Advice for a (almost complete) novice

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pj6500

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So..
I have my RYA competent crew cert, can windsurf, sail a dinghy (kind of) and have spent a total of 7 days on board a yacht (Lanzarote & Solent).. and want to do more sailing.

Thinking about: crewing, doing day skipper, buying a dinghy, joining a sailing club...
I live in NE London.
 
pj6500 said:
So..
I have my RYA competent crew cert, can windsurf, sail a dinghy (kind of) and have spent a total of 7 days on board a yacht (Lanzarote & Solent).. and want to do more sailing.

Thinking about: crewing, doing day skipper, buying a dinghy, joining a sailing club...
I live in NE London.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't....
you get wet, cold, it costs an absolute fortune and you can get hooked like me!
 
The words "Yacht Club" when applied to the honourable members of the East Coast Forum do not necessarily indicate any link with water - except perhaps to go with whisky.


Yes, post a request for info on the East Coast Forum; they can always do with fresh blood, err, sailors.
 
Dinghy: cold and wet
Crewing: unpleasant people shouting at you
Club: unpleasant people boring you to death


Do a day skipper course with a good school e.g. Southern Sailing School;in the Solent because you'll learn more faster somewhere with plenty of traffic, strong tides, variable weather, plenty of anchorages and marinas.

Buy your own yacht.
 
I like the Dylan Winter school of sailing; buy a small cheap yacht (not a big investment) find a cheap mooring (mud berth or trailer sailer) & go sailing. Ideally somewhere easy to get to & with plenty of short local trips to interesting locations. Build up as ypur experience & confidence grows.

Get the RYA distance learning course from the library & work thro all the exercises. If you want the bit of paper then take the exam - it may help if you decde to charter somewhere warm later.

You will get stuff wrong but you will learn how to get out of the problems if you apply common sense & the info from the RYA course material. Have as big an anchor as you can manage/ store as you may need it to keep you off a lee shore one day or to sit out a gale somewhere unpleasant.

Plan - do - review, the Kolb Learning cycle. Plan your trip arefully, do the trip & then review what worked & what went wrong. But do remember to integrate the lessons learned into your next passage plan! :D

Enjoy!
 
Searush said:
I like the Dylan Winter school of sailing; buy a small cheap yacht (not a big investment) find a cheap mooring (mud berth or trailer sailer) & go sailing. Ideally somewhere easy to get to & with plenty of short local trips to interesting locations. Build up as ypur experience & confidence grows.

Get the RYA distance learning course from the library & work thro all the exercises. If you want the bit of paper then take the exam - it may help if you decde to charter somewhere warm later.

You will get stuff wrong but you will learn how to get out of the problems if you apply common sense & the info from the RYA course material. Have as big an anchor as you can manage/ store as you may need it to keep you off a lee shore one day or to sit out a gale somewhere unpleasant.

Plan - do - review, the Kolb Learning cycle. Plan your trip arefully, do the trip & then review what worked & what went wrong. But do remember to integrate the lessons learned into your next passage plan! :D

Enjoy!
Click to expand...

Excellent advice there. You can easily get set up for under £5000 with a small yacht and mooring. Buying a dinghy, joining a sailing club, getting all the right clothing you won't be far off £5000-for what? Sailing round a little triangle on a fish pond?

Last year was my first year owning a yacht, before that I raced dinghies traveling as far as lake Garda for championships. Every weekend I was away driving 500 miles or more. Unless you are passionate about dinghy racing you'll soon get bored of 3 laps round the same triangle.

I have learnt so much more about sailing owning a little day yacht then I would ever have dinghy racing.
 
Searush said:
I like the Dylan Winter school of sailing; buy a small cheap yacht (not a big investment) find a cheap mooring (mud berth or trailer sailer) & go sailing. Ideally somewhere easy to get to & with plenty of short local trips to interesting locations. Build up as ypur experience & confidence grows.
Click to expand...

I like that advice.

I would say the OP has more sailing experience than me.

Of course we did it completely wrong. We Bought a boat, then thought about where to keep her, then started to learn to sail. If you believe some on here I should have drowned trying it that way. But I didn't.
 
Searush said:
I like the Dylan Winter school of sailing; buy a small cheap yacht (not a big investment) find a cheap mooring (mud berth or trailer sailer) & go sailing. Ideally somewhere easy to get to & with plenty of short local trips to interesting locations. Build up as ypur experience & confidence grows.

Get the RYA distance learning course from the library & work thro all the exercises. If you want the bit of paper then take the exam - it may help if you decde to charter somewhere warm later.

You will get stuff wrong but you will learn how to get out of the problems if you apply common sense & the info from the RYA course material. Have as big an anchor as you can manage/ store as you may need it to keep you off a lee shore one day or to sit out a gale somewhere unpleasant.

Plan - do - review, the Kolb Learning cycle. Plan your trip arefully, do the trip & then review what worked & what went wrong. But do remember to integrate the lessons learned into your next passage plan! :D

Enjoy!
Click to expand...

I'm with Searush on this one... well I would be because that's EXACTLY how I went about things. And I might add loved every minute of it, well almost;)
 
tom_sail said:
Excellent advice there. You can easily get set up for under £5000 with a small yacht and mooring. Buying a dinghy, joining a sailing club, getting all the right clothing you won't be far off £5000-for what? Sailing round a little triangle on a fish pond?

Last year was my first year owning a yacht, before that I raced dinghies traveling as far as lake Garda for championships. Every weekend I was away driving 500 miles or more. Unless you are passionate about dinghy racing you'll soon get bored of 3 laps round the same triangle.

I have learnt so much more about sailing owning a little day yacht then I would ever have dinghy racing.
Click to expand...

...but... the boat handling skills learnt dinghy racing will always stand you in good stead. It is quite often apparent when "yacht" sailors have never raced dinghies. Sail trim, close quarters handling under sail....

PS I dinghy raced for 35 years before taking up cruiser sailing
 
For some people, sailing is a gentle cruise from pub to pub; for others, it's a thrash around the cans, and woe betide anyone who tries to get ahead of them; yet another type like exploring shallow creeks and quiet anchorages, perhaps for a spot of birdwatching; those more adventurous may want to venture offshore, or abroad, or across oceans.
The problem is that you can't tell which will best suit you without trying as many options as possible, by crewing on as many different boats as possible - and it's far better to spend a couple of years doing this before buying a boat, because not all boats are suitable for all purposes, and it's much, much easier to buy a boat than it is to get shot of it...
 
greenalien said:
For some people, sailing is a gentle cruise from pub to pub; for others, it's a thrash around the cans, and woe betide anyone who tries to get ahead of them; yet another type like exploring shallow creeks and quiet anchorages, perhaps for a spot of birdwatching; those more adventurous may want to venture offshore, or abroad, or across oceans.
The problem is that you can't tell which will best suit you without trying as many options as possible, by crewing on as many different boats as possible - and it's far better to spend a couple of years doing this before buying a boat, because not all boats are suitable for all purposes, and it's much, much easier to buy a boat than it is to get shot of it...
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A lot of good sense 'greenalien'..... often said too... "the best days of owning a yacht are the day you bought it and the day you have sold it!"

So choose right and the days in beteween could be great as well.
 
I keep my moody 34 on the island of Leros. In the summer I visit the nearby many islands
mainly anchoring in the quiet bays. I have been a professional skipper in this area for 25 years. I make welcome friends old and new who want to explore this area under sail on a shared costs basis. Some friends have visited every year since I sailed from UK!
You are welcome to contact me by e mail Morivag@gmail.com
I wish you happy and warm sailing barryalan
 
All the advice so far has been spot on,

I did something similar to barryalan's suggestion, i had a mate with a yacht, went out a few times with him and thoroughly enjoyed it, the invite to " get yourself qualified and you can sail her yourself" was the motivation for me to do a couple of formal RYA courses and the rest is history!

Have sailed from southampton to Gib, lots of other places too, all on friend's yachts, then suddenly one day found myself buying a yacht!!! I don't know of a Yachtowner's Annonymous but there should be one, its very addictive :)

I am sure there are a few folks who would invite you out on their yachts too and being North London you have relatively easy access to East Coast and Solent/South Coast. There is a risk you do get a duff experience with a poor skipper but sailing with a variety of skippers on different yachts does give you los of good experience to help you decide what works for you :)

Good luck
 
Crewing

pj6500 said:
So..
I have my RYA competent crew cert, can windsurf, sail a dinghy (kind of) and have spent a total of 7 days on board a yacht (Lanzarote & Solent).. and want to do more sailing.

Thinking about: crewing, doing day skipper, buying a dinghy, joining a sailing club...
I live in NE London.
Click to expand...

Join http://www.sailingnetworks.com .We have got some nice crew from this website. Put your name on it and I am sure you will get some sailing.
 
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