Gander Mountain, the Dayton, Ohio-based retail chain for hunting, fishing, boating, camping, apparel and outdoor lifestyle products and services, is offering a new boating education and hands-on training program exclusively for women in partnership with the Marine Marketers of America.

The MMA-developed course — Boating Education and Safety Training (BEST) course just for women — is being held July 19-20 at Gander Mountain’s Huber Heights, Ohio, store. The course includes on-the-water, hands-on boat handling instruction as well as an approved boating education class. The new program is designed to give women who are experienced or new to recreational boating the knowledge, skills and confidence to operate a boat safely on the water.

The BEST program is being launched this summer under the auspices of the Marine Marketers of America, which has developed the free pilot project to benefit the U.S. boating industry. Gander Mountain is the first recreational retail marine dealer participating in the pilot program to test and validate the concept of a dealer-based women’s boating education course that will be launched nationally in 2009.