How I learned to sail and lost my sense of reason:

I found some sailing instructional videos online (I've included the link at the bottom of the page) that seem pretty interesting so I was inspired to write this post.

I spent a summer working as a photographer on Martha’s Vineyard. By the end of my first week there, I befriended a young man by the name of Emanuel. He was about my age, had studied sculpture in college, and was now apprenticing at the esteemed wooden boat building yard Gannon and Benjamin (you can read all about these guys in the book Wooden Boats: In Pursuit of the Perfect Craft at an American Boatyard). Anyway, Emanuel lived on a Bristol Channel Cutter. This boat was about 80 years old. No electricity, and cotton sails (the jib was actually the wrong size so we flew it up-side-down which seemed to work better for some reason), but the best part for Emanuel, is that he lived on the boat for free, as the owner kept the boat in Martha’s Vineyard but hadn’t used it in years. He relied on Emanuel to keep the decks swabbed and the bottom scraped and painted.

Living accommodations were spartan to say the least, but for Emmanuel they worked, and he was an inspiration to me. Often times, I would row out to his mooring, “borrowing” on of the dinghies at the G&B yard dock, and he would be there, strumming his guitar, reading and munching on a crust of bread, or just watching the sun set. Because his set up was really simple (a flashlight for light, books for entertainment, a couple sets of cloths, and a cell phone), it was easy for Emanuel to cast of the mooring lines and go for a sail. Occasionally, he’d take me, and usually a few others out in the evenings, after we had all gotten off from our respective jobs (in my case this meant after I had downloaded my photos and sent them off to press). Usually we’d sail from Vineyard Haven to Oak Bluffs, pick up a temporary slip, run into town for a beer and some fries, and then back on our small ship for the sail back. We were usually quite a site for the mess of yachtie vacationers around, shirtless, shoeless as we were, our boat with it’s stretched out, up-side-down sails and Emanuel paint covered with his hair pulled back in a ponytail, grimy from a day of hard work at the lower echelons of the boat yard (he would eventually work his way up to boatwright). This was my first foray into sailing and it suited me just fine.

After that I was really, truly hooked. To my credit, I’ve made some considerable gains in the realm of learning to sail since then and that is the purpose of this post—to pass on what I’ve learned for others who are anxious to sail but aren’t sure how to get started.

After my luck friendship with Emmanuel, I dedicated myself to getting on the water whenever possible. The following season, I joined a boat club on a tiny little lake. It wasn’t at all like sailing around Martha’s Vineyard, but there was wind, water and I was happy. The club was cheap to join which suited me perfectly, and they offered lasers as well as Rhodes 19’. The Rhodes was a perfect first keel-boat experience and initially I balked at the lasers. Soon I discovered that not only were lasers a blast on hot days, but actually I learned how to sail better on a Laser because it was so responsive.

So

Lesson one:

Get on the water anyway possible and IN ANY CRAFT possible. If you see yourself as a one day Blue water cruiser fine, but you can still learn a lot (and have some real fun) but flying around in an optimist dinghy.

Lesson two:

If you can afford it take lessons. This first summer of lake sailing, I learned everything from books, from trial and error, and a little from going out with Emanuel the summer before. Suffice to say, progress was slow (still it was progress). In 2007 I used a little spare money from a tax refund to take American Sailing Association (ASA) basic keelboat lessons. I took a five day course, and found the instruction invaluable for consolidating my boating knowledge and know-how to date. The benefit of taking a class is that you have a teacher who has experience teaching, and has the benefit of a curriculum. This is vastly better than the ad hoc lessons you’ll get from most friends. I also noticed that the cost of classes varies considerably from a few hundred to nearly $1000.00 so shop around.

Lesson Three:

Use every opportunity to keep practicing. What has really allowed me to retain most of what I have learned about rigging and sailing a boat, reading wind, heaving to, man-over-board drills, etc. is practice. The school I went to offered a week of free boat use after successful completion of lessons. This was a real bonus so make sure you ask about perks if you do take a class. This year I am volunteering at the local community sailing center for free use of their boats. The sailing range is limited for liability reasons, but I am still able to leave work, walk to the lake, rig a boat and get a good two hours of sailing in, which is plenty for practicing sail trim and so forth. So you see, what I have discovered so far is that with a minimum investment that does not require expensive yacht clubs, I have managed to become a proficient beginner sailor. Perhaps this is why I am so confident that I will be able to figure out how to buy and prep a boat for coastal cruising even though I don’t have a lot of extra income to do so…

Lesson Four:

Perhaps this should be lesson one but here goes: make friends with boat people. For me this means talking to complete strangers, leaving notes on companionways of boats that I like, sending out emails to strangers, anything I can do to open up communication with people who are sailing in my area, who know about boats, or who own boats that interest me. I’ve found that most people are happy to share their time and their knowledge. Sometimes I get lucky and score a sail out of it, other times I’m even luckier and score a new friend out of it.

That’s it for now. Since this is a new blog, and I see that already some people have visited I will let you know that I will not be posting until Monday but in the near future I will have the following:

-A list of my favorite sailing, how to, and boat building books.

-I am thinking about doing an interview with a guy I recently met named Skip (who I approached randomly see lesson 4). Skip used to make fiberglass sailboats, is very knowledgeable about the process, and helped me look over the meridian to determine her exact needs. Most recently he helped another guy in the boat yard restore a beautiful Tahiti Ketch (I’ll post pictures when I can. It will be up for sale soon by the way). After spending a few hours with Skip going over the boat, I realized that Skip is really a unique person—I’d like to learn more about him. If skip agrees I might as well share with the rest of the world by posting our conversation in interview format on this blog.

Until then, feel free to leave feedback. I have also posted a u-tube video link with sailing instructional videos. These look interesting. Enjoy!