brief description of the nautical needle. Installation, disturbances.

• 4.1.10 Needle deflection. Diversion board.

• 4.1.11 Total correction. Calculation from declination and diversion.

• 4.1.12 Classes of course: True, magnetic and needle. Relationship between them.

• 4.1.13 Slide coefficient. Your application.

• 4.1.14 Quarter. Wind, depression, surface heading. Currents and their influence.

• 4.1.15 Position lines: Lines, oppositions, delays, distances, veriles. Obtaining position lines with the needle and converting them into true ones for tracing them on the chart. Use of leading lines, bearings and probes as safety position lines.

• 4.1.16 Concept of dialing, way to find them. Relationship between course, bearing and bearing.

• 4.1.17 Navigation aids: Brands. Maritime lights and signals: Lighthouses and beacons.

4.2 Exercises on the nautical chart

• 4.2.1 Given a point on the chart, know its coordinates. Given the coordinates of a point, locate it on the chart.

• 4.2.2 Measurement distances. Way to plot and measure courses.

• 4.2.3 Elementary navigation concept by graphic esteem in the letter.

• 4.2.4 Course to pass a certain distance from the coast or danger. Correct course when there is depression and/or current.

• 4.2.5 Layout and measurement of delays and lines with the conveyor.

• 4.2.6 The line-up and opposition as true delays. Calculation of the total correction from a leading or opposition.

• 4.2.7 Get the situation by the intersection of two simultaneous lines of position: isobatic lines, bearings, leading lines, oppositions and distances. Conditions that must be met for position lines to be reliable.

5. Meteorology

Weather is a variable that is especially important when we navigate the sea, since it can directly impact security of a boat and its crew. 

5.1 Importance of weather in navigation safety 

Concept of atmospheric pressure. Atmospheric pressure measurement with aneroid barometer.

5.2 Isobaric lines 

Storms and anticyclones. General wind circulation and in the northern hemisphere in these formations. Trajectory of the storms.

5.3 True wind

Roll, drop, cool, streak and calm.

5.4 Coastal breezes

Terral and virazo.

5.5 Beaufort Scale

Anemometer, weather vanes and wind catchers.

5.6 Douglas scale of the sea

Concepts of: Intensity, persistence and fecht.

5.7 Temperature concept

 Measuring temperature with a mercury thermometer, centigrade scale.

5.8 Weather forecast

How to get it. Temporary warnings. Forecast with barometer and thermometer. Showers of rain or wind. Indications.

6. Radio communications

Once on the high seas, the radio becomes the most reliable communication method to establish contact with other vessels or with dry land. In this part of the syllabus you will learn how to drive and communicate using radio equipment.

6.1 Basic expressions and definitions.

6.2 Concept of frequency and radio channel. 

Radiotelephone and Digital Selective Calling (LSD) frequencies and channels used for distress, urgency and security on VHF.

6.3 The Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS). 

Basic concept. Navigation zone 4 and its relationship with the national maritime zone A1, as defined in article 4 of Royal Decree 1185/2006, of October 16, which approves the Regulation that regulates maritime radio communications of the Spanish civil ships. Basic concept of LSD. Transmission and reception of distress, urgency and safety messages on VHF. Portable 406 MHz and VHF radio beacons.

6.4 National VHF Coastal Stations.

6.5 Equipment for pleasure craft in navigation zones 4, 5, 6 and 7. Equipment installations and Ship Station Licenses.

7. Mechanical propulsion

This topic will allow you to know in depth how motor boats work, that is, they move by mechanical propulsion: types of engines, fuel, basic precautions, etc.

7.1 Peculiarities that differentiate the engines.

Outboard, inside outboard and interior in terms of installation and use. Differences between two- and four-stroke internal combustion engines and four-stroke diesel engines in terms of fuel type, lubrication and cooling.

7.2 Checks before start-up.

Fuel level, engine oil and transmitter. Refrigerant level in closed circuits. Cooling bottom tap and filter. Explosive gases. Water decanter filter. Deadpoint.

7.3 Startup.

Checks after start-up: Alarm, control and cooling instruments.

7.4 Maneuver controls, power and engine control instruments.

7.5 Electrical system. 

Brief description: Service and starting batteries, switch panel and fuses. Care and maintenance of batteries.

7.6 Precautions when making fuel, prevention of fires and explosions.

7.7 Calculation of the autonomy of the boat.

Depending on hourly consumption, speed, tank capacity and weather conditions.

8. Legislation

Navigation in pleasure boats is governed by specific legislation that is essential to know before going to sea. In this part of the syllabus you will learn everything you need to know about the nautical laws.

8.1 International Regulations to prevent collisions at sea. 

Rules 1 to 37 and annex IV. (From the perspective of a skipper of a sailboat or a mechanically powered vessel of up to 12 meters.)

8.2 Beacons.

Lateral system region "A", Cardinal System, isolated danger, navigable and special waters.

8.3 Rules affecting recreational boats.

Regarding maritime traffic and inland navigation in ports.

8.4 Limitations on navigation 

On beaches, places near the coast, marked beaches, access channels, marine reserves.

8.5 Idea on the regime of discharges and discharges into the sea from recreational boats.

According to FOM Order 1144/2003, of April 28, and on the regime for the delivery of waste generated by recreational vessels, according to Royal Decree 1381/2002, of December 20. Employer's responsibility. Behavior upon sighting.

8.6 Registration of pleasure craft

Inspections and certificate of navigability for vessels less than 24 meters. Title attributions. National flag. Rescue: Obligation to provide assistance to people.