Teaching Sailing on Small Boats
Sometimes I wonder why I teach sailing. I think it’s because sailing is so great; I simply can’t stand to keep it to myself; I have to share it!
I am a sailboat instructor. I teach sailing on 22-45′ boats in Northeast Florida for St. Augustine Sailing. We offer American Sailing Association classes from 101 Basic Keelboating all the way up the curriculum. I don’t have a favorite class to teach; whichever level I am teaching that day is my favorite of the day!
Our 101-level classes are taught on small centerboard boats. My technique for teaching this class is to get right on the boat and start pointing to pieces of the boat and assessing how much prior knowledge each student has, and filling in the terminology with easy-to-remember memory devices for every single line and piece of equipment. Then we cover rules of the road, sound signals, markers, running lights, and more right-of way topics.
After going through above decks and below decks terms and items and all those rules, we then head out to the Intracoastal Waterway to raise the sails and begin with performing tacks and gybes.
After a couple hours of sailing, we head back to the marina for lunch and review. After lunch, we head back out and put tacks and gybes together to actually take us somewhere – down by the fort, over to the lighthouse, up to the airport… reviewing all the way. It’s fun to have a destination, and see how efficiently you can operate the boat in order to reach that goal.
That wraps up day one. Strengths and weaknesses are discussed, and plans for the next day decided based on weather on the trip back into the marina.
Day two begins with a quick weather and plans check, then head out to perform man overboard under sail, man overboard under power, reefing, and anchoring. Then the rest of the day is open for working on whatever skills anyone needs more practice performing, knot tying, rules review, and more sailing and practical exam maneuvers. Near the end of the day, students take a written test, we pose for a graduation photo, and make plans to get together again for some more sailing.
After the 101 course, students usually opt to take the 103 Basic Coastal Cruising class. We teach those on 30-foot-plus sloops.
I’ll go through a typical weekend schedule in that class in my next post.
Fair winds and following seas – be sure to subscribe so you get to read about the next adventure! © DeepWaterHappy
What to read next: Meet the Outboard Motor – Sailing the Small Boat
