Author: Ben Martin
17 August 2026
Finishing the ASA 104 – Bareboat Cruising certification is a real milestone. You’ve gone from basic keelboat handling to being able to plan and run a multi-day cruise on a 30-to-45-foot boat, in conditions that would have felt out of reach a year or two earlier. If a catamaran is part of the picture — for chartering, cruising, or eventually owning one — ASA 114 is the next and final step in the pathway, and it’s worth understanding what changes once you’ve added it. Either way, it’s a natural moment to start asking the next question: what does this actually let me do? Can I book a bareboat charter tomorrow? Take my family cruising for a week? Charter a catamaran? Start looking at boats of my own?
The short answer is yes, on all counts, however it requires some real-world context worth understanding first. The ASA 104 certification allows you to skipper a sloop-rigged, auxiliary-powered (has an engine) keelboat of roughly 30 to 45 feet, on a multi-day cruise, in winds up to 30 knots. ASA 114 builds directly on that, certifying you specifically on a cruising catamaran — a boat that handles differently enough that ASA treats it as its own certification rather than a simple extension of monohull skills. Both are substantial, genuine qualifications. Neither one means every charter company will hand over the keys to any boat matching that description the moment you pass your exam. Understanding why this is the case, and what to expect instead, makes the process smoother rather than more complicated.
What “Certified” Actually Means to a Charter Company
It’s a fair assumption that a certification works like a driver’s license — pass the test, and you’re cleared for any boat in that class, anywhere. Charter companies think about it a little differently, mostly because of what’s actually at stake for them: they’re renting out vessels worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they’re the ones who have the largest financial responsibility if something goes wrong on the water. So alongside your ASA certifications, like the ASA 104, they’re also glad to see things like recent time on the water, documented experience as skipper rather than just crew, and ideally a bit of familiarity with a boat similar in size and type to the one you’re requesting.
This isn’t a hidden hurdle designed to catch people in a “gotcha” moment. Most sailors who show up prepared with a certification and a reasonable amount of relevant experience get their boat and have a great trip. It’s simply how a charter company manages a level of responsibility that a single exam, however well-designed, can’t fully capture on its own. Once you know that’s how they’re thinking about it, it becomes much easier to prepare for.
What’s Realistically Available to You Right After ASA 104
Chartering a boat similar to the one you trained on. This is the most direct and immediately available next step, and it’s exactly what most fresh 104 graduates do. If your course was completed on a 38-foot monohull, a similarly sized monohull charter is a very natural and reasonable next move — you already know the systems, the scale, and the feel of a boat in that range, which is precisely the kind of familiarity charter companies like to see.
Extended cruising on your own or a friend’s boat. If chartering isn’t the immediate plan, ASA 104 covers exactly the skills a multi-day cruise actually requires: provisioning for a week aboard, coastal navigation, anchoring in unfamiliar spots, reading weather well enough to plan around it, and handling the boat’s systems day to day. This is where the ASA 104 certification pays off most directly and with the fewest extra steps: it’s your own trip, your own boat or a friend’s, and the skills translate immediately.
Progressing to ASA 114, if you haven’t yet. If a catamaran wasn’t part of your training so far, ASA 104 is the last required step before ASA 114. It is not a substitute for it. Catamarans handle differently enough from monohulls — twin-engine maneuvering, different stability and capsize considerations, a different feel under sail — that the ASA treats them as a distinct, additional certification. The good news is that ASA 104 puts you right at the doorstep of that next step, with all the prerequisite groundwork already done.
What ASA 114 Adds
ASA 114 certifies you specifically on a cruising catamaran, and it opens up chartering, cruising, and ownership within that category the same way ASA 104 does for monohulls. A few things are worth knowing once you’ve completed it:
Catamaran chartering follows the same logic as monohull chartering. A charter company evaluating a catamaran request will look for the same things it looks for on a monohull — recent time on the water, documented skipper time, and ideally some familiarity with a similarly sized catamaran — just applied to the boat type you’re now certified on. A résumé built entirely on monohull time, even with ASA 114 in hand, will read differently to a charter company than one that includes real time aboard a cat.
The size range tends to run larger. Cruising catamarans commonly available to charter often sit in a similar or slightly larger range than monohull charter fleets, given the amount of interior space a catamaran’s twin-hull design provides. It’s worth checking the specific size of the boat you’re requesting against your training vessel, the same way you would for a monohull.
It’s the right step if a catamaran is genuinely where you’re headed. If your longer-term goal is catamaran ownership, or you know you want to charter cats rather than monohulls going forward, ASA 114 isn’t an optional add-on — it’s the certification that actually covers the boat you’ll be sailing.
Real World Considerations
Destination-specific credentials. Some charter regions ask for documentation beyond a U.S.-based ASA certification (like the ASA 104) — an International Certificate of Competence or equivalent is common in parts of Europe, and a VHF operator’s license is required in others. These aren’t ASA requirements, they’re local ones tied to the specific place you’re sailing, and they’re usually straightforward to sort out once you know a destination requires them. A quick check with the charter company or the region’s maritime authority before you book saves any last-minute surprises.
Build a bit more skipper time first to develop extra confidence. If most of your sailing hours so far have been logged as crew rather than skipper, a flotilla (sailing your own boat alongside a lead boat and support crew) or a charter with a professional skipper aboard for the first day or two are both excellent, low-pressure ways to add documented skipper experience. Plenty of newly certified sailors choose this route not because they have to, but because it makes that first fully-independent charter feel even more comfortable.
The Honest Version
ASA 104 tells a charter company what you were tested on, and that’s genuinely worth a great deal. It’s a recognized, structured standard that most charter companies respect and rely on. What it can’t capture on its own is exactly how much of that training has been put into practice since, which is simply a limit of what any single exam can measure, not a shortcoming of yours or of the certification itself.
The good news is that closing that gap is usually straightforward: a bit of recent time on the water, ideally on a boat close in size to the one you’re hoping to charter, and you’re in a strong position. Certification gives you the framework and the green light to start. What you do with the months afterward is what turns “certified” into “charter-ready,” and for most people, that happens naturally, just by getting out on the water.
Next Step
If you want to see exactly what a charter company is likely to check before approving your first charter, our self-assessment checklist walks through the same factors, such as vessel-type experience, recency, destination requirements, and crew qualifications, so you know where you stand before you submit a résumé.
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