i'm so new to this

[oniyoshi]

Hello Everyone,

I am a 24 year old girl that wants to learn to sail more than anything in the world. I am willing to do anything to learn. what advice can y'all give me about the best way to learn? thank you all so much for any responses.

Adios

[BC Mike]

Do not admit to be willing to do anything to learn, sailors are a, oh never mind. One person one sail one boat is the best way to learn, but you could also get a ride on a bigger boat as well. The smaller boats give you a better feel for sailing. Most yacht clubs have a crew list of folks that need crew or crew looking for a boat. And they have sailing classes. Dedication can be more important than talent. If you sign up for the Wednesday night or Sunday races you will need to be there every week. If you offer to help with the hull polishing, bottom painting and sail repair you will probably get a marraige proposal, even if you are all ready married. Is this too much info for a newbie? I found a girl who could jibe the pole and I have been married to her for 20 years. BC Mike C

[delmarrey]

Hi Oniyoshi,

Hopefully, your close to a large body of water where there are sailboats. If so, then I'd suggest getting some lessons. Try the yellow pages. Then find a yacht club and start signing up to crew on boats, like BC Mike was saying.

After that, anything's possible. Wish I were 24!

.................................................. ..............._/)

[Jeff H]

There are a lot of good books out there on the basics of sailing. Steve Colgate's wife's (and I can never remember her first name) book, "Sailing for Women" is actually one of the best written books on the topic for any gender. You can't really completely learn how to sail from a book, but you if you read and then get out and do it, you will learn a lot more quickly.

As the other two posts suggest, if you live in an area where there is an active sailing community you can often get to crew on race boats (or even daysailing with someone like myself who will often bring folks along when I would otherwise be single handing).

Sailing communities often have sailing courses at the local Community Colleges which can get you fairly inexpensive access to an instructor and time on the water. Yacht Clubs and such organizations as Power Squadron or Coast Guard Auxillary also offer course. Sailing communities will often have small craft day rentals which is another way to get out on the water. An excellent way to ramp up your skills is to buy a small boat (either a dinghy or small keel boat) which can often be done quite cheaply and the time spent sailing and maintaining the boat will rapidly increase the speed at which you learn because of the time on water and if you have a boat, you can generally find boatless experienced people who are willing to come along and coach you.

Lastly, if you don't live within easy driving distance of a major sailing community (I'd say you need to move but that is just me) then you can use vacations to enroll in emersion courses in sailing, you can charter boats with other people, or sign up on crew lists.

BTW Where do you live?
Best wishes,
Jeff

[GordMay]

I think it's Doris & Steve Colgate that Jeff's refering to.

[Joyce GVL]

You go girl! offer to clean heads or whatever( Well maybe not whatever) eventually they will ask you to trim this or haul that, if you can head in the right direction and ask "how much" they will begin to see you are serious. Don't give up! If you can master the smallest task, the rest will follow.