How to get into sailing

If you are not already an old sea penguin like us, then maybe you have always had a hankering to get out on the water and learn to sail. As a sea faring nation, the call of the ocean is in our blood (although try telling that to someone who goes green at the sight of a wave) and learning to sail is a liberating and exhilarating experience that we personally think can never be beaten.

As you learn to sail, get ready for a whole new vocabulary from leeward to gybing, tacking and halyard. It may sound like a Thomas Hardy novel, but you are about to learn the ancient art of boat talk. We should warn you as soon as you experience that first tack of a sail, we expect you will be hooked, line and sinker into falling in love with sailing, spending the rest of your waking hours and a few sleepless nights plotting how to get back out onto the water. You’ll probably also develop a more than mild obsession about the weather and quite possibly end up working in boat insurance so you can chat about your favourite subject all day.

If that still sounds appealing to you, the next question is how to get that first experience? Unless you have a good friend with a yacht (and we always recommend you find one), learning to sail can feel daunting. However, there are great sail training courses that take place all over the country, and a good place to start is by visiting the RYA website. With over 1000 sailing/yacht clubs spread across the UK, welcoming beginners with open arms, popping in for a chat may land you with a taster trip out on the water, if don’t mind being thrown in the deep end, so to speak. They also host many of the RYA courses using their own in-house sailing instructors. Wherever you live in the UK, you’ll find a sailing club not too far away.

Once the how is sorted, then you need to decide which type of boat is best to get that first experience in.  The sailing club, or instructor you have your first lesson with will steer you in the right direction, but you will most likely learn the sailing basics on a sailing dinghy.

A sailing dinghy is a small boat with a sail, typically designed for one or two people. It has a lightweight hull, a centreboard for stability and a sail for power. Designed to be relatively simple and easy to handle and steer, they make the perfect vessels to practice sailing up-wind, down-wind, tacking, gybing and everyone’s favourite drill, capsizing!

They are ideal for exploring shallow waters and, you do not need to throw yourself straight into the ocean, as sailing dinghies are often used on lakes and rivers as well.