Sail Training: Part II First Class.

This is the second article in a series about sailing training. If you missed the first article about sailing schools, read it here.

This article will cover what to expect in your first sailing course. The course will be called "Basic Keelboat" or something like that. The purpose of the class is to familiarize you with all the various parts of sailboats and introduce you to basic sailing concepts. My class took place over three weekend days. Eight hours each day. The lessons were divided into morning/afternoon sessions and were consisted of about 40% classroom training and 60% live sailing.

Prior experience does not matter at all for this class. I should know - I knew absolutely nothing about sailing when I took this class. I'd never even been on a sailboat before (other than some sunfish type boats when I was younger). By the time the class was over, I was jibing and tacking and heaving to and felt completely comfortable handling smaller keelboats. The class is designed to take you from complete novice to competent small keelboat (20-30 ft in length) sailor.

What is a keelboat? That's the first thing they covered in my class. All sailboats larger than dingy sized have a heavy weighted fin at the bottom to keep them upright. This fin is the "keel". The keel serves two purposes: 1) When the wind pushes sideways against the sails, the keel prevents the boat from sliding sideways. It forces the boat to move forward instead. 2) The sideways push of the wind against the sails tends to make the boat lean over (heel in nautical lingo). The heavy keel prevents the boat from falling over to the side.

This was one of the things they explained to me before my first trip out on a boat. My instructor explained that the boat was like a Weeble-Wobble (the toys with the heavy weighted base). You could push them around or even knock them down, but they'd always pop back up. I was very glad he explained this, otherwise it would have been very disconcerting when we began to sail and the boat heeled over. It feels a odd at first, but it's totally normal and safe and you get used to it after a while.

The curriculum of the class covers basic sailing theory, practicing basic sailing maneuvers (e.g tack, jibe, heave to), reefing and depowering sails, explanation and operation of all mechanical devices on small keelboats, basic chart reading and navigation, anchoring, docking practice, man overboard procedures and navigation rules of the road.

If you are taking this class through a U.S. Sailing or ASA affiliated school, you will be graded pass/fail for the "Basic Keelboat" certification. (See part 1 in this series for more information about why this is worthwhile). The grading will be based on two factors. Your instructor will make notes on an official form grading you on your understanding of the material and your demonstrated ability to perform the various sailingmaneuvers. The second part is a written test that you take at some point after your final class is finished. After you pass the test, your instructor signs your official logbook and the information sent to the parent organization for issuing of the official certficate.

I thought the standards were reasonably thorough, but nothing to worry about passing. If you look like you are not understanding a point, (say tacking) the instructor will just have you repeat until you get it down. I studied some for the test, but it wasn't very difficult to pass. If you fail, you can take the test again after waiting a couple of weeks. The important thing is that you feel confident about sailing on your own when you are finished. I did and like I said, I knew absolutely nothing when I started.

I did my training at a local school over a few weeks of Saturdays. Another option is to combine your classes with a sailing "Adventure Vacation". You live onboard a boat for a week while you complete the coursework. There are a number of schools that offer this. This sounds like a great way to do some training - combine a trip to Carribean or some other spectacular place with your lessons and get your certification in a week. A quick search on the Internet brought me to this site that operates out of the British Virgin Islands http://www.seadogsailing.com.

That really looks like fun, but if you are like me though and know nothing at all about sailing, you might want to see if you like sailing before you commit to a week long trip on a sailboat. I am planning on doing this type of onboard sail training for one of my future classes.

What's next? There is a whole series of classes and certifications offered by U.S. Sailing and ASA. The next certification/course in the series is called Basic Cruising. It covers much of the same material as the Basic Keelboat class, but you practice on larger (30-40 ft) boats. You also learn the differences between wheel steering and tiller boats, basics of diesel engines and how to dock a large unwieldy sailboat. The docking practice is probably worth the price of the classes by itself. If you've never done it before, it is quite an experience driving a 35 foot sailboat straight at an immovable object like a dock. I'll talk more about the Basic Cruising classes in the next article.