Live Aboard Sailing School Recomendations

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by sunshineslacker

hi, follow up to my earlier post, we took the asa 101/3/4/5/14 with virigin island sailing school in march. having sailed and owned a boat for 3 years I found most of the book work repetitive, saying that, having a 44 cat to practice with vs my 26 mono, was well worth price of admission. I would recommend this school and all the courses.

Originally Posted by Cadence

Be careful. I can't see a lot of parallels of handling a 44' cat and a 26' mono. They both float.

Yeah, 101 should not be delivered on a 44' cat, in fact that goes against ASA specifications for 101. Unfortunately, its a fairly common practice because for charter companies its all about booking the charter boats.

When I ran a school, I kept a couple of small boats on hand just for the hands on skills of 101. As should any sailing school that offers 101.

[sunshineslacker]

Ha,thats fortunate they float cause submariner wasnt in the course material.

[dwmCA]

We also enjoyed Santa Barbara, but I don't see cats on the menu.

[spearfish3]

My wife and I did the LTD school in February. We had a great time and would definitely recommend them.

[CoralReefer]

Originally Posted by LTDsailing

I can't really help you in the USVI, but if you would like to come a bit further south we would be happy to help you with your sailing goals! We offer Catamaran Cruise and Learn courses based out of Grenada. Here is a link to our TripAdvisor reviews: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attracti...h_Grenada.html

I would encourage you to look for independent reviews of any school you consider.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about learning to sail in the Caribbean. You can reach me directly by email: Chris@LTDsailing.com

None of your links on your site are working.

[Gabbiano23]

Thank you for the heads up! I am sorry you ran into trouble on our website! I just checked a few links and they seem to work for me on my machine. I will contact our website team and have them check it out also.

In the meantime, if you have any questions about our sailing school please feel free to e-mail me directly; Chris@LTDsailing.com or our office crew at info@LTDsailing.com

[LTDsailing]

Oops! I didn't even know I had two accounts on here! All of the information is correct for the Gabbiano post - just doesn't have our logo!

[Steadman Uhlich]

Originally Posted by belizesailor

Yeah, 101 should not be delivered on a 44' cat, in fact that goes against ASA specifications for 101. Unfortunately, its a fairly common practice because for charter companies its all about booking the charter boats.

When I ran a school, I kept a couple of small boats on hand just for the hands on skills of 101. As should any sailing school that offers 101.

I think this is a very good point.

I think there are sailing skills and experiences (of sensations) that one can feel in a small boat (up to about 30') that one cannot feel on a large catamaran.

The ASA (now USSailing) school that I went to in San Francisco, had Colgate 26 boats for the first classes. This is an open boat, 26 feet long, and very responsive keel boat. It is a tiller boat. It provides very fast feedback and good control. It is small enough that a person can manage the helm and the sheet at the same time.

It also responded to the wind and waves, giving one a sense of what was working and not working.

It also gave the newbie sailor (I was not one at the time) a lot of confidence in boat sailing and handling (e.g. Docking, heave to, etc.).

Later, the classes moved up to 36 foot and even larger 42 foot boats.

I think this progression is very sensible, even if someone wants to later own a large cat, but has no prior sailing experience where they had to control the boat (not just sitting as a guest).

I just recently finished a 640nm voyage on a 52 foot cat. IF I were a newbie, I would not want to start learning about sailing on a large cat, as a newbie (someone without any sailing experience at the helm). I think it is better to learn on smaller boats, then progress up to larger as your skills and confidence merit.
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That said, if I did have some previous sailing experience, and wanted to get experience on a larger boat, to augment my experience on smaller boats, I think the liveaboard option is a good one. That service, or lessons or liveaboard classes provided by such folks as LTD Sailing in Grenada, would be something I would seriously consider.

[trimaran808]

Aloha,

We took the ASA 101, 103, 104 and 114 courses on a 1 week live aboard in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines with Barefoot Offshore Sailing School (BOSS) and figure I would report back.

Beautiful place, we had a great time and a good instructor. Most important, this was the Mrs. first time "living aboard" and she loved it and is excited on the possibility of full time cruising.

We choose BOSS because of their location and lower prices. We had an older cat (2002) and although they advertise class sizes of 4 (possibly 5), we had 3 couples + instructors, which was a surprise since they confirmed in writing that there would be no more than 5 people and of my booking date was just 2 couples.

Overall a very positive experiece

Thanks for everyone's input.

[Sawbonz]

I'm glad you enjoyed it and hope you make it into the water full time soon.

[ShellBack89]

Has anyone had any experience with Nautilus Sailing or water sailing">Blue Water Sailing Schools? Looking to do their live aboard for the ASA 101 through 114 courses they offer.

[LTDsailing]

Originally Posted by ShellBack89

Has anyone had any experience with Nautilus Sailing or Blue Water Sailing Schools? Looking to do their live aboard for the ASA 101 through 114 courses they offer.

ShellBack89 - Nautilus does run a good program here in the Grenadines - not familiar with their other operations. The only thing I would say to be careful with is that they do not offer their Basic Keelboat courses on a monohull. This is the case with a lot of destination schools and I would be lying if I told you we had never done it - but we are super happy to have a sweet J/105 to teach our ASA 101 courses on now.

Check out this video featuring 'Dogsmile', our award winning J/105: https://youtu.be/2NcKVckzV6s

[Hoosierdoc]

I found this post the day after we put a deposit down with VI Sailing School for 101/103/104/114 in January. My wife and I have done some sailing before and we'll do the whole thing on a cat.


Really looking forward to it.