Summer sailing 2013 - Back in the skippers seat!
Courageous Sailing
This past Saturday I finished up the second of the two classes that make up the second half of the beginners keelboat course at Courageous Sailing. Even though I already have the US Sailing basic keelboat certification, I was feeling quite a bit rusty. So I figured a good refresher was in order.
Compared to the sailing I did on the Charles river last year, this was so much better.
The class was split up into two days, and oddly we had a different instructor for each day. Despite the different instructors, we had the same three students on the boat both weeks.
The first day was a scorcher. It was sunny and it was hot. Apparently in the advanced beginner keelboat class you pretty much just cover two major things - Man Overboard and Docking. Of course this assumes you have a good handle on the rest of the concepts like points of sail, right of way, etc.
Happy to say it all came back super quick. I aced the figure-8 man overboard maneuver the first time I tried. Beyond that he also taught us the quick stop and we did a fair amount of buzzing around the inner harbor. The wind was pretty shifty and we experienced quite a bit of gusty weather. Overall though, it was a nice day on the water.
The second day started out much more drearily, but thankfully cleared up about the time we headed out. We got the pleasure of manually pumping the rain water out of our Rhodes 19. And headed back out in the harbor or more of the same as the previous week.
I felt like I was pretty much back up to speed and comfortably handling the boat. When it was all said and done I was given a red area rating (the most restrictive) though I felt like I should have gotten the yellow. The instructor didn't really give me much of a chance to do things on my own. It's all good though. I'll go and take the test, and get back out there to get the yellow rating.
And hopefully before the summer is over, I'll complete the basic cruising class. I'm looking forward to much more time on the water this summer!
The courageous sailing dock and fleet.
Photos Below Courtesy of my classmate Tania.
