Sailing School - BlueBuddha Learns to Sail!

[BlueBuddha]

Well not quite, but we are on our way!

Hi all, I just came back from a week in Florida doing the ASA 101, 103, 104, and 114 program. I posted a day by day summary of the experience in our blog:

TBT Adventures

Thanks to all who gave me tips about the learning to sail process. This was a great start in the long journey to becoming a competent skipper. Fair winds! BB.

[OldFrog75]

Originally Posted by BlueBuddha

Well not quite, but we are on our way!

Hi all, I just came back from a week in Florida doing the ASA 101, 103, 104, and 114 program. I posted a day by day summary of the experience in our blog:

TBT Adventures

Thanks to all who gave me tips about the learning to sail process. This was a great start in the long journey to becoming a competent skipper. Fair winds! BB.

Congratuations! You're a better man than I. I couldn't have digested all that information in a week.

Did they teach you what to do if a shroud or stay breaks? Only ask because it's happened to me twice and the texts do not spend a lot of time on it.

[BlueBuddha]

Thanks. Yes it was lots to learn in a week. I studied like crazy before so it was easy to make the connections between theory and practice. Many told me repeatedly how important it is to study a lot in advance and it is so true. The course would have been a nightmare if I had not studied as I did.

Regarding rigging failures, we only learned to tack or jib as needed to keep the failed area in the leeward side, but we really didn't practice it. We spent most of the time doing other types of drills (e.g., MOBs).

Best, bb.

[OldFrog75]

Originally Posted by BlueBuddha

Regarding rigging failures, we only learned to tack or jib as needed to keep the failed area in the leeward side, but we really didn't practice it. We spent most of the time doing other types of drills (e.g., MOBs).

Best, bb.

Hopefully you'll never experience it but it's obviously good to know what to do if it happens. I was on a Jeanneau 42 when the headstay broke and fortunately I was able to act quickly enough and we saved the mast. Two weeks later the same thing happened on different boat (coincidentally another Jeanneau 42) and the entire crew went below and hid out. 15 minutes later everything was over the side and in the water. Expensive lesson.

Now as I sail along I routinely ask myself, "what would I do if this broke or that broke?" Similar to driving a car and reviewing, "what would I do if I had a blowout right now?"

[monte]

Well done BB!
A couple of pointers to help with the learning, not that I'm a grammar nazi but it's best to learn the spellings of nautical terms while you're at it
Tacking the boat downwind is called a gybe or gybing, also can be spelled jibe or jibing
Winches are used for sail trimming, wrenches for plumbers and wenches for entertaining he olde salty sailor types
MOB drills should really have been in the first hour of the first day. Not much good if someone falls overboard before day 3!
You mentioned the boat was slow. It does t look like it would be too slow, but maybe it was pretty well loaded up. What were the typical wind and boat speeds?

[BlueBuddha]

Thanks Monte. I should have checked the spelling of the terms. I was able to fix them before they took my ASA certifications away .

We had 15kts of wind most days, with some days reaching 20kts. The boat was cruising between 3-4kts and once in a while would reach 5kts on a beam reach with 15+ Kts of wind.




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[Macblaze]

Congrats!

Now you just needs some miles (nautical)!

B

[monte]

Cheers. Er sounds a bit sluggish eh. Well to be honest the feeling of 5k as opposed to 7 or 8 K isn't much different on a cruising cat. The only difference is when you look at the instruments.

[BlueBuddha]

Originally Posted by Macblaze

Congrats!

Now you just needs some miles (nautical)!

B

That's for sure!

We hope to visit a few CF members this season. I hope to get some ocean miles helping on some passages in the east coast and the Caribbean.

We will also be crewing for a friend who races a boat in the great lakes and I'm joining the local club so I get access to their JY15s every week :-). So hopefully by the end of this season I'll have a couple of years worth of miles under my belt

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by BlueBuddha

Thanks Monte. I should have checked the spelling of the terms. I was able to fix them before they took my ASA certifications away .

We had 15kts of wind most days, with some days reaching 20kts. The boat was cruising between 3-4kts and once in a while would reach 5kts on a beam reach with 15+ Kts of wind.




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I am guessing as a "training" boat it had a pretty small jib.

[BlueBuddha]

Originally Posted by Ex-Calif

I am guessing as a "training" boat it had a pretty small jib.

Actually surprisingly it was a technically a Genoa. The skipper said the hulls were pretty dirty with lots of marine grow. That is what probably impacted the speed. But it was a great experience nonetheless. :-)

[Macblaze]

Just finished reading through... Lucky guy...you got to drag your anchor In all my courses and all my (limited) sailing we haven't yet dragged (even in the 30 knots after the wind shifted) and that actually makes me even more nervous about the inevitable. So I'm jealous that you got that over with right up front.

[BlueBuddha]

Originally Posted by Macblaze

Just finished reading through... Lucky guy...you got to drag your anchor In all my courses and all my (limited) sailing we haven't yet dragged (even in the 30 knots after the wind shifted) and that actually makes me even more nervous about the inevitable. So I'm jealous that you got that over with right up front.

We got really lucky that our neighbors were up and saw us drifting or eventually we would have hit something. I now have 3 anchor alarm apps just in case .


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[monte]

Hehe. I've tried all ten anchor alarms. The best I've found is called anchor watch. Also the one on opencpn works well. You should download opencpn and stat playing around with it at home. It's a perfect navigation backup and it's free so why not

[farmall.dude]

[QUOTE:] Two weeks later the same thing happened on different boat (coincidentally another Jeanneau 42)

Not trying to hijack the thread, but just curious... Same model year Jeanneau? I only ask because I am watching for one in my price range.