The Sailor You Become After Your First Season
The strange thing about learning to sail is that the more you learn, the more there is to notice.
When somebody first learns to sail, the objectives seem relatively straightforward.
Keep the boat upright.
Make it go in roughly the right direction.
Remember which rope does what.
Try not to hit anything.
And, preferably, return to the pontoon with the same number of people who left it.
Then something changes.
After a season of regular sailing, you may still be sailing the same stretch of water, perhaps even in the same boat, but you are no longer seeing the same things.
A gust is no longer simply "more wind".
A dark patch on the water becomes information.
A boat ahead tacking may tell you something about the wind.
A tree-lined bank becomes a possible wind shadow.
The angle of another boat's sails gives you clues.
A small header that you might once have ignored can become a reason to tack.
And somebody saying, "There's pressure coming down the right-hand side," suddenly makes perfect sense.
That, perhaps, is the real progression in sailing.
You begin by learning how to control the boat.
Eventually, you begin learning how to understand the world around the boat.
Stage One: Beginner — "How Do I Make This Thing Go?"
Think back to your earliest sailing lessons.
There is an extraordinary amount to remember.
Where should I sit?
Which way should I push the tiller?
Should I pull the sail in?
Why has the sail started flapping?
Where is the wind coming from?
Why has the instructor just shouted "duck"?
For an experienced sailor, many of these actions have become automatic. For the beginner, however, they require conscious thought.
Even a simple tack can feel like a complicated sequence:
Check that there is space.
Push the tiller.
Move across the boat.
Duck under the boom.
Change hands.
Settle the boat.
Straighten the tiller.
Trim the sail.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, remember where you were actually trying to go.
This is why good beginner instruction concentrates on a relatively small number of fundamentals.
The sailor is building the foundations.
At this stage, success might simply mean sailing away from the bank, completing a triangular course and returning under control.
That is already a significant achievement.
Stage Two: Boat Handling — The Boat Starts Becoming Familiar
With practice, something important happens.
You stop thinking about every individual movement.
A tack becomes one flowing action rather than eight separate instructions.
You begin to feel when the sail is oversheeted.
You notice when the boat is heeling unnecessarily.
You recognise that excessive tiller movement slows the boat.
You start using your body weight instinctively.
The controls stop being mysterious ropes and begin to have purposes.
This is the point where sailing becomes much more enjoyable because some of your mental capacity is released.
Instead of thinking:
"How do I sail the boat?"
you can begin thinking:
"Where should I sail the boat?"
That is an enormous step.
Stage Three: Observation — You Start Looking Outside the Boat
This may be one of the biggest changes during a sailor's first season.
Beginners naturally spend a great deal of time looking inside their boat.
They look at the tiller.
They look at the mainsheet.
They look at their hands.
They look at the sail.
They look at the centreboard.
Experienced sailors spend much more time looking outside the boat.
They are watching the water.
The clouds.
The flags.
The trees.
The boats ahead.
The boats behind.
The bank.
The next mark.
The approaching gust.
The traffic.
On a river such as the Thames, this becomes particularly important because the wind can change dramatically over surprisingly short distances.
Trees, buildings, bends in the river and changes in the surrounding landscape can all disturb the airflow.
You gradually learn that the wind at your mast may not be the same wind reaching a boat 100 metres ahead.
Suddenly, observation becomes part of boat speed.
Stage Four: Anticipation — Seeing Something Before It Happens
Observation tells you what is happening.
Anticipation asks:
What is going to happen next?
This is where sailing becomes especially interesting.
Imagine that you see a darker patch of water approaching.
A beginner may notice it when the boat suddenly heels.
A developing sailor notices the gust five seconds earlier.
An experienced crew may already have said:
"Gust coming in three... two... one..."
The helm is ready.
The crew has moved.
The sails may already have been adjusted.
Instead of reacting to the gust, the boat is prepared for it.
The same principle applies elsewhere.
You see another boat approaching and anticipate the potential crossing situation.
You approach the windward mark and prepare the controls before rounding.
You notice that the wind has shifted and realise your current tack is becoming less favourable.
You see a large cruiser approaching a narrow section of river and decide where you want to be before you are forced into a decision.
This is one of the great transitions in sailing:
reaction becomes anticipation.
Stage Five: Tactics — Sailing Becomes a Game of Decisions
Once boat handling becomes reasonably automatic and observation improves, another layer appears.
Tactics.
You are no longer simply asking:
"Can I reach the mark?"
You begin asking:
"What is the fastest way to reach it?"
Suppose the wind shifts ten degrees.
That might make one tack significantly more favourable.
Suppose one side of the river appears to have stronger wind.
Do you cross towards it?
Perhaps.
But what if getting there requires sailing through a large wind shadow first?
Now there is a trade-off.
Perhaps another boat is covering you.
Do you tack away?
Perhaps the current is stronger towards the centre of the river.
Should that influence your route?
There is rarely a perfect answer.
That is precisely why sailing remains interesting.
The sailor is constantly collecting incomplete information and making decisions.
Sometimes you get it right.
Sometimes you watch three boats sail past and discover rather convincingly that you got it wrong.
Both experiences teach you something.
Stage Six: Teamwork — From Several Sailors to One Crew
Sailing with other people introduces another level entirely.
A good crew does not consist simply of several people who happen to occupy the same boat.
They develop shared awareness.
The helm may concentrate on steering and boat speed.
Another crew member may watch the sails.
Someone may be looking up the course.
Someone may spot gusts.
Someone may call approaching boats.
Before a manoeuvre, everyone knows what is about to happen.
This becomes particularly obvious when sailing a faster or more demanding boat.
Sailing our A-Rater Champagne has reinforced this for me.
A 26-foot racing dinghy with three people aboard does not leave much room for three independent opinions being acted upon simultaneously.
A manoeuvre works best when everyone understands not only their own job, but what the other two people are about to do.
A good tack almost feels uneventful.
Everyone moves.
The sails change sides.
The boat remains balanced.
Acceleration follows.
And very little needs to be said.
That is not because communication has disappeared.
It is because good communication has happened before it was urgently required.
Then Sail a Different Boat
One of the best ways to discover whether you really understand sailing is to get into another boat.
Your familiar dinghy can hide your weaknesses because you have learned its habits.
Change boats and suddenly everything feels different.
A heavier boat carries momentum differently.
A light performance dinghy may punish excessive steering.
A single-hander forces you to perform every job yourself.
A double-hander teaches coordination.
A traditional boat may require you to think differently about momentum and manoeuvring.
A powerful racing boat demands anticipation.
This is why I think sailing different boats is enormously valuable.
You are not simply learning another boat.
You are testing whether the principles you have learned really are transferable.
Racing Can Accelerate the Process
You do not have to race to become a good sailor.
But racing provides an unusually concentrated learning environment.
During one short race you may practise:
starting;
close-hauled sailing;
tacking;
gust response;
mark rounding;
downwind sailing;
boat-to-boat situations;
tactical decisions;
communication;
finishing.
Then you do it again.
And again.
More importantly, racing provides comparison.
If another similar boat is consistently sailing faster, there is probably a reason.
Perhaps their sails are trimmed differently.
Perhaps they are keeping the boat flatter.
Perhaps they are steering less.
Perhaps they spotted a wind shift that you missed.
You do not need to be obsessed with winning to benefit enormously from racing.
Treat the boats around you as information.
The Most Important Change: You Begin Asking Better Questions
Perhaps this is the biggest difference between the sailor at the beginning of the season and the sailor at the end.
At first, the questions are mechanical.
Which rope do I pull?
Which way do I move the tiller?
When do I tack?
Later, the questions become more sophisticated.
Why is that boat faster?
Why is there more wind over there?
Why did that gust lift us?
Why did the wind disappear underneath those trees?
Why did that boat tack when it did?
Could we have anticipated that shift?
And eventually:
What should we do next?
That progression matters because sailing is not really a collection of isolated techniques.
It is a process of continually improving your ability to observe, understand and predict.
Beginner → Boat Handling → Observation → Anticipation → Tactics → Teamwork
That progression is not perfectly linear.
You do not graduate from one stage and permanently move into the next.
Even experienced sailors return to boat-handling practice.
Good racers still make tactical mistakes.
Experienced crews still mistime manoeuvres.
And put an accomplished sailor into an unfamiliar boat and they may suddenly feel surprisingly like a beginner again.
That is part of the attraction.
There is always another layer.
What Should You Do in Your Second Season?
Do not simply repeat your first season.
Experiment.
Sail in lighter winds.
Sail when it is breezier, within your competence and suitable safety arrangements.
Crew for somebody more experienced.
Helm when you normally crew.
Crew when you normally helm.
Try another class of boat.
Enter a race.
Practise manoeuvres when nobody is keeping score.
Ask experienced sailors why they made particular decisions.
Watch the water rather than just your sails.
After sailing, think about one thing that worked and one thing you would change next time.
Above all, remain curious.
Because curiosity is one of the most useful pieces of sailing equipment you can carry.
You Never Really Finish Learning to Sail
At the beginning of your first season, success may mean getting around the course without assistance.
Later, success becomes making a clean tack.
Then keeping the boat flat through a gust.
Then spotting the gust before it arrives.
Then recognising a wind shift.
Then using that shift tactically.
Then helping the rest of the crew recognise it too.
The boat may not have changed.
The river may not have changed.
You have.
And perhaps that is the wonderful thing about sailing.
Every improvement reveals something else that you had previously failed to notice.
A ripple on the water becomes a gust.
A flapping tell-tale becomes lost speed.
Another boat becomes tactical information.
A bend in the river becomes a question about airflow.
The sport becomes richer rather than simpler.
So if you have completed your first season, don't think of yourself as someone who has now learned to sail.
Think of yourself as someone who has learned enough to discover just how much sailing there is still to learn.
The strange thing about learning to sail is that the more you learn, the more there is to notice.
And that is an excellent reason to come back for another season.
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