"I would like to learn to sail"

[Don Guillette]

I saw this thread on another site from a newbie to sailing. I've heard the same question a million times during sail trim seminars and on this forum. So has Joe from San Deigo, RichH, Stu J, Scott and a bunch of other regular forum listers. Unfortunately, the advise the sailor received was incorrect and dangerous -- such as "go to the nearest boat ramp and have at it!!".

When I got back into sailing many years ago I tried that approach but after 5 minutes on the water I realized "I didn't know what I didn't know" and realized I needed lessons. Lessons are like everythng else -- it depends on who's giving them. I had no idea what the instructor was talking about. If a mate decides to take lessons, which was another good suggestion, their first request to the school should be to sit in a class to get a feel. After all, you're paying good money and you want to get your monies worth and all some schools want to do is get you into a charter as soon as possible. One school I checked on in So Ca assured me that after after a few lessons I'd be qualified to take a C30 to Catalina -- yeah, sure I would!! If you hear that story from the school, move on to the next school on your list.

Another piece of advise was to read "Sailing For Dummies". Most sailing books have their sailing info all over the place -- check out any book index to see what I mean. So, unless you know what you're looking for you're lost from the jump.

To understand any devise from a beer can opener to something more complicated, the first thing you need to know is how does it work and what is it doing. Same with sail trim -- there are 8 mainsail trim controls and 6 for the jib. They all adjusts something and they all have to work together. So, my advise to newbie sailors is FIRST figure out what each sail trim control for the main and jib is adjusting. Once I figured that out, which took a lot of time, I was half way home from a sail trim standpoint.

Oh how I wish there was a sail trim forum when I was trying to learn to sail a silly sailboat!!

Since were about to enter the sailing season, unless you live in Denver today, how would you answer the newbies topic question?

 

[LuzSD]

hang out in and around boats and gets lots of time on many boats for as long as it takes to begin understanding and start coming up with the solutions in your own head BEFORE the skipper tells you to do it.

 

[Bill Roosa]

Or you could read some books.
Chapman's Piloting has served me well
Annapolis Book of Seamanship is good too.

You may not believe this Don but after reading Chapman's I found that lots of folks at the yacht club thought I'd been sailing for years. don't know if that speaks to my ability to read or their total lack of being able to learn after many years.
Some of us can pick up a book, read it cover to cover and do 'pretty darn good'
Did I ever tell you the story of our first anchor in the Potomac? Just north of the Occucuan bay we decide to anchor in the river for the night. turning toward the western shore I tell wife 1.0 "when we get to 10' let me know and I'll drop the anchor. The motion of the boat will set it" So she sounds off at 10' and I let go the anchor. As the line feed out cause I did not fully understand the whole anchoring process it ocures to me that I could be standing in a Popeye loop. Ok everything is cool, gee I wonder how I'm going to stop the line as the 18000 lb boat going 5 knots will probably have something to say about that should I try and grab the rode (see i knew to call it a rode). then it occurs to me that I don't even know if the bitter end is attached to the boat. Boy am I going to look stupid if I loose the only anchor on my first try.
well the rode was attached to the boat and when all 300' of line payed out she set nicely if not abruptly.
On second thought perhaps you folks should read some books AND get some training.

 

[Bill Roosa]

Then there was the next morning when I went forward to check the anchor and the rode is running down the side aft (???) Then I noticed we where 90 drgrees to the current and a nice boil of water was downstream from the keel. OK the rode is wrapped around the keel or prop shaft and I can't start the motor cause you all know what will happen in that situation. After much mucking about with the main trying to "turn her" I get the bright idea that "I'm on a sail boat"!!! I could just put up the jib and sail off the anchor (learned that in Chapman's) It was a busy few minutes as wife 1.0 was just serving breakfast to the boys but we managed.
Then we ran to crab pots for the first time, and there was that overhead power line just north of Quantico, and our first thunderstorm, the second anchor went well as we use those hand signals and "followed the book", ...... It was quite the 5 day trip to Bowlies in MD

I'm certainly glad I read Chapman's Piloting.

 

[sinnettc]

Did the power line help your sail trim?

 

[Ron20324]

...I'm certainly glad I read Chapman's Piloting.

"EXPERIENCE": Learning what you need to know- AFTER you needed to know it

 

[Squidd]

Experiance is learning from your mistakes....

Wisdom is learning from other peoples mistakes...

I think Don is saying "seek wisdom"...

 

[anchorclanker]

A class is debatable, but book learning shouldnt be. At a bare minimum a newbie should know the names of most the parts of the boat, lines and rigging, the primary knots, have a grasp of basic sail trim, steering, MOB principles, basic docking, anchoring, etc., before ever untying a line. Sailing for Dummies is not worth buying IMHO. I havnt found Chapmans yet, but I will. Learning to sail, by reading, and by doing, should then become a lifelong passion.

 

[Don Guillette]

A newbie sailor, 90% maybe, can't learn to sail a boat from a book -- in my opinion anyway -- no more than a mate can obtain a certificate to be a welder by watching youtube. The learning experience is better if backed up by instruction, but there are exceptions and I'm one of them. As I've mentioned many times over the years on this forum, I took sailing lessons but I thought I was the only sailing idiot in the class because I had no idea what the instructor was talking about and everyone else in the class was nodding their heads in agreement with everything the guy was saying. I knew all the names of the sail trim controls for the main and jib but I had no idea as to their function. I figured how hard could it be to learn to sail by myself and I don't mean to just have the boat move through the water. I wanted 100% efficiency. It took me over 6 months of research and I wasted the first 4 months because I was missing a key point --- I didn't know WHAT THE SAILS WERE ADJUSTING. Once I figured out it was draft depth, draft positin, twist and angle of attack, the rest was easy and I knew more about sail trim than 75% of the sailors worldwide. Joe from San Deigo, RichH, StuJ, Scott and a few others weren't calling me for sail trim advise but I could more than hold my own in a sail trim discussion and most importantly I knew if my dock neighbors were full of crap or knew their sail trim onions.

Just about everything we buy comes with a users guide, except a sail boat!! Sure the manual tells you how to work the head and other mechanical stuff and maybe it touchs on sail trim but not much. Years ago Catalina yachts was interested in including my book and chart on their new boats, and in those days I'd have given them the stuff for next to nothing, but the deal never went anywhere. Someone decided their manual was sufficient -- it was probably the guy that designed their CURVED TRACK TRAVELER!! He designed but never tried to use it!!

 

[Hoop2125]

We all learn differently. My first day, I had to have a kid at the marina drive my boat to my slip. The next day we went out with a couple local salts and they gave us some pointers. I have read many books, talked to lots of sailers, but the best way for me is to do. We stay close to shore and are fair weather sailers, but have learned so much. Now we didn’t start out with a Hallberg Rassy 49 either. This isn't rocket science, and you may make a mistake, same goes for driving a car. Life jackets and air-bags are comforts to me in both respects. Don't be afraid to make a mistake, it's the adventure that is worth the risk.

 

[Stu Jackson]

A few years ago an old friend came to me and said: "I've been chartering bareboats out of a local marina, but we can't seem to get the boat to sail well enough upwind to even pass Alcatraz on an ebb! What are we doing wrong?"

I suggested he come sail with me a few times on my boat and see what's happening.

He also happens to be a mountaineer, so he knows his ropes, woops, lines! And, get this, he started to see how I did things and at the end of even the first day we sailed together he had stowed the many lines on our boat so well I forgot whether I had done them or he did.

Wow, a "keeper" crew!!!

We sailed together very Friday afternoon for five years. We started racing from the back of the pack and ended our "career" together by winning our division.

How'd it all work?

1. He learned the names of everything on the boat. The proper names, not "bathroom," "kitchen," or "toilet" either. When we needed to do something, we used the right terminology.

2. Both of us are avid readers. No need to say more here, 'cept that's why they write books and that's the value of the internet and Don's approach to Sail Trim.

3. We practiced, practiced, practiced. Both under sail and motor, we docked, side tied, tacked, hove to, sailed the Bay and the ocean, anchored, moored and generally did everything. Parties at yacht clubs after races and annual dinners were fun, too.

4. He's one of only a handful of skippers/sailors I would EVER let take my boat out if I wasn't there. And he did many times. He became so comfortable after a year, he and his wife and family chartered a C350 in Canada and did Desolation Sound for a week +. Man, I still haven't been there and have a father-in-law who lives on Vancouver Island to boot! Hope to do so soon.

Read
Practice
Practice
Practice

Each boat is a tad different but most times the "when in doubt, let it out" approach works best.

We both also concluded, re sail trim: if it looks good, it usually is.

 

[Don Guillette]

Hoop2125: You're right that "learning to sail a boat isn't rocket science" but unfortunately there are all kinds of various degrees of what sailing means. It isn't rocket science but I sure thought it was when I was trying to figure it out.

In 7 hours I can teach a person to sail a boat to the middle intermediate level. I don't have the ability to bring them to the next level as Joe from San Deigo, RichH plus a few others can do but I can give a sailor the basic foundation necessary to understand what those guys are talking about.

Here's how I've done it. It starts with 3 hours of classroom. They go through my book from cover to cover with one 15 minute break. It's like learning sail trim through a fire hose!! I use diagrams and cover just about every sail trim question a newbie could ever think of and generally there are zero questions during the Q&A. The next day I take 6 folks "On The Water" for 4 hours. They go through every position on the boat from driving to tailing lines and for every point of sail. The way it works is they start from a stopped position and have to bring the boat up to full speed. They have to explain WHY they are making every sail trim adjustment. When full speed is reached the boat is stopped and I mess up all the controls, folks change position and they do it all over again and we do that on every point of sail. After the 3rd hour they check out boats, they could be boats that belong to forum lister is So Ca lister, and they have to tell me what's wrong (or right) with that boats sail trim and then tell me how to fix it. At the end of the 4th hour, on the way back to the marina, I'll stack their sail trim against 75% of the boats worldwide.

One might ask, why don't I conduct the classroom portion on the boat? I could but the minimum I'd consider was 75 students so the classroom is better suited.

I don't conduct those seminars any longer. Mainly because there's no money in it. Additionally, if my wife comes with me she spends every dime I made shopping!!

 

[tricyclerob]

I see the "Sail Trim Users Guide" is out of stock. Do we know when it will be back?
thanks,
rob jones

 

[Squidd]

I'm ready to purchase one as well...is there another supplier beside SBO store..?

 

[Plonk]

One newbies thoughts

I faced the same issue after I bought my Mac 25 having never sailed nothin. I live in Los Angeles and searched around for classes but the prices were pretty steep. Having once lived in Ventura (north of LA by 50 miles and a seaside town) I thought to check there. They have a wonderful program offered through the Parks and Rec department staffed by positively saintly instructors. Basic, yeah. But armed with their manuals and practiced on their boats you finish a 6 day course equipped with enough sailing smarts to start off on the path of the sailor's world. Others have had their experiences with schools but for a beginner such as myself I feel I got wonderful value and a solid - if modest - base of knowledge on which to build.

 

[Don Guillette]

Tricyclerob/Squidd: I've got an ample supply of books/charts ready for shipment. Order away!! I'm checking with Phil to determine the problem.

 

[Squidd]

Ordered Thanks...

 

[Squidd]

Just recieved the chart and book...read the first 20 pages...

Didn't know how much I didn't know about trim but the book looks well laid out and understandable...so that should change...

Reccomended reading...heck even has pictures and large print....

 

[Tom G P-21]

I saw the same post and cringed at some of the answers. The simple answer is take a sailing class. I started out at Community Boating in Boston. If you google sailing schools in your area, you're sure to get a hit. I am in the process of looking into classes for my wife so she knows what to do in an emergency. We know each other well enough that I can't teach her. The local club has an adult program sailing 420's, a little farther there's a club teaching on Sonar's. I am leaning towards the latter because it similar in size to our boat and I don't think she would enjoy a wet boat. Some people can learn from a book but others need to be shown how to do it.

Also, both of my kids have taken sailing classes.