I took the two year marine tech program offered at BOCES and just received my certificate in June. The two year program is a lot different from the one engine maintenance course. The course you see advertised is for the backyard wrench turner who wants to cut costs and do the routine preventive maintenance things as well as minor to moderate troubleshooting and repair work that does not involve expensive special tools and equipment. The course may touch on EFI motors, it may not I don't know for sure. BOCES has a marine engines program for high school kids already so we used their facility in Manor Plains. They had all the major shop manuals needed and most of the tools needed. Either way you will only learn about outboard motors. We touched on inboard engines briefly and they have a few nice mercs and a brand new volvo engine but we did not work on them. Nobody new to the industry is going to touch one of those if their employer is smart unless he is a Doogie Howser type. We did leak down tests on the older Mercs, valve adjustments and some other stuff but nothing major.
The program I took was broken up into 12 modules, each one being six weeks long and I went two nights a week. Tuesday night was classroom stuff, Thursday night was lab stuff and yes we got our hands dirty. Originally the course was offered so that you had to sign up for all 12 modules. They gave me $2000 worth of tools and the total price I paid (tools + tuition) was $4500. Now I am understanding that they are allowing people to sign up for individual modules based on what they want or need to learn and are no longer supplying the tools. Simply put if you are already employed by a marina or repair yard but don't have a lot of experience you can take courses that will help you gain experience where you need it. I think a lot of people like you who want to learn how to fix their own stuff signed up for what they were interested in and forgot the rest of the program.
The modules are:
2 stroke & 4 stroke engine theory
Electrical theory (batteries, wires, electricity)
Carburetors and fuel delivery (Not EFI)
Ignition systems (basic CDI principles and troubleshooting)
EFI Outboards I (gives you basics of how new outboards are set up)
EFI II (more in depth involving valve timing, sensors, troubleshooting)
Lower unit servicing
Diesel theory
Electronics installations (heavy emphasis on ABYC and NEMA standards)
Marina management
Rigging and performance (We put a new Suzuki on an '85 Grady complete with gauges, new electronics, wiring, battery switches, etc. then bay tested it.)
Advanced troubleshooting techniques (How to go about properly finding the root cause of a problem and fixing it rather than fixing the broken thing and not solving the real problem.)
Lastly they set you up with an internship at a marina to be evaluated on what you learned and what you need to study up on. Its a 10 day unpaid internship but most of the guys ended up with jobs where they went.
If you think you know it all about your boat and engine, you don't trust me. I worked along side guys who have been in this industry for five years or more and even they admitted that they learned new stuff and better ways to do things. You are taught by guys who operate their own marine repair businesses or own marinas outright. Not Joe Schmoe school teacher out for a paycheck. The teachers are very reputable and are willing to show up at 6:00 at night after an already long day of their own work to teach people how to work on marine engines properly. They want to get the hackyness out of the business if they can not get rich by working a second job.
