Looking for advice

Posted by officialpatterson@reddit | sailing | View on Reddit | 7 comments

Always been interested afar in sailing but more recently felt it’s time I should see what I’m missing out on.

I have next to no experience sailing and looking for advice on how best to get started with the eventual aim of being able to sail around the UK/europe.

If it helps any I’m based in Glasgow, United Kingdom

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strictnaturereserve@reddit

a sailing course for lasers is usually fairly reasonable what you are doing there is conceptually the same as what they do on yachts and I don't mean vaguely similar its the same idea head sail main sail but just bigger.

Have a look at Sailing clubs and see if they need crew for their weekly racing league you will get an insight into what it is about and can ask questions

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jfinkpottery@reddit

I see people recommend starting with a dinghy a lot, and it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If you spend the time to get good at dinghy sailing, transferring that skill to a yacht is going to mean re-learning 95% of it. All the line handling is different. The overall seamanship of caring for a yacht is completely unrelated to caring for a dinghy. All that physical training to ballast the dinghy is just completely irrelevant in a keelboat.

It's just a totally different activity that happens to share the concept of its propulsion, like learning to ride a vespa scooter so you can get a job as a bus driver.

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strictnaturereserve@reddit

My experience of this exact thing was different in that I found it useful.

Another reason you would do it is that it is less expensive.

I have been crewing on yachts for about 10 years I have never been given a head sail to run on my own certainly never helmed it and adjusted the main sail twice I don't mind it and I have learned a lot but you need to sail yourself too

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jfinkpottery@reddit

It sounds to me like you're describing racing. It does not sound to me like OP is asking about crewing on a racing boat. Learning to race isn't really relevant to sailing around Europe. Learning to race a sailboat is about 5% learning to sail and about 95% learning to race. Sailing is easy, you almost can't get it wrong.