{"id":360,"date":"2012-07-18T16:42:07","date_gmt":"2012-07-18T16:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/?p=360"},"modified":"2023-10-31T11:21:35","modified_gmt":"2023-10-31T11:21:35","slug":"learning-to-sail-in-the-wake-of-the-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/learning-to-sail-in-the-wake-of-the-olympics\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning to Sailing in the wake of the Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Learning<\/a>

Learning to Sail with First Class Sailing<\/p><\/div>\n

Perhaps the sailing Olympians inspire you to give sailing a go.\u00a0 Perhaps you have been meaning to try sailing for ages but have never got round to it.\u00a0 Well learning to sail is easy and if you are completely new to sailing this is the page for you!<\/p>\n

Years ago the Royal Yachting Association (RYA) came up with the RYA Cruising Scheme.\u00a0 The RYA Cruising Scheme is a set of yachting courses that take you from an absolute beginner to a worldwide sailor.\u00a0 You can see all the courses and how they link to each other in our Course Progression Plan at\u00a0RYA Sailing Course Progression Plan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The best starting point for a beginner is the Competent Crew Course.\u00a0 This is a 5 day course on a yacht.\u00a0 You sleep and cook on board and sail each day to a different marina or anchorage.\u00a0 You will learn how to sail.\u00a0 You will learn how to handle the sails: how to raise and lower them, how to set them correctly to the wind.\u00a0 You will learn how to steer.\u00a0 You will learn tons of nautical jargon and at the end of the course you will end up very much a useful crew member.You need hardly any specialist kit to start sailing.\u00a0 We provide waterproof clothing.\u00a0 The only things you need but might not have already are a pair of sailing wellies (approx. \u00a335) and a sleeping bag.\u00a0 You could get a pair of sailing gloves (approx. \u00a310).<\/p>\n

A Competent Crew course can be taken over a Monday to Friday or over 2 weekends<\/a> (a short and a long).\u00a0 Typically you arrive the evening before your course starts.\u00a0 Supper is spent that first evening meeting the instructor and fellow crew mates in the pub.\u00a0 After that it\u2019s back to the boat for a good start the next morning.\u00a0 It is highly unlikely you will ever have to share a cabin with someone you don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

Breakfast on board is usually around 8am and consists of croissants, bacon, eggs, cereal, toast etc.\u00a0 There are lots of things to learn about on the first day: lots of safety stuff like how to operate a lifejacket, how to hoist the sails, how to cast off.\u00a0 Once all this has been covered and everything is stowed away you cast off for somewhere like charming Beaulieu in the New Forest, sailing mecca Cowes on the Isle of Wight, Lymington and \u00a0Portsmouth on the mainland and plenty of other places.\u00a0 Along the way you\u2019ll learn how to tack, how to gybe, who has right of way over other yachts or ships.\u00a0 Most days you can expect to pull into a marina or anchorage around late afternoon.\u00a0 On one day you may go out night sailing.\u00a0 Trying to pick out flashing navigation buoys against the backdrop of a city like Portsmouth can be quite challenging but a lot of fun.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll practice what to do if someone falls over board.\u00a0 Don\u2019t worry! – This hardly ever happens on a yacht but it is wise to practice what to do in case it does happen.<\/p>\n

\"Practicing<\/a>

Practicing knot tying<\/p><\/div>\n

You\u2019ll do lots of steering and you\u2019ll get to have a go at parking the yacht alongside a pontoon.\u00a0 Learning how to park the boat is covered further in the next level which is the Day Skipper Course.\u00a0 Often people like to work up to the Day Skipper level as it is this qualification that companies in places like the Mediterranean like you to have before they charter you a yacht.<\/p>\n

So why not give it a go?\u00a0 If you click on this Competent Crew<\/a> link you can see dates and prices and read more information about the Competent Crew course.<\/p>\n

By Charlie Tulloch<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perhaps the sailing Olympians inspire you to give sailing a go.\u00a0 Perhaps you have been meaning to try sailing for ages but have never got round to it.\u00a0 Well learning to sail is easy and if you are completely new to sailing this is the page for you! Years ago the Royal Yachting Association (RYA) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-learn-to-sail"],"views":3192,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6534,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360\/revisions\/6534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}