New to sailing

[athena7878]

Hello,
My husband and I have started thinking about living on the water and cruising the world sometime in our future. I can see that there is much great information on this forum and I am excited to learn! Both my husband and I have a mechanical engineering and business background. We love to explore and travel and to be as self sufficient as we can so we enjoy learning new skills. Any advice on where/how to start is greatly appreciated!

thanks!

[sailorboy1]

Best starting pont is to go for a sail and spend some time on a boat to see if it comes close to matching what it is in your mind! So go down to the local marina with the same story you just posted and ask around for who may be willing to take you out for a while.


PS - don't take the kids with you.

[Ryan H]

Hi athena7878,

Depending on where you're at as far as sailing skills I would start by recommending a list of books for you to check out, maybe take a sailing course and get yourself a bay sailor first to get some experience sailing.

For books my favorite sailing primer is Craft of Sail, by Jad Adkins. It is hands down one of my favorite books of all time.

My second recommendation for general sailing information is Seamanship secrets, by John Jamieson. Its a little more on the advanced side but with your engineering backround I think you'd appreciate some of the math tricks he uses for navigation in particular.

Since you mentioned living aboard you should read The Essentials of living aboard, by Mark Nicholas. Its a very solid, in depth look at just about everything on that topic.

For additional reading check out anything by Lin and Larry Pardey

Armed with all that I'd recommend a 15 to 22 ft boat to start with. My first "real" sailboat was a CCB Mercury 15CB. Solid boat, very stable, easy to take out yourself, sloop rigged with the cutest little spinnaker ever. Plus as its a trailerable boat and far less daunting to take out than a 30+ footer you'll likely sail it more and get better at sailing faster. By the time you've got sailing figured out on something like that you'll be ready to sail something liveaboard sized.

Once you get your liveaboard it may be worth it to hang on to the bay sailor. It can sometimes be inconvenient to take your house with you for an afternoon sail, plus the more you sail on a regular basis the safer your floating house is whenever you do take her out.

[athena7878]

Thanks for the advice and all the recommended readings. World cruising may not be the right thing for us, but it seems there are many small steps to take to find out. I certainly have some fears of being out in the middle of the ocean and whether or not we can handle all the problems that are bound to occur.

[Ryan H]

No worries, as you gain experience the nervousness turns into caution and confidence. Just take it a step at a time, no need to rush out, buy a boat and head for deep water.

Another thing that might be a good idea is to see if any yacht clubs in your area offer social memberships. Go to the events, talk to other sailors, check out their boats, and when you do get your boat you'll likely have a few experienced friends by then to help you sail her.

[Ramblingman]

Besides reading online and books/videos -

I'm a big fan of learning on smaller boats and take some classes at a good school. Find some folks looking for Beer Can crews and such too. You learn other things out there from different people.

IMO - Small boats are much less forgiving and so you learn quickly what not to do real fast, years ago at A S S we taught on Rainbows and Annapolis 26's and a few MOI 41's pretty easy to sail boats. The majority of classes were on the Rainbows but cruising style classes were on the bigger boats. This might be something worth looking into as well, it will give you more of a feel for cruising on a weekend or week long class on the Chesapeake. I am sure other schools in other places do the much the same.

...and if you are handy at all and are a slight masochist, go build one of these (we are just starting ours) - The Passagemaker Dinghy: Only 90 Pounds! Gives you a nice dink if you get a larger boat too while learning about a boat and the basic parts.

[athena7878]

Very cool link! Building our own little sailboat sounds great! thanks!

[SkiprJohn]

Aloha and welcome aboard!
Good to have you here.
I always recommend a basic sailing course first.
From experience building your own takes longer and costs more than finding a good used boat you can sail right away. Building can be fun but doesn't get you out on the water the fastest way possible.
kind regards,