I’m hooked….what an experience! On the first sailing day, we made our way to the slip and familiarized ourselves with the J-22 we were using for our class. Got her all rigged up and motored out a ways, raised the sails and nothing happened. There was no wind whatsoever! We floundered around for about an hour but finally had to just call it a [no sailing] day.
But thankfully, the next day we had sustained winds of 5-10 mph, with a few gusts up to 15-18 mph, so the first sail was awesome! After rigging and leaving the slip, we had quite a bit of sailing time. I’m one of those people who generally learn better by doing, so this really helped put some things into perspective that I previously read about. It’s like a point of reference I finally had and things started falling into place mentally.
Since pictures are supposed to be worth a thousand words I’ll stop here and just show some pics and video. Enjoy!
Mike
Congrats to you. I still consider myself a beginner. It takes lots of practice. So far, the only sailing I’ve done was for my own ASA101 so I need lots of practice.
keep it up. You may need to find your own boat soon to work on the skills. Unless you know someone you could borrow from.
Good luck.
Thanks Daniel! You’re right about the need to continue getting more experience.
I have a couple of options: The yacht club where I’m taking lessons offers alumni sailing every week. So basically I can show up every Sunday afternoon and get three hours of sailing time on the J22 for $20, which I think is a good deal.
I’m also considering trying to find a small cheapo sailboat on Craigslist that I can use to gain experience and hone skills until it’s time to get the bigger boat.
$20 to go out sounds pretty good to me.
There’s lots of stuff on Craigslist. Also check out sailboatlistings.com and sailingtexas.com Might be able to find low cost options there too.
Good Luck in your search.
Good stuff. Thanks!
You couldn’t look any happier. You know that sailing schools are the gateway drug to bigger boats, right?
Haha! That’s probably true! Can’t wait till that day.