When taught you to sail?

BarryH

BarryH

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This was a question posed to me last night whilst having a pint in the local. Proper answer is "I don't really know". No one really I just sort of picked it up as a kid. The chap I was talking to was shocked that my parents let me loose in a sailing dinghy with no tuition at all and were happy to do so.
In this day and age I would never have considered doing the same with my 2 daughters.
So who taught you to sail, or did you just get in and go and work it out for yourself as you went along?

Sorry thread title should be Who Taught you to sail
 
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age 7 read Swallows and Amazons, age 9 cast off in mirror dinghy, in sight of kitchen window but unsupervised on Airthrey loch, Stirling University. School sewer collapsed, Easter hol extended to Sept. Bliss.
 
BarryH said:
So who taught you to sail, or did you just get in and go and work it out for yourself as you went along?
Click to expand...

My father for the very basics, in the family dinghy. Then when he thought I could manage he let me take it out on my own, which I did for many, many hours. That was on the Clyde, from about 10 onwards. I also picked up a lot of theoretical stuff, knots and so on from the Sea Scouts. Coastal Skipper Theory was invaluable for the bigger stuff, but I've done all the practical learning for that off my own bat.

I plan to have the crew do RYA Dinghy Stages 1 and 2 at a local sailing centre this spring before setting him loose on his own this summer. In the same dinghy I learned to sail in <cough> years ago.

Addendum: Lotusman's post prompts me to say that it was the Arthur Ransome books which made me want to sail, and still do.
 
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Bosham Sea School 1970 aged 16, at their then Irish branch in Crosshaven. Two weeks in Wayfarers and Cork Harbour ODs taught me a huge amount. Not least was my capacity for drinking Murphy's and then sailing home .
 
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Went on a PGL holiday aged 8.

Then went up to my local council-run lake in Harefield (was called Hoveringham Lake then, but now call HOAC), rented one of their dinghies and went out to play and learn.

Never had any formal tuition (other than YM stuff).
 
School built a Mirror in woodworking classes. Nobody seemed to want to sail it so a couple of us took it down to the town lake, and just sort of crashed about. Slowly we got better at it. So when I left school and had saved up enough, I bought an old Fireball for no other reason than I liked the name. Steep learning curve! Then did a dinghy course at the National Sailing Centre, Cowes, in 470s.
 
A friend walked into my office 25 years ago and said "Fancy going to the Isle of Mann to watch the TT", I said yes but didn't know he meant on a yacht. After 10 years of lads trips alternating with 10 years of 1 week courses from all sorts of sea schools I felt able to take a yacht out on my own. Interestingly after 5 years I passed my day skipper but felt completely incapable of taking a boat out as skipper. Just skippered my own boat across the Atlantic and just beginning to feel worthy as a skipper. The big observation I can make is whenever a dinghy sailor comes on board even if they only did it as a kid, it takes them about half an hour to master sailing a yacht. Wish I started on small boats instead of jumping straight to yachts. Took me 10 years to truly get "wind awareness"
Clive
 
auditdata said:
A friend walked into my office 25 years ago and said "Fancy going to the Isle of Mann to watch the TT", I said yes but didn't know he meant on a yacht. After 10 years of lads trips alternating with 10 years of 1 week courses from all sorts of sea schools I felt able to take a yacht out on my own. Interestingly after 5 years I passed my day skipper but felt completely incapable of taking a boat out as skipper. Just skippered my own boat across the Atlantic and just beginning to feel worthy as a skipper. The big observation I can make is whenever a dinghy sailor comes on board even if they only did it as a kid, it takes them about half an hour to master sailing a yacht. Wish I started on small boats instead of jumping straight to yachts. Took me 10 years to truly get "wind awareness"
Clive
Click to expand...


Dinghy sailing at Pugney's (several RYA courses), Carsington (RYA catamaran), Rother Valley (RYA courses), DS at Plas Menai in Oct/Nov etc. Now with my own boat which helps a lot as does lots of reading and this forum - yes really!
 
When I was a wee boy, I used to hang about at the harbour, and also "help" the man who had rowing boats for hire. Fishing off the pier one day, and two young men, (although they seemed old to me) were getting a sailing dinghy ready. One of them looked up and said, "Would you like to come for a sail?" I was down the ladder like a shot, and after that, they couldn't get rid of me. Innocent days. I've been sailing, boating, involved with the sea, ever since. It's quite a long time now, and still learning.
 
Jack Ashton, 1st Portsmouth sea scouts. A great old boy who also taught me self confidence.

Ron Outen of Emsworth Slipper SC, my inspirational school teacher who taught me sailing and so much more.

Chap whose name I don't remember, owned old gaffer Romilda. He was a leading light in the south coast old gaffers.
 
I learned on Wayfarers when I was about 15 when my school organised sailing lessons as an option for PE. It was a North London school and a long way from the sea - the lessons were given on one of the big reservoirs along the North Circular Road and they somehow managed to get the UK Olympic Sailing team coach to teach us! Can't remember his name now, but he was very good - apart from expecting us to to our capsizing practice in mid-December - I didn't know it was possible to feel so cold. I suspect that he would have been prosecuted for child abuse if he did it today!
 
In the early 50s we had a canvas, wooden sided, collapsible, sailing & rowing dinghy, which I used to 'sail' and row on our pond. I was not allowed to join the Blackwater Sailing Club cadet section until I was 10. My elder brother was very senior and sometimes deigned to take me sailing with him. By this time I had progressed to my 1st boat. 10'6" clinker built, bermudan rigged called 'Monkey'. She taught me a great deal and enough to progress to my class dinghy. A 14' Sprite. 1/2 decked bermudan rigged and the racing class of the Club. Moved out to Malta in the mid 60s and started crewing, driving and skippering MoBos and cruising sailing boats. Learned the basis of DR navigation at this time. Moved back to the UK in 1970 and bought a Dufour Arpege, in partnership with 2 other friends. In 1972 I bought the other 2 out started serious cruising. The French and English coasts and Channel Islands. By this time my DR was very good !! Chartered a bit with my new partner but was mainly away from sailing until 1992, when we bought our next cruising boat, a Verl Islander 32. I took a course and got my Yacht Masters. Retired, sold the house and moved aboard Junica in 1996. Finished as a full time liveaboard last year. I can truly sat that I have always sailed and the knowledge came with the boats, working on and crewing larger yachts and teaching others.
 
John Crisp (R.I.P.) Windermere Level 2 Keel boat course, one week in the middle of the the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak (Which killed the tourist trade around the Lakes despite an awful lot of people coming by coach and not walking far.)

Bought Juniper 3 or 4 weeks later and bunged her on the lake to continue learning in a relatively benign environment. Still there some years later with occasional trips elsewhere.
 
auditdata said:
The big observation I can make is whenever a dinghy sailor comes on board even if they only did it as a kid, it takes them about half an hour to master sailing a yacht. Wish I started on small boats instead of jumping straight to yachts. Took me 10 years to truly get "wind awareness"
Click to expand...

I think you are quite right. I took on a student friend as crew last summer, and although he had only sailed dinghies a few time before, he got the hang of it very, very quickly.

It's a generalisation, of course, but I suspect that many of those who started on a Sunsail 36-footer and think anything under 30' is a dinghy are also the turn-the-engine-on-whenever-we're-not-doing-six-knots-on-a-beam-reach-directly-to-the-next-marina brigade. Not that there is anything wrong with that, of course.

In a similar way, I think those who have ridden pedal or motor bicycles a fair bit make much better drivers than those who have only ever used cars on the road.
 
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