North Soundings Online | Fall 2002 | Learn to Cruise

Published: Friday, January 16, 2004 at:8:45 PM

A Day in the Life:
Learn to Cruise — Course 202

The day begins as I see my two students walking down the path to the Watersports Desk, coffees in hand ready to get their first taste of cruising. For the past three days their lives have revolved around sailing as they ‘work’ to complete the Learn to Sail Adventure Package. The Learn to Sail Adventure Package curriculum begins with the classroom portion of Beginning Sailing 101, and then moves to a Rhodes 19 for basic instruction (102 A&B) and free-sailing for two days. Yesterday found my rapidly improving students maneuvering about the Sound in a sleek J24 in the Performance Sailing (201) class. And now they are ready to enter the big leagues and get to know the Freedom 30 cruiser (Course 202).

“We would really like to be able to charter a boat ourselves in a few years. When we started looking for places to get certified for bare boating we thought there could be no better place to literally get our feet wet.” We hear this comment more often than one might think—Bitter End is an ideal place to combine vacation and instruction.

The class begins with a safety talk: listing the safety equipment that was onboard the Rhodes 19, and adding the safety equipment we would want with us on a cruising yacht. From fire extinguishers to flares and a first aid kit, the list goes on. “We never realized how much equipment you really need when cruising once you put an engine on and start to go offshore,” one of the students comments.

Now it’s time to pull out the parallel rules and begin charting. A step down from actual navigation, charting in the British Virgin Islands is the common skill used, as islands are within view of each other and courses are usually short trips to and from anchorages and snorkel stops. After discussing tides, boat draft, and looking at depths on the actual chart, I like to relate it to painting by numbers when in the BVI: “if it’s blue your course is true, if it’s brown you’ll run aground.”

After plotting courses from island to island and finding headings and distances, we thought we had it all figured out until an intrepid student asks, “How do you gauge how much you have drifted with the current?” It’s obvious how much more is really involved in actual navigation and I impress upon my charges how valuable it would be to take actual Coast Guard navigation classes to expand their knowledge. There are lifetimes of navigational and practical knowledge to be absorbed! But our learn to cruise course is designed to teach people how to bareboat cruise in the British Virgin Islands, particularly aboard a manageable 30-40 foot boat.

The remainder of the morning session of Sailing 202 is dedicated to mooring ball pickups, anchoring and docking drills, all done under power. The next logical step is to go through all of these drills on paper before heading out. After discussing boat handling with an engine, anchor types, line-depth ratios (better known as scope), and docking approaches, it’s time to hit the water. At this point, students are usually given a 15 minute break to free their minds of anything remotely involving sailing, to rehydrate with some fresh water, and maybe even relax on the beach. Then it’s down to the Quarterdeck Marina to pick up our yacht for the day.

Once on board, we begin with a safety inspection of the boat, not to check the boat for broken parts, but instead to familiarize everyone with the location of all the safety equipment. Life jackets, brief engine overview, and a well stocked ice chest (wait a minute, that last one must have been a typo!). After the run-through, one of my students pulls me aside: “I was so glad to have everything shown to me. If I’d been alone I would probably never have found some of it. And having someone who knows the boat show you a few tricks saves you a lot of hassle with trial and error. Now where was the Emporium Pub again?”

All hands on deck! We cast off the lines from the dock, back our toy out of its slip and it’s time to play. Students rotate through a few practice attempts at each drill after seeing the instructor perform it to flawless-pat on the back-perfection (we are after all professionals). Starting with simply driving the boat to get a feel for the wheel can be a big first step. “At first on the Rhodes 19, using a tiller was very counter intuitive as you steer opposite the direction you want to go. But now that we’ve gotten used to the tiller, the wheel feels so unnatural. I can’t wait to see what happens when I get back in my car after this vacation is over!” one of my students sums it up.

With steering settled, now we start to play with speed control. Slowing the boat, stopping it, changing gears, and so on. All this is tested with a few tries at mooring ball pickups—each better than the last. After the last practice run, students help each other set up the anchor line on deck and properly cleat it off. We loose off from our ball and pull up to an imaginary mooring ball and ‘drop the hook.’ Everyone has the opportunity to give it a whirl. After seeing someone have to feed the line out and then haul it all back in again, in the 5 years I’ve worked here I have never had a student ask, “hey can we do that again?”

Much like driver’s education, the dreaded time eventually comes when we have to practice parking our vessel. Most students find this easier than expected as long as the basic rules are followed: take it slower than planned, have your line handlers ready, and make tiny adjustments—again, improvement on each attempt. After docking drills, we break for a filling lunch, with the mandate to return at two o’clock, with beverages and snacks of choice for an afternoon sail.
When sailing any new boat it is important to take a look around at all the lines to know what is what and where it can be found. A student assessed the Freedom’s lines nicely: “What amazed us the most was the way the boat was set up; very user-friendly. All the lines come back to the spacious cockpit so that even a couple out alone could rig the boat and sail away. Even reefing the sail is hassle-free. And with a self-tacking jib, once the sails are set tacking and gybing become simple turns.” My students are already picking up on the subtle nuances of cruising!

Our course for the afternoon took us outside of the Sound into the small rolling swells of Sir Francis Drake Passage. We headed out towards Anegada and then back down to the Dog Islands, sharing helm time as each student became more and more comfortable on the boat. The sail home back to the Sound is not a long one, but you can always see the students looking back out over the channel of the sound as we head in—longing to head back out and cruise ‘just a little bit longer.’

After bringing the boat home and settling her into the slip, the students put the boat away in as good condition or better than that which they found it—being shipshape is part of good seamanship! Everyone is reluctant to leave the boat, but cocktail hour calls and then dinner reservations must be met. On many occasions couples want to find ways to keep sailing Freedoms and build experience and hours of sailing, many even go straight to the Quarterdeck Marina office to book daysails with skippers in the days to come.

A final comment from one of my students: “The nicest part of the class was actually the following morning. As we sat by the dock awaiting our ferry to the airport, our instructor stopped by to wish us well with a parting gift. For completion of the Learn to Sail Adventure, we were given certificates saying that we were able to “Sail boats under 30 feet.” Although not an actual certification, the memento of our adventure at The Bitter End Yacht Club will be proudly framed on our wall at home to remind us to hurry back and sail in these waters again soon. We feel we gained practical knowledge and experience from which we can build on. ”