If you learn to sail at the New York Sailing Center & Yacht Club, you get a free, unsupervised, practice sail after you have completed the course (something we haven't seen elsewhere), and Rand and I arranged with Steve Card, the director of N.Y.S.C., to take our Basic Keelboat ASA Certification Exam on Saturday morning, then have a half-day practice sail, and then test for Coastal Cruising on Sunday morning, with a half-day practice sail afterwards. We got to the Center at around 12:30 on Saturday, an unusually warm mid-October day, and while it was sunny and 70, there was no breeze, so we figured we'd take the Basic test and see if any wind was blowing when we were through.

We took the test in the classroom at the Center, and the 130-question, multiple choice exam took us about 40 minutes to complete. I was just packing my gear to go sailing when Rand asked Steve if he could test right away for Coastal Cruising, since there was no breeze yet on the water. "Whoa, Nellie!" I said, "I spent all week studying for Basic."

"Ah, we spent all last weekend sailing Coastal Cruising, you'll be fine," responds my good chum Rand, and I'm thinking 'yeah, right, famous last words.'

Well, we tested Coastal, and it was definitely tougher, but Rand was right, we'd spent the previous 3-day Columbus Day (!) weekend sailing Coastal Cruising, and our instructor Jim Pinno had taught us well, as we handled the Coastal exams rigorous details.