A Good Beginning

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What do you do with a sailing class when the students are ready to go, but the weather is not? Monday was cold and windy, in particular the river is still dangerously cold (water temp around 42 degrees). Gusts approaching 30mph made teaching beginner sailing impossible.

(photo)Chaos? Not really, just getting the sailing gear out of storage. Learning to put on a lifejacket, and adjust it properly, is part of "gearing up."




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We've already learned a little about care of sails, now we put it to use: Stored dry & rolled neatly, the sails are never dragged or crumpled. Both the Javelins and the FJs have relatively new sails, and we use them hard but we take good care of them.







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Now we're out on the water! We learned a little about our sailing area, and weather driving our winds; now we are getting organized to actually get on the boats!


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We have rigged a boat in the parking lot, now what is different about doing while afloat? For one thing, the boat actually rocks & heels!

This is the tricky thing about any practical subject: for every single lesson, there are at least a dozen smaller lessons within that one, about how you actually achieve the goal. In one way, it's how we have made so much progress over the centuries!




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Now we are underway!

Er, umm, not really underway so much, but our lesson is under way! Today we practiced how to steer, how to handle the sails, and a bit of teamwork in making the boat GO.

We learned a lot today without ever leaving the dock, which was much safer than going out on the river.

One specific part of the lesson is TACKING



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A good way to learn is to WATCH others, then you can avoid mistakes! These sailing cadets patiently await their turn to practice steering, handling the sheets, and TACKING. When they got into the Javelins, they did an outstanding job!



This coming Monday, March 7, we will go to the Twin Rivers YMCA in New Bern for capsize drill. After that, hopefully the river water will have warmed up a bit and we'll get some good weather for really sailing (and not capsizing).

... posted by Assistant Coach Douglas King
... photos by Coach John Jackson