Getting into sailing

[Mikedefieslife]

I've done a fair few overland tours over the years, and am now interested in turning my hand to sailing. Eventually I'd like to be in a position where I can buy my own boat and take it around the parts of the UK, Ireland and the Med before building up to sailing to the Caribiean maybe. Of course anything like that would be many years into the future, but it's fun to have goals right?

At present I don't have any sailing experience at all. Well, I was in a 'white boat' race (good fun) but was with experienced sailors telling me what to do every step of the way. Can't say I knew too much about what was happening at the time.

I've booked myself onto a RYA Level single-handed dinghy course, next month, and if all goes well I'll take the level 2 course too. Does this sound like a good start?

Both of these will be inland, but I'm thinking that after those I might be able to do a level 3 course or some kind of blue water training out in New Zealand early next year.

I should add that I'm in my mid thirties now, and most people I've met who sail started in their teens or earlier. Hope I haven't missed the boat so to speak.

I did ready @paul_S123 post. He currently owns a Pegasus 700 and it was recommended that he practices on that. After the two courses I've got planned this year, would it be worth considering buying something like the Pegasus to practice on?

 

[jac]

Welcome to the Forum!

Always good to start with the basic courses and dinghies are very good at teaching you how to sail. They won't teach you how to navigate or manage a larger boat which will be needed for your longer term goal.

I would suggest - do the L1 and L2 dinghy courses. Then maybe find a local dinghy club that is newbie friendly - buy a cheap older dinghy and sail there a lot.

You don't say where you are but if possible - also try and find a yacht focussed sailing club near by. Many owners will be only too pleased to have any extra hand that can stand their own round and provide additional assistance. It may take a while but you will get opportunities.

Finally - look to find a sailing school that does the RYA yachtmaster syllabus. Start at Comp crew then do Day skipper theory and DS practical as quickly as you can.

Once you have those, buying a small yacht and keeping it near the yacht/sailing club you are already in is feasible. You will learn loads. Give it at leas t2 years then maybe do the Yachtmaster Coastal theory and Practical.

After that it's really down to basic interest but you will have all the basics in place to start sailing longer distances ( e.g .around the UK ) and it's then just how much experience you pick up.

 

[Tranona]

Owning any reasonable small cruiser is a big commitment in time money and energy, so it makes sense to find out if you like it first. The dinghy courses are a good way of learning the mechanics of sailing, although not the only way. However unless you are close to the coast or willing to take an on board course it is a cheap introduction.

Taking a competent crew course on board a yacht is the best way of translating your dinghy experience into something useful for moving into cruisers, but inevitably it will be on a bigger boat than you are likely to buy as a first boat. The suggestion of joining a club is a sound one as that is a good way of getting experience crewing on other boats.

Of course some people jump straight into a cruising boat and learn as they go along, but that is a higher risk strategy than taking progressive steps.

 

[[70521]]

Hello and welcome

There are two schools of thought about learning to sail. One says get your arse wet in a dingy and the other that says get on a yacht and learn on the type of vessel that you want to sail, I am with the latter school.

Find a sailing school anywhere in the UK and get yourself on a Comp Crew course - they are designed for a total beginner, explain to the school your needs before booking, and get out on the sea. It is very, very different from a lake as you will have wind, tide and a big boat to work on.

Enjoy the journey.

 

[Mikedefieslife]

To add to this I live in Norwich, so there is no shortage of clubs around though most are based on the broads so it's mainly small YBOD.

I've already booked the level 1 course, it's cheap enough and is only a couple of miles from me. After that I can hire a dignhy at the lake to practice and/or do my level 2 course.


After that it'll be winter here, but i'm planning on going to NZ for two-three months, so it would be great to do something over there (most courses are RYA certified) on a cruiser or similar.

Hello and welcome

There are two schools of thought about learning to sail. One says get your arse wet in a dingy and the other that says get on a yacht and learn on the type of vessel that you want to sail, I am with the latter school.

That's a more old school approach. One thing I really enough about my motorcycle travels is prepping and working on the bike. That side of owning a boat really appeals to me, learning how everything works and how to fix it or bodge it if need be. I think I definitely need a course or two before hand though.

 

[johnalison]

You mention clubs, and although some people here may dismiss them as irrelevant, for many of us they are a useful source of opportunity and information, as well as providing companionship. I did my early sailing messing around on the Broads, non-club, in hired boats before progressing to dinghy racing and cruising. It doesn't sound as if you are a messer-around, but many clubs provide crewing opportunities as a step to sailing yourself. No boat is too small or too slow to learn from, and the advantage of Norfolk is that it is hard to do much damage.

 

[jac]

If on the broads, look at Norfolk Schools Sailing Association on Filby. Open to all and give good value courses. There is also training at Whittlingham broad.

I learnt on the broads and in North Norfolk but it's more days ailing round the tides and not so much cruising boat activity unless you look at Suffolk. Lowestoft is possible but possibly better to look at the Deben / Stour / Orwell area.

 

[steve yates]

i did a comp crew course, then bought a very cheap, battered small trailer sailer and just went. Jump in the deep end and you'll have loads of fun.

The only caveat is,learn to navigate, or at least pilotage. I was a climber first, so just had to factor in the moving ground bit, and make liberal use of modern apps and aids.

If you don't get lost, stay in the boat, keep the water out, and the boat off the rocks, you'll be fine.

Dinghies would probably teach you how to sail, but if you want to travel and explore, jump straight in. You can always go dinghy sailing when there is no time for proper cruising, and that will hone your technical skills.

 

[Gwylan]

Learn to sail and understand the wind.
Then learn seamanship.

There is a lot of stuff that just comes from experience and that can be expensive to aquire in many ways.

The two are complementary. The mix of these two is largely what separates dinghy and cruiser sailing.

You realise that putting a dinghy over happens. Putting any sort of cruiser over tends to signify that you have failed.

 

[tcm]

I've done a fair few overland tours over the years, and am now interested in turning my hand to sailing. Eventually I'd like to be in a position where I can buy my own boat and take it around the parts of the UK, Ireland and the Med before building up to sailing to the Caribiean maybe. Of course anything like that would be many years into the future, but it's fun to have goals right?

At present I don't have any sailing experience at all. Well, I was in a 'white boat' race (good fun) but was with experienced sailors telling me what to do every step of the way. Can't say I knew too much about what was happening at the time.

I've booked myself onto a RYA Level single-handed dinghy course, next month, and if all goes well I'll take the level 2 course too. Does this sound like a good start?

Both of these will be inland, but I'm thinking that after those I might be able to do a level 3 course or some kind of blue water training out in New Zealand early next year.

I should add that I'm in my mid thirties now, and most people I've met who sail started in their teens or earlier. Hope I haven't missed the boat so to speak.

I did ready @paul_S123 post. He currently owns a Pegasus 700 and it was recommended that he practices on that. After the two courses I've got planned this year, would it be worth considering buying something like the Pegasus to practice on?

hah this is a fun post. I did exactly what you plan, sailed to the caribbean 6 times and round the world and am writing this from the caribbean, and I'm mid-fifties, starting sailing meh, late twenties.

First I am not at all sure about dinghy sailing being the absolute MUST_DO THING to learn before eventually eating to go long distance cruising. I didn't. I know few cruising folk who did. Yeah yeah, you learn about the wind - but on a dinghy you learn about the wind (on a dinghy) for about an hour, or two max, and you learn how to trim trim trim and make it go faster and soon you have to go racing and then har har you're losing like of course all but one of the racing fleet, plus you got wet.

None of this is the same as sailing a loaded-up long holiday/adventure cruise under sail. I think people insisting on dink sailing is like car racing drivers insisting that people will learn the feel of the road by starting on motorbikes. Yeah true a bit, but meh, not at all sure it's must-do. Dinghy sailors who crewed on my boat transatlantic (and there must have been over thirty different people i took at various times) anyway the dinghy sailors were no better because of their dinghy sailing. Actually they were bit fearful out of sight of land one of them memorably rushed to the mast every time we even mentioned the idea of a reef. He was used to the issue being decided in a second, whereas sailing a cruising boat most decisions are ok to take a minute to decide, and sometime a week, and sometimes indeed several years...

So if you want to go sailing a proper yacht - i recommend you do that. Charter the thing unless you genuinely need to buy it.

I drove big powerboats when time was pressing like a weekend here and there, but bigger distances kinda mean you need to be under sail.

So, if you want to have a goal of sailing in the caribbean - get a sailing course in the caribbean. Duh! Then you'll be doing what you dreamed about.

Sheesh Mike you gotta aim a bit higher and faster. Buying a wotsit 22footer, arg. Don't buy a boat if you can cadge lifts and be able crew on a variety of boats. Otherwise you'll be like the 3 middle-aged guys on one trip who all had "their own boat" about 30-35 feet long and were the scardiest bunch i ever took across, jeez, and it was a 50 foot catarmaran. Oh and if you plan to sail in the Uk, you need a monohull to do all that carving about and hurrying to/from weather. If you plan to live on a boat, make sure the length of the hull(s) is at least 75 feet in total so that's either a massive mono or a medium catamaran. Anything else you will dump in favour of the catamaran. Then a while using the catamaran everywhere and selling it well after that you might buy a mono cos you wanted a pretty boat again, then sail that across the atlantic and jeez this is flippin awful i can see why most people do it just once.

So, there's loads boats to charter, or borrow or help out on, so I recommend that. If you're gonna spend more than 6 full weeks a year incl weekends on the thing and you would be in a cold place like the uk, well, best buy something that doesn't prohibit you from staying a hotel.

If you learn to sail in the carib, it's dead easy! No tides, and predictable wind. Like loads more predictable than the UK where some places pretty dangerous quite frequently. If you can sail around the uk, then really you can sail anywhere warmer. I would say that you need extra gear and skills for higher latitudes, but then i'd also say you were a nutter.

Chartering is for most people the best way to sail in Tahiti, too. I mean, cos to get there and back is essentially a circumnavigation, or easiest that way really. So when planning to sail round the world i cheatily flew to the various places and rented a boat, what a total cheat eh? I did the same for the Cannonball run, ran a huge Merc S-class diesel and was fastest by miles and miles cos i had the range at speeds to 140, done the course a couple of weeks earlier to find the best starting and finishing routes through the cities, buying motorway passes and seeing if they had cameras (nope) and all that.

So my recommendation is do a sailing course, then quite soon another sailing course in boat you can sleep in, in warm waters somewhere south so when if you jump in it's to have a swim, and not a matter of life and death as in UK.

Most important (and more important than learning sailing, which is dead easy, and especially in the carib where it is always from SE to NE and always 10-25 knots) is to make a lot of MONEY.

Money is useless at sea, but it can buy a lot of safety before you set off. It can buy you training, and flights, and buying lots of drinks for people who wouldn't dream of charging money but you need all their help too.

Most importantly and safest - more money means you can buy a bigger boat.

Oh and it's not a lot of years away at all - unless you decide it is. Sailing course on a boat that you can sleep on, more sailing courses, different areas (and carib is fine or med cheaper) on different boats. Sailing out of Gibraltar would be good, and that Captainsensible hereabouts runs er Hercules sailing skool down there, (free plug, well deserved and very relevant i think)

I mean, I know quite few sailing boat instructors and not much of what they teach would be "totally obvious because you sailed dinghies" Actually i will go as far as saying it's irrelevant, pretty much. Okay, you’d know that port and starboard rubbish, but meh, you get the fastest responses from someone at the helm if you tellem to go hard right or left right now.

So ireckon you should get on a big boat (bigger than 22feet) and get used to that. The longer times you have being on the boats that can go (or be) where you plan to sail, the better, really? Like being able to rent a adventure truck in south morocco, say, to lern about them there, maybe. And not riding a bicycle somewhere in the uk that much.

First boat I bought was 48feet long yehah. That was a fair while after a first boat holiday of course. Well, okay, it was about a week later. Hum. Another long story. Anyway guess what - it was easier to use and manoeuvre and get aro[und the deck etc than the 25 foot or 36 footers i had rented in the meantime while the 48footer was getting built to "get used to the bigger boat". Completely the opposite to what the old duffers say of course, but the extra easiness with big boats is cos the inertia of a boat increases with in proportion with the cube of the length, whereas the windage (gets blown off course) increases only in proportion to the square. Also you get lots more room and help with bigger boat. The costs rise too, though. Money, innit? I'm a more experienced skipper than many cos i had the money (and hence free time) to do it. Awful really. Ok not for me though, but i mean, er anyway.

Charter or learn or cadge lifts on something 28foot minimum. Until you do this, you are not much on the road to er getting on the road to to travelling between countries on a boat. I didn't do a transat till 10 years after first going boating, there's time yet, but not much...

hope this helps. Get back to work

 

[webcraft]

.
Doing a comp crew course first is a good idea, but make sure you then do a bit of real sailing before you go on another course. Lots of people do comp crew then nothing for a year then do Day a Skipper, and it's a farce.

Agree with Tom 22ft is too small . . . Smaller, older boats are cheap as chips now, get something 27-33ft for between £5k and £20k, get some friends who can sail and spend as much time as you can doing it. Wouldn't recommend keeping a yacht on the E. Anglian coast though - IMO it is a dreadful combination of boring and dangerous. If you are really into sailing, move to a decent sailing area.

- W

 

[Mikedefieslife]

Wow some great replies.

I'm thinking level 1 first which I've already booked at Whitlingam broad. Then I can decided if it's worth doing level 2 or just taking the dinghy out on my own. In New Zealand I can do a comp crew course around Nelson.It'll be in the middle of their summer so should be decent. No sure I'll enjoy sharing the boat with 4 others for 5 days/nights, my goal is sail short handed, but it would be fun.

TCN on the other page mentioned chartering in warm waters, but presumably you can't do that without at least proving to the company that you have the relevant experience which is likely to include RYA qualifications, or am I mistaken?

 

[RichardS]

As TCM says, chartering a proper yacht for a 1 or 2 week flotilla holiday in a nice location (The Ionian was my first charter) to really get a feel for big boat sailing was the key for me. The basic RYA qualifications are a great start and will teach you about sail handling and you will probably need one of these before a charter company will let you charter but email a few companies and enquire about flotilla and bareboat chartering and see what their rules are.

Until recently I had both a sailing dinghy and my "proper" boat and I was always amazed that most of the guys in the dinghy sailing club seemed to have little interest in large boats or chartering one and had never done so and didn't have any intention of doing so. For me, dinghy sailing was really just the first rung on the ladder of big yacht sailing.

Richard

 

[pmagowan]

What kind of boat are you planing to build and how? I also would advise just getting out on boats of all types but particularly cruisers. Read books and get to understand sailing. It is not that complex, only a few basic principles. For cruising you do need to understand things like tides, weather, engines, fuel and waste systems etc etc but you can pick a lot of this up along the way. A larger boat handles very differently to a dinghy and I never found dinghy sailing to be particularly helpful as practice for a big boat but then I have been sailing all my life (large and small boats) and so maybe they were just two seperate things to me. You can learn about how sails work etc but on a cruising boat you get the time to think about it. I am also planning on building my own boat but you really need to be looking at about 5 years of time to complete it depending on spec/methods.

 

[SiteSurfer]

I came to yacht ownership last year (so a complete green newbie) after a bit of crewing and quite a lot of dinghy sailing, I was intending to purchase something like a 22 footer to get me started and see how I got on. Looking at the prices of MOB's (and not being scared to get the hands dirty, despite having the DIY acumen of a moth) I started to up scope and ended up with a 29ft bilge keeler - I'm really glad I did, its a manageable size and has taught me an awful lot about boat ownership (although I'm still chipping away at the very top of the iceberg) and given us at least 4 days of pleasure in the last year. The other 361 have been "interesting" with the scale sliding between "oh my god why did I do this" to "want to quit the job now and sail away".

A year in to our purchase and I don't regret it at all, yes - the money I have spent could have been spent on several charters for the next few years but for sheer pleasure when it all goes right, I can't fault it. One night spent at anchor (once we'd bought a proper anchor) enjoying a sunset made all the hard work refitting worth it.

Oh and the sailing is easy, don't let anyone tell you otherwise - you get more time (as mentioned above) than on a dinghy - but it talso takes more time, my natural reaction was to sprint around the boat tweaking stuff all the time - its not needed, take your time and enjoy. The thing I found out after a lot of near misses was to plan in advance, look at whats going to (or could) happen and set up in your mind what you are doing. There's very little scope to adjust all the fenders and lines if you suddenly decide to change where you intend to park - in a dinghy its easy, just takes a bit more time on a bigger boat.

 

[Mikedefieslife]

What kind of boat are you planing to build and how? I also would advise just getting out on boats of all types but particularly cruisers. Read books and get to understand sailing. It is not that complex, only a few basic principles. For cruising you do need to understand things like tides, weather, engines, fuel and waste systems etc etc but you can pick a lot of this up along the way. A larger boat handles very differently to a dinghy and I never found dinghy sailing to be particularly helpful as practice for a big boat but then I have been sailing all my life (large and small boats) and so maybe they were just two seperate things to me. You can learn about how sails work etc but on a cruising boat you get the time to think about it. I am also planning on building my own boat but you really need to be looking at about 5 years of time to complete it depending on spec/methods.

Buying would be a good 7-9 months off yet, but I have been building a short list and reading about systems. I wouldn't build my own, but I would like to do some of my own work. A friend of mine is a boat builder, so i'd be able to get advice there. I have a good head for mechanics and electronics. I realise It's a lot of time, work and cash. I reckon I'd have a budget of up to £25k if I really wanted plus another £5k for work. Though as a first boat it could perhaps be better to get something older circa 1970s and much cheaper, that will probably help me learn a lot. No point throwing money at something I don't know how to look after.

Anyway, that's getting way ahead of things. Right now I don't really understand the wind, nor even how to tie knots. My shoe laces come undone most of the time. First things first as they say.

 

[obmij]

If you want to get into sailing for the adventure / travel side of things then comp crew first then get some proper sailing experience under your belt with some deliveries.

As a deckhand you really don't need anything more than comp crew unless you are working on superyachts.

My first offshore trip was via crewseekers (pay to join crew agency) an early season Biscay crossing. Also did many, many miles with delivery companies

They advertise in the back of the mags although nowadays are all on google.

Dinghy sailing courses are useful if you want to go dinghy sailing but that's it.

Have a blast

 

[RichardS]

What kind of boat are you planing to build and how?

Where did that come from?

Richard

 

[pmagowan]

Where did that come from?

Richard

Ha ha, I have seen what I did there. I have misread 'building up to' in the OP as 'Building one to'!

I have boat building on the brain!

 

[tcm]

Wow some great replies.

I'm thinking level 1 first which I've already booked at Whitlingam broad. Then I can decided if it's worth doing level 2 or just taking the dinghy out on my own. In New Zealand I can do a comp crew course around Nelson.It'll be in the middle of their summer so should be decent. No sure I'll enjoy sharing the boat with 4 others for 5 days/nights, my goal is sail short handed, but it would be fun.

TCN on the other page mentioned chartering in warm waters, but presumably you can't do that without at least proving to the company that you have the relevant experience which is likely to include RYA qualifications, or am I mistaken?

To charter (= rent) a boat like from sunsal, you need to feel competent to take the thing out, anchor or dock the thing here and there, put sails up and so on. The very slow way to get to this stage would be fiddling around with dinghies. The faster way would be to do some sailing courses, on that sort of boat. A "comp crew" course takes you from not knowing which end is the bow, to er, knowing end is the bow, and if you've done overland adventure stuff i think that might be a bit dull.

There are week-long courses with an RYA qualification at the end of it, and you can start at Day Skipper, I reckon. Well i mean, you found this site so that's more than most manage. You can take the week-long course anywhere - UK, Med wherever.

As you say, yes, this gives you a bit of paper to tell the charter company you are ok to rent the boat. Note that they're really keen for you to rent the boat, so it's not in the least bit hmm i'm afraid No sir - none of that. I rented a zoomy powerboat with no qualifications in the med, due to being British with proud seafaring tradition, said the nice frenchman in the office. Unfortunately i got smashed and ripped the bottom of the boat off on re-entry to the marina, but they were all very nice about it. So er anyway, you'l know when you can take a boat out, but the RYA Dayskip qualification is good enough.

Pretty much EVERYTHING else on boats you can live on is all about fixing them when broken, or maintaining them to dodge the breaking stage. The better you are at boatfixing the better any trip will be.

Knotwise, round turn and two half hitches, and bowline will do fine. Neither of these help with shoelaces, not an issue. Nobody EVER says hah call yourself a sailor - but i note that your shoelaces are undone! And on the other hand, neither does anyone say hm i see you've done your shoelaces with a Reversed Hungarian Sheetbend and Birmingham Hitch - nice! Never.

"The mags" = Yachting Monthly, mainly.

Edit. Yeah, boat course in NZ sounds fine. Best with others so you can watch others f*ck it up compleltely as well etc, and get a feel for how people should work together on the boat, all that good stuff.