I’m excited to introduce my 5-part learn to sail curriculum at sailboatinstructor.com. The objective is to help get more sailors on sailboats and then help them become proficient crew and skippers who can confidently navigate a practice course or beer can racing course with other sailboats.
Introductory rides and lessons provide a unique on-the-water opportunity designed to provide a memorable experience that will motivate newcomers to continue sailing. Part 1 - Introduction to Sailing is a short 30-minute course that allows these first-time sailors to get more from their experience, without overwhelming them with vocabulary, knots, and rigging details. Requiring first-timers to take the Part 1 certification course also helps volunteer organizers and skippers in a big way by making sure that sailors have basic sailing and safety knowledge before they step on a sailboat. Not only do the new sailors get so much more from their time on the boat, skippers who are volunteering their time see a noticeable difference and have a more rewarding experience as well.
Unfortunately, intermediate education at volunteer sailing clubs is very limited or non-existent. Parts 2-4 of this 5-part curriculum fills that void and teaches boat handling to those who are interested in taking their sailing to the next level. It’s not just for racers, it’s for anyone who wants to be a better sailor. Good boat handling skills benefit recreational and competitive sailors alike. The format of my entire curriculum teaches beginner to intermediate sailors what they need to know and what they need to do at each part of the race course (or practice course). We’ll start off in the front of the boat (Part 2), then introduce the spinnaker (Part 3), and then move to the back of the boat and focus on skippers (Part 4).
The boat featured in all my courses is the 19-foot Flying Scot. The Flying Scot is a daysailor with a huge race following. It's a versatile boat that offers the perfect balance of comfort and performance. It’s typically raced with 2, but comfortably accommodates the entire family. It features a mainsail, jib, and a symmetrical spinnaker. While the courses do cover some nuances specific to the Flying Scot, the boat handling lessons generally apply to similar boats such as the Thistle, Highlander, Holder 20, Rhodes 19, and other multi-sail dinghies and small keelboats. Even 420 and MC Scow sailors (and similar boats without a spinnaker) can get so much from these free courses.
Sharing a course with other sailboats and trying to grasp the rules can be intimidating to new skippers or new-to-racing skippers. I'll let you in on a little secret, most experienced racers don’t fully understand the rules and often misapply the rules all the time. I don’t know if that honestly helps or hurts, but I'm telling you that you can confidently share a practice course, and even race, if you watch this short 4-minute video and learn these 10 basic rules.
When it comes to the rules, most recreational sailboat racers learn the nuances of rules on shore by having a friendly conversation after a race over a cold beverage. I created my Part 5 - Right of Way course to aid in these post-race conversations and debates. The rules situations in Part 5 are categorized by where they occur on the course, so it’s easy to find the applicable lesson to figure out the applicable rules. I don’t cover every situation, but I assure you my lessons in Part 5 will cover 90%+ of the rules conversations after a race. I’ve raced in countless beer can races and countless regattas over the past 15 years, and it’s the same rules conversations over, and over, and over, and over.
As I mentioned, intermediate education is lacking or non-existent at volunteer sailing clubs. The sailing clubs I belong to are no exception. If we’re going to grow our clubs and fleets, offering education tools that compliment our fleet building and mentoring efforts are needed to help more sailors progress further down that pathway towards becoming a lifelong sailor. Having affordable and convenient access to intermediate education will hopefully make that pathway less daunting. Having supporting tools and resources will hopefully make it easier and more inviting for experienced sailors to take on a mentorship role.
So instead of creating an intermediate education program at my little sailing club that might serve 100 people over the next 10 years (don’t get me wrong, that's a good thing), I created sailboatinstructor.com so that 1000s or 10s of thousands could benefit. My sailing videos have enjoyed over 1,000,000 views to date. After years of trying to figure out the best way to leverage my sailboat instructor platform to help grow the sport of sailing, I’m excited to introduce my new 5-part curriculum to help introduce new sailors to the sport, help them navigate the race course, and provide mentors much-needed resources to help them grow and develop the quality of sailors in their fleets.
Cheers.
-Eric Bussell