sail on Lake Erie

I taught myself the basics a few summers ago out on much smaller, safer lake. I was using someone else’s little day sailer (i don’t really know the lingo as I taught myself, trial and error method with a book as reference) with just the one main sail. My ultimate goal is to be able to travel via boat for both long distances and small day trips on the Great Lakes. It seems foolish to buy a boat without knowing much about the larger boats, but it also seems difficult to learn much about the things without having one at my disposal. But wow, there are tons of the things docked up in town. Surely, I can find someone to learn a thing or two from. Maybe I’ll just have to go wonder around where those boats are and ask people their opinion? I’m not much of a joiner, so any club or anything doesn’t really appeal to me. In the meantime, I’ll look for some books about it.