learn to sail

Even though I only have 3 months of sailing experience, there’s always skippers looking for crew to race with. I found another clubmember who has his own boat, it’s gorgeous new and fast—that’s a pic of the same model. I’m learning a lot by racing every week and it’s really exciting too.

Even if it means going for a swim—this one was planned. Don’t keep your keys in your pocket though, those remotes don’t like water so much.

some quality time practicing docking and slow sailing, but courses that involve several changes of direction are difficult. I learned that practicing in a small boat gives you insights into the problems you’ll face controlling a big boat in rough weather, so it’s very valuable.
Almost another capsize that washed our bailing device overboard so we had to sail back to the dock with a boat full of water, also got into a bad way near the shore and the wind blew our stalled boat right towards the rocks. I had to jump out and stand in the bay to keep the boat off the rocks while we waited for a tow.

I’ve been out on the larger keelboats quite a few times, but everyone says it’s better to learn on the dignies because they’re more responsive, you’ll learn how to sail better in them, but I’d had a hard time finding people to teach lessons in them. Well I finally did and it was wild, the wind picked up by the time we were out there, maybe 20-25 knots, and we had swells that were pretty big in comparrsion to the tiny boat we were in, we were attempting a man-overboard drill, when the other beginner who was controlling the boat at the time caught a gust and didn’t react to head up or let the mainsheet out, it heels over, water poured in over the gunwale and the boat capsized! I was not planning on going for a swim that day, but luckily we managed to hold on to the high side, we righted the boat, and got back in, so I took over for a while to try and pick up our floating plastic target dummy, after a couple passes with me worrying more about trying not to tip the boat again we were having trouble getting to it, it was being moved around in the waves alot, and being pushed towards the rocky shore, then our instructor took over—he got there pretty quickly and we headed back to the dock so he could go windsurfing in these conditions. I was wet and cold and my hands were absolutely numb by the time we got back to the dock, but we still had to de-rig it and put it away.
THEN two other experienced sailors ask if we want to go out right away on a keelboat. I said hell yes and changed out of my soaking wet jeans into my snow pants (water proof) and ran over to meet them getting the other boat set up. That was a much drier trip, and the wind had died down a little so conditions were a little calmer (fine by me!) They were experienced racing skippers so they had us doing all kinds of interesting things, not to mention that our jib sail had a tear in it so we decided to change it out while sailing. Then coming back we flew a spinnaker which is a rather complex process to set up, keep it trimmed and finally get it down at the right moment quickly. At the end I was cold, tired and wet but had learned a lot!

Well I didn’t actually go out on the water, the tide was rapidly retreating when it was lesson time, plus the instructors didn’t quite have the time to take us out on one of the larger keelboats that were still able to be launched. I learned rigging while the boat was tied up at the dock, and helped my instructor fix the bumper on his van with fiberglass, I’d never done that before either, so it’s a start on learning how to fix/maintain the boats as well.

I signed up with the Cal Sailing Club (http://www.cal-sailing.org/) which is very inexpensive, aside from thier $60/quarter membership fee, lessons are free. It’s run mostly on volenteer effort, where other members take the responsibility of giving lessons and maintaining equipment. So the idea is once you learn enough to pass the basic level, then you in turn start teaching others.
I liked this idea because teaching is really one of the greatest ways to learn something. You have to have a pretty firm grasp over it to explain it well to another person, and then the repition of explaining it multiple times to different people is a good way to make sure you never forget it.
I went out with a very experienced sailor and 5 other students, conditions were nearly perfect, it was raining earlier but it cleared up just as we set out, we had a steady wind that wasnt too much for the light boat that we had and made for a pretty smooth introduction to the basics. I took a turn at the tiller, the mainsheet and the jibsheet, learned how to fold up the sails and a few knots. I’m looking forward to more of it!