Learning to sail

[ErBrown]

Howdy folks,

As I've mentioned previously in other threads, my wife and I are working to get ourselves in a position to retire from the corporate world (5-7 years) and hopefully do some extended cruising. So far we've been focusing on the financial side of the equation but this summer our goal is to actually start learning to sail and then purchase an older boat to learn on, something in the mid-20 footer range with a swing keel due to shallow access from our dock.

Anyway, to start the process off we've signed up to crew in a couple local sailing events and the first of which is this weekend. We're looking for some decent intro to sailing literature including common vocabulary, points of sail, etc... You know something so when asked to do something we can do something other than stand there scratching our head trying to figure out what a halyard is.

I've seen some decent ASA PDF documents that where nice but for some reason am having a hard time locating them at the moment. Anything folks have that can be hared would be greatly appreciated.

-EB

[DennisM]

How about this: ASA textbook here

[ErBrown]

Thanks for the link and it looks like a good book, which I'll probably go ahead and order. Looks like the same site has a nice little elearning intro course which I'll go ahead and check out too.

Online Sailing Course - Your First Sail from American Sailing Association

But was also hoping for something in PDF format that I could download and review before this weekend. Any decent free content out there?

[OldFrog75]

You can also try www.schoolofsailing.net

[Curmudgeon]

You can learn to sail in a day or two. Seamanship takes a lifetime. I like the Annapolis Book of Sailing as a good primer if you want to go crusing eventually.

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

You can learn to sail in a day or two. Seamanship takes a lifetime. I like the Annapolis Book of Sailing as a good primer if you want to go crusing eventually.

Yeah, you really can learn the basics in a day or two.

The rest takes longer and your life can continue or end on them ...

So don't just blindly go into stretching yourself withuot researching what you're going to try first, whether it's docking under sail or crossing the Atlantic.

[SkiprJohn]

My favorite thing to new to sailing folks is take a basic sailing course and study "Start Sailing Right!"

Good luck to you and please let us know how you did.

kind regards,