Step One: Learn to Sail

The obvious way to learn how to sail is to go to Sailing School and I quickly discovered several based around Sydney Harbour .They mostly offer a cheap "Introduction to Sailing" as a way of attracting people to their more expensive proper sailing courses and the one I went to with Sue required us to front up one cold midwinter Tuesay evening to attend a lecture where we learned that ropes are sheets, port is left, the front is called the bow and sails on modern yachts work like the wings on a plane to create lift as the wind flows over them. The following Saturday was a beautiful crisp winter day and we went onto their Sydney 38 for a sail down the harbour and learned about winches and tacks and gybes. We immediately booked the Beginners Sailing Course but a couple of weeks later when they phoned and said the Course would be postponed because there were too few students I rang Eastsail, a much bigger outfit and booked myself in to the Beginners course there. It was called the "Start Yachting" course and consisted of four half days of sailing and instruction on their beneteau yachts. It seemed that what usually happens is that you pick four weekends and do one half day each time but I couldnt wait so I did them all in one weekend where there were vacancies in the morning and afternoon courses on the Saturday and Sunday. Next I did the Competent Crew Course, two weekend sails which involved sailing out of the harbour for the first time and sleeping on the boat. Finally, just before Xmas I did the Day Skipper Course. For the Theory part of it I had to take a week off work and travel to Sydney every day for 8 hours of lectures and then on Friday afternoon an exam. The practical part was five days living onboard, during which time with two other students and our instructor we sailed north as far as Newcastle and back. In my next Post I will review my experience of Sailling School and illustrate with some photos.