Learn to sail

Promises, promises…

On 3 January, The Guardian published a poll showing that 77.3% of people who had made New Year resolutions had cracked only three days into the year and had broken their resolutions. Time magazine, meanwhile, published a list of the ten most commonly broken New Year resolutions. The top three were losing weight and getting fit, stopping smoking and learning something new.

Now, if you’ve fallen off the wagon, and are still gorging on the couch, ciggie in hand, you have undeniably failed if your resolutions were the first and second on the list. But if yours was the third, hope is at hand. You still have the rest of the year to learn something new before admitting defeat.

And if your promise to yourself was to learn to sail, now is exactly the time to do something about it. With the weather getting milder and the days longer, the idea of getting off the couch and onto a yacht on a river estuary looks increasingly attractive.

If you are trying sailing for the first time, your best bet is Flying Fish’s Start Yachting weekend. The course is based at Hamble Point Marina, between Southampton and Portsmouth on the Solent, England’s favourite yachting playground. It’s a fascinating and exciting place to learn to sail, with the shipping traffic including not just a large number of private yachts but also the Isle of Wight ferries, cross-Channel and Spanish ferries, cargo ships, a small fleet of fishing vessels and Royal Navy vessels ranging from a Stealth trimaran and aircraft carrier to a nuclear submarine.

All the basics of the sport are included in the two-day package: the use of winches and clutches, ropework, points of sailing, the five essentials of sailing, steering a yacht, sail handling and safety systems on board. A highly qualified sailing instructor guides the crew through the course in a friendly and relaxed way, so even with no previous experience you should find it a breeze.

The weekend starts at 10am on the Saturday with a briefing by the sailing instructor. Over the next 18 hours, you will learn all about safety and seamanship (how to use the safety equipment on board and how to move safely around the yacht, the parts of a yacht and the terminology used, the use of sheets, halyards and clutches, rope work including, knots, coiling and stowage, rescue procedures, how to operate a VHF radio, maritime customs and manners and the ‘rules of the road’, meteorology and how to obtain weather forecasts). You will learn how to steer a yacht under power and do a 180-degree turn, picking up and securing buoys, berthing and the use of springs, MOB (man overboard procedures) when under power; the boat when under sail (how a yacht works, hoisting, setting, flaking and handling sails; tacking and gybing, and steering on all points of sail). Perhaps, most importantly, as your sailing instructor will show you, you will learn the importance of teamwork onboard a yacht.

By the end of the weekend (disembarkation is at 4pm on the Sunday), you will be able to steer a yacht, handle the sails and ropes and know the rules of safety on board. On completing the course, you will get a Royal Yachting Association (RYA) Start Yachting certificate. And if that has whetted your appetite to learn to sail, you can follow it up with the Competent Crew course over two further weekends, to gain a RYA Competent Crew certificate and, after that, progress to Basic Navigation and Safety and Day Skipper Shore-based Theory courses and the Day Skipper Practical.

This year’s Start Yachting Weekend courses start on 14 April, with nine further dates for the UK course throughout April, May, June and July >>

The cost of £195 per person (plus £6 for insurance) includes accommodation onboard the yacht on Saturday night, lunches and light refreshments and wet weather gear if you need it. Which is a bit of a bargain – for little more than the cost of a weekend away, you will also have gained a valuable and enjoyable skill and made some new friends. And kept your promise to yourself to make this the year you learn to sail.

Flying Fish UK Sailing School >>