Head to school!
Ahhh … context.
Keiffer, you seem to be headed down a road similar to the one followed by my wife and I. Here is how we have gotten into sailing -
My initial formal training was thru the UW sailing club. Basic concepts, on water training & experience, testing and a gradual increase in boat size provided a structured training program. We bought our boat. I gained additional on-water experience crewing on Pearson Flyer. Racing and cruising are two different animals but racing does get you exposure to a variety of sailing conditions that most day sailors wouldn’t go out in.
After the first season on our boat, my wife said that she wanted to start taking multi-day trips and had also come to realize that she really needed to know how to handle the boat if I every went overboard or was hurt. We talked about long term sailing goals and those included bareboat charters away from our normal sailing area.
I did the same type research as you and came to the same conclusions. USS appears to target the racing set while ASA targets the cruising community. Further research showed that wives learn best when the instructor is not their husband.
We combined our sailing school with a family vacation. We selected a school that offered a week-long ASA 101/103/104 program where the students lived on the boat. Our training boat was a Beneteau 361. This gave my wife first hand experience “living” on a boat and the confidence that comes with handling a boat much larger than ours. :dance:
We booked with San Juan Sailing out of Bellingham, Washington. The seven-day school took us 119 miles through the San Juan Islands and exposed us to navigation in/around active shipping lanes, tides & currents, changing winds channeled by the islands and a variety of anchoring/mooring/docking situations in addition to basic sailing instruction. All of these conditions are very different from those found in our normal waters (Lake Michigan).
The school provided an invaluable, structured, sailing education for my wife and got her thinking we need a bigger boat. I didn’t learn anything new about basic sailing technique. However, I did learn things that I never would have if we had stayed in our home waters. These include: Man-overboard & rescue, use of tide tables & charts, sailing/mooring/anchoring in a tidal environment, translating chart information into GPS coordinates for entry into a chart plotter, care and feeding of ship’s systems not found on smaller sailboats.
Additionally, my wife learned more when I did my best to stay away during instruction and testing (well, as far as you can get on a boat). I guess there is a reason why many schools offer women only classes.
If bareboat chartering is in your future, keep a log of your sailing exploits. Holding a bareboat certification is nice to have but a sailing resume is what the charter company will be most interested in. They will want to know the size boats you have experience on, your role (skipper or crew), conditions you have sailed in and what type experience you have with anchoring/mooring. The last charter company we went through wanted to know specific types of anchors we had used and the types of bottom we had anchored in.
So ... Begin with the end in mind. An ASA school, with somebody else teaching your wife, is the way to go. Select the best school that you can afford and learn to the level and in an area of the country that best supports your future endevors.
Good luck and enjoy!
