Recommended stepping stone from dinghy sailing to yacht cruising

[Beluga Sail]

Hello,

I'm hoping some of you who've been there and done it can offer some advice on getting into yacht cruising.

My partner and I have been dinghy sailing for a few years (mostly inland waters) but aspire to get into yachting and at some point undertake a journey around Europe, living aboard for up to a few months at a time. This isn't going to happen straight away but I don't want to wait forever either, I'd like to make the option available in 2-3 years time. So I feel I should start laying some foundations and getting experience.

I want to be able to get experience sailing on the sea and with looking after a boat, making as many mistakes as is necessary to learn quickly but in such a way where these mistakes come cheaply. I do have a budget for this but whatever I do needs to be good experience-value for money. There's two options I feel I have for this interim period:

1) crewing on other people's yachts
2) buying and sailing a 'pocket cruiser'

Crewing for others is often something I hear recommended and I can understand why. In reality though, I'm not sure how available this option is going to be to me; I do not live near to the main yachting areas and quite frankly I don't know anybody with a yacht! Perhaps this will change as I get my foot in the door but right now that's not where I am. Hence the thought to buy a pocket cruiser which would also allow me to get experience with aspects of boat ownership and maintenance. I'm thinking something between 18-24' that can be trailered so I can visit different parts of the coast and bring it home for maintenance, but I don't know if this type of experience is actually what I need? - are these trailerable pocket cruisers, and what one an do with them, more like sailing a mini yacht or just a big dinghy?

I've not mentioned formal training such as the RYA courses because I first need an idea of how I would follow those up with actual sailing, but I will of course consider these courses as well.

So I guess my question is: Is a year or two sailing a pocket cruiser going to be valuable experience to stepping up to a cruising yacht? And what else should I do to get meaningful experience quickly?

Looking forward to your thoughts! Thanks.

 

[Wansworth]

Depends where you live but a bilge keel Trident 24 or. Halcyon 23 will give you a place to live aboard and savor all aspects of yachting without going too big .

 

[MoodySabre]

Buy a pocket cruiser, go out on a gentle day F3 and put the sails up. Do RYA day skip theory. Off you go.

 

[KompetentKrew]

You might look at www.PhoenixYachtClub.co.uk, www.brightonbelle.org and www.sailoverlord.org

www.SailRacingAcademy.org do some long mile-builders; www.tallships.org do some good trips on their Challengers, and often offer last-minute discounts.

There are also the Solent Facebook crewing groups - my first year sailing I got 3 weeks in Brittany and two weeks in Spain & Portugal off them; including the paid sailing above I got a total of about 80 or 90 days in all.

 

[Adrian62]

I would say best way to progress to a yacht is to buy a yacht and go out sailing , it’s exactly the same as a dingy just a bit slower and a bit more space required . Yes you will make mistakes but you will soon learn , advantage if you do day skipper theory for navigation and col regs . But enjoy and have fun .

 

[westernman]

I can highly recommend doing a day skipper or coastal skipper course. I had a lot of dinghy sailing experience when I did mine and learnt a lot about managing a yacht, anchoring, parking stern to, and gained a huge amount of confidence in handling a boat which weighed some 15 tons as opposed to 100kg dinghy.

 

[Daydream believer]

If one can sail a dinghy well & read a few books then a VHF course & some crewing experience is all one needs. Dayskipper etc always seems a waste of time to me. I just got in my Stella & went sailing & that was in 1968. But I did some book reading when I knew the boat had been ordered & had sailed a hornet for 4 years prior. Things are so much easier now with chart plotters better instruments & good pilot books etc

 

[magicol]

I was in exactly your position a few years ago. Totally agree about taking the Day Skipper both theory and practical. Not so sure about going straight in and buying a boat. The sort of boat I finally bought was very different to my original plans. I placed postcards on the notice boards of several marinas and clubs offering to crew. I was amazed at the offers I received and it allowed me, in one summer, to experience so many different boats and many different skippers. I learned so much from the good, the bad and everything in between! At the end of that summer, I bought my own boat, a bit bigger than I had originally intended but set up and just right for my personal needs and home sailing area. Never regretted the delay in buying my boat, had so much fun gaining experience and meeting interesting and knowledgeable people: I think I made better decisions as a result.

 

[Ian_Edwards]

After growing up racing dinghy's, we bought a wayfarer, yes, still a dinghy, but we cruised that for a few years, mostly West Coast of Scotland and Orkney.
Then a Jaguar 21, towable behind a 2L Passat, much bigger and you need a decent 4X4, sailed and cruised that around the East Cost of Scotland and Orkney.
Then jump up to a Parker 275, not really trailable, and heavy to launch and recover, kept it on a drying mooring and sailed the East Coast of Scotland, occasionally going round the corner (Cape Wrath) and venturing down the West Coast of Scotland.
When I retired from full time work, I bought a Dufour 40, sailed the West Coat of Scotland.
I now have Southerly 46 and sail around the UK and Ireland, Shetland to the Solent. not ventured east of the Solent, or south of the Wash. (There be dragons and sand banks down there).
So I guess the message is, start small and build up your experience, moving up a size when you can afford it, in essence sailing a Southerly 46, is very much like sailing a Wayfarer. I still sit on the windward side, playing the mainsheet, although I'm now using an electric winch and the mainsail is about 650 square feet. It's also very comfortable to live on.
There's nothing like getting on with it, in your own boat, you learn very quickly, and if you have something like a Jaguar 21, which is fast and dinghy like to start with, it'll feel very natural, and when you feel ready, challenge yourself with something bigger and faster. I think that's much more fun.

 

[johnalison]

If you can sail a dinghy, you can sail just about anything, and you won't even get wet in the process. You can do the modern thing, which is do do a few courses and then buy yourself a 35' 'family boat'. Modern craft are very forgiving, and these people either survive, or someone gets frightened and they take up caravanning. Your idea of a small cruiser is harder work, but you will learn more, and more quickly, and for less cost, and, dare I say it, end up a better seaman, while you are making a good attempt at pretending to enjoy yourselves. The disadvantage is that in future years you will be like the rest of us and tut-tutting about the new generation having things too easy, and be subject to the same mockery from the young.

 

[graham]

Dont waste time and money on "stepping stone boats" buy the boat you ultimately want for your big adventure .

If you can sail a dinghy you can sail a yacht. Hire an instructor for a few days to get you started do some nav courses and go for it.

 

[Neeves]

We learnt on a J24. There are lots of yachts of 'that' sort of size which would be suitable on which to make your mistakes.

Spoon feeding did not suit us but it does suit many.

There are plenty of You Tube vids - watch them. We learnt from video produced by North Sails (on a J24)

I'd agree with Daydream - don't bother with the courses - you will learn much more quickly by making your own mistakes and sorting them out. If you are taught the 'right' way it will miss some salient points and when you get them wrong you will not be so adept at correcting the error.

I would not buy the target yacht on which you will realise your dream until you have cut your teeth. You need to work out what you and your partner want, or do not want, in your dream yacht and getting it wrong with a 35' yacht is more difficult (and expensive) to correct than getting it wrong with a 24' yacht.

But - look at what you might like, now or in the future - post a thread on these likes - and see what sort of response you get. Go out and look at different yachts. We all have different ideas - but you can weight up those differences yourself. Once you have started on the life of ownership - again start threads here. That's what the forum is for. We cater for anyone willing to learn and also cater for more detailed issues. Never feel that a question is too simple or too controversial.

Jonathan

 

[Skylark]

Welcome to the forum @Beluga Sail

As you will have read, there are many perfectly legitimate routes into yacht sailing. Forum members have different experiences and are always happy to share. I think that it would be incorrect to suggest that there is a “right and wrong” way to start.

Investing £7, or thereabouts, in a RYA Yachtmaster Scheme Logbook is often considered as money well spent. This publications outlines the cruising scheme and details the syllabus for each course, shorebased and practical. Simply reading it will give you a good idea as to the depth and breadth of knowledge generally required to safely and responsibility crew/skipper a small craft. It’s not a bad starting point for you to establish youcurrent levels of skills and knowledge.

There’s no substitute for spending time on the water. Many, myself included, favour progression so your thought about a “pocket cruiser”, later moving to a larger vessel, sounds sensible.

I used to share the commonly held opinion that “if you can sail a dinghy, you’ll be able to sail a yacht” but I’ve moved away from that view. The RYA Comp Crew provides a very thorough grounding. For those with dinghy only experience, the Day Skipper course is a big step and some relevant sea time helps a student get more out of the course. A good maxim for all courses is “the more you put in, the more you’ll get out”.

Fair winds!

 

[Blueboatman]

If you can afford it, buy something decent, newish, in really good condition and mainstream enough to resell easily once you’re itching for a big ‘un.
I dunno, Beneteau first 21, something like that .
A decent trailer /sailer package with an all over cover will be a lot of fun and of course you can cherry pick which uk coast has the best weather when holiday times come around.

 

[DownWest]

If you do want to trail/sail then buy something about 21ft and 1 ton. Beyond that it gets an effort to use and becomes something you tend to leave in the water and bring home at the end of the season, rather than using for w/ends in different locations. For obvious reasons, shallow draft with a lifting keel or centre plate speeds handling up.

 

[slawosz]

Hunter Europa would me my choice for trailable boat. Small but safe. But how about getting something you can use for said voyage? Preparing and learning about yacht can take long time. Unless you can afford mentioned 35 footer in good condition

 

[dansaskip]

I sailed dinghies before I bought a small yacht and thus started on the”road” to become a sailor. So just buy a boat and go for it. I would recommend doing a navigation course though. I jumped straight into aRYA yacht master course as years of map reading, mountain navigation and sea canoeing had I reckoned had given me good knowledge and a head start

 

[westernman]

I was in exactly your position a few years ago. Totally agree about taking the Day Skipper both theory and practical. Not so sure about going straight in and buying a boat. The sort of boat I finally bought was very different to my original plans. I placed postcards on the notice boards of several marinas and clubs offering to crew. I was amazed at the offers I received and it allowed me, in one summer, to experience so many different boats and many different skippers. I learned so much from the good, the bad and everything in between! At the end of that summer, I bought my own boat, a bit bigger than I had originally intended but set up and just right for my personal needs and home sailing area. Never regretted the delay in buying my boat, had so much fun gaining experience and meeting interesting and knowledgeable people: I think I made better decisions as a result.

The coastal skipper course includes some night time sailing. If you have not done this before, it is well worth taking a coastal skipper vs a day skipper purely for this point. Having an instructor with you who knows the area for the first time you sail in the dark is worth it.

 

[andsarkit]

If you have sailed a dinghy you will find it easy to sail a larger yacht. However a yacht is a machine with mechanical, electrical and electronic systems that need to be maintained and kept functional.
I have an engineering background and so fixing things comes naturally. I was happy to do a few years of dinghy sailing, lots of reading and a yachtmaster theory course and then bought a boat and went sailing
Starting with a simple smaller yacht will enable you to spend more time sailing rather than fixing the inevitable problems that will occur. If you are confident in your ability to maintain a more complicated larger yacht, then by all means enjoy the benefits of more comfortable living and the ability to voyage further afield.
A lot depends on you and your partner's attitude to comfort and risk which only you can decide.

 

[oldbloke]

If you have never done any yachting,I would suggest considering a yacht flotilla holiday somewhere warm and easy ,such as the Ionian ,as a first step
Basic dinghy competence is enough for most companies and there are people on hand to help with the tricky stuff.