From First Sail to First Race — What Happens Next?
Finishing last in your first race can teach you more than another afternoon reading a sailing manual.
If you have followed this series from the beginning, you have travelled quite a long way.
We started with the idea that sailing does not have to be an expensive sport reserved for people with yachts, marina berths and a lifetime of experience.
You can join a sailing club.
You can borrow or hire a boat.
You can learn from people around you.
You can discover what all those ropes are called, learn how to rig a dinghy, understand why a sailing boat can travel towards the wind, take the helm for the first time, trim the sails, tack, gybe, sail upwind and eventually bring the boat back to where you intended.
You have also discovered something equally important:
Things sometimes go wrong, and that is perfectly normal.
So what happens next?
The wonderful thing about sailing is that there isn't one answer.
For one person, the next step might be spending peaceful summer afternoons sailing up and down the river.
For another, it might be their first club race.
Someone else may discover spinnakers, trapezes, keelboats, yachts or offshore sailing.
And another sailor might eventually find themselves sailing something as wonderfully traditional and specialised as an A-Rater.
There is no compulsory destination.
There is simply a pathway of possibilities.
The Sailing Pathway Is Not Really a Straight Line
We can imagine a beginner's progress looking something like this:
First sail → regular crewing → club coaching → independent sailing → learning more boats → club racing → specialist sailing
But real sailing seldom follows such a neat progression.
Someone might begin as a crew and discover that they absolutely love crewing.
Another sailor may desperately want to take the helm.
Someone may become fascinated by racing.
Someone else may decide racing really isn't for them at all.
A teenager might become interested in fast trapeze boats.
Another sailor may prefer traditional river sailing.
Someone who begins in a dinghy could eventually move into keelboats or yachts.
And somebody who starts sailing purely for relaxation might, several years later, discover that they have become one of the people helping the next generation of beginners.
That is one of the pleasures of sailing.
There is always another direction available.
Step One: Keep Sailing
The most important thing after your first few lessons is surprisingly simple:
Go sailing again.
And again.
And again.
Like driving a car, riding a bicycle or playing a musical instrument, sailing becomes easier when many of the basic actions stop requiring conscious thought.
During your first sail, your mind may be full of instructions:
Where do I put the tiller?
Which way do I move it?
What do I do with the mainsheet?
Where is the wind coming from?
Why is the sail flapping?
Should I move across the boat now?
Why is the boom suddenly heading towards me?
With experience, those individual questions gradually disappear.
You begin looking outside the boat instead.
You notice the wind on the water.
You anticipate the gust approaching you.
You notice another boat.
You start planning your next tack.
You realise that the boat feels slightly underpowered and ease your course a fraction.
That transition is important.
You stop merely operating the boat and begin sailing it.
Crewing — Possibly the Best Way to Learn
One of the easiest ways to gain experience is to crew for somebody more experienced.
Do not underestimate the importance of crewing.
A good crew isn't simply a passenger who occasionally pulls a rope.
Depending upon the boat, the crew may be responsible for:
- trimming the jib;
- adjusting boat balance;
- watching other boats;
- calling gusts;
- preparing for tacks and gybes;
- handling a spinnaker;
- helping with tactical decisions;
- watching the course;
- communicating constantly with the helm.
For a beginner, however, there is another enormous advantage.
You can observe.
While somebody else worries about steering the boat, you can watch what happens.
You begin noticing things such as:
Why did the helm tack there?
Why did we sail towards that side of the river?
Why was the mainsail eased before the gust arrived?
Why did that boat overtake us even though it seemed to be sailing in the wrong direction?
Every experienced sailor you sail with will probably do things slightly differently.
That is useful.
You gradually collect techniques, ideas and habits and begin deciding which work best for you.
Then Take the Helm
Eventually, of course, you need time steering the boat yourself.
There is a considerable difference between understanding what somebody else is doing and doing it yourself.
At first, helming requires concentration.
Then something changes.
You stop thinking:
"I must move the tiller slightly towards me."
You simply steer.
That frees your mind to think about more interesting questions.
Where should I go?
What is the wind doing?
Where should I tack?
Am I sailing efficiently?
What are the other boats doing?
That is when sailing begins moving from a purely physical activity into a tactical one.
Club Coaching Can Accelerate Everything
This is one reason sailing clubs can be such good places to learn.
Formal lessons are enormously valuable, particularly when learning the fundamental skills correctly.
But learning does not stop when the course certificate is handed over.
Many clubs run coaching sessions where sailors can practise particular skills with experienced instructors or club sailors nearby.
The difference can be remarkable.
Imagine spending an afternoon deliberately practising tacking.
Not racing.
Not travelling anywhere.
Just:
Tack.
Settle the boat.
Sail for thirty seconds.
Tack again.
After perhaps twenty tacks, something which initially felt complicated begins feeling natural.
The same can be done with:
- gybing;
- stopping;
- coming alongside;
- sailing upwind;
- sail trim;
- boat handling;
- starting;
- mark rounding.
Focused practice turns knowledge into instinct.
What About Formal Training Courses?
There is also nothing wrong with formal training.
In Britain, many sailors follow RYA courses which provide a structured way of developing skills and gaining experience.
Courses can introduce or develop areas such as:
- dinghy sailing;
- powerboating;
- safety boat handling;
- seamanship;
- racing;
- navigation;
- keelboat sailing;
- yacht sailing.
But qualifications should not become the objective in themselves.
A certificate tells you that you demonstrated certain abilities during a course.
Experience comes from actually going sailing.
The two complement each other.
Try Different Boats
One of the great surprises for beginners is discovering how different two sailing boats can feel.
The fundamental principles are the same.
The wind still acts on the sails.
The centreboard or keel still resists sideways movement.
The rudder still steers the boat.
But the experience can be completely different.
A stable training dinghy may forgive almost everything.
Move into a lighter racing dinghy and suddenly every movement matters.
Sail a traditional boat and you may discover an entirely different style of sailing.
Move into a keelboat and the boat feels heavier and more deliberate.
Step aboard a yacht and suddenly you may have winches, navigation equipment, engines, cabins and considerably more momentum to think about.
Trying different boats teaches you that sailing is not one sport.
It is a family of related activities.
Then Somebody Will Probably Suggest Racing
This moment arrives at many sailing clubs.
You may be happily sailing around when somebody says:
"Why don't you join the race this afternoon?"
The immediate reaction is often:
"I couldn't possibly race. I have only just learnt to sail."
My suggestion would usually be:
Have a go.
You do not have to win.
You do not even need to be particularly competitive.
Your first objective might simply be:
Start the race, sail around the course and finish.
If everybody else finishes ten minutes ahead of you, that doesn't matter.
You have completed your first sailing race.
And during that hour you may have learnt more than during several hours of simply sailing backwards and forwards.
Why Racing Improves Your Sailing So Quickly
Club racing gives every decision a purpose.
Suppose you are simply sailing for pleasure.
You make a rather poor tack.
No problem.
Carry on sailing.
During a race, however, you immediately notice the consequences.
Another boat gains twenty metres.
Perhaps you turned too slowly.
Perhaps you lost too much speed.
Perhaps your sails were not adjusted quickly enough afterwards.
That gives you something specific to improve next time.
Racing constantly asks small questions:
Should I tack now?
Which side of the course has more wind?
Am I pointing too high?
Should I sail slightly faster but slightly further?
Who has right of way?
Can I reach that mark without another tack?
Where should I position the boat before the start?
Suddenly all those separate sailing skills start joining together.
Finishing Last Can Be Extremely Educational
There is a peculiar fear surrounding racing.
People imagine that if they enter a race and finish last, everybody will notice.
At most friendly sailing clubs, that really isn't the atmosphere.
Experienced sailors know exactly what being a beginner feels like because every one of them was once one.
Someone who finishes well behind the fleet but completes the course may have achieved far more personally than the sailor who wins their hundredth race.
Your first race gives you a baseline.
Perhaps you discover that your boat speed is reasonably good but your tacking loses enormous amounts of ground.
Excellent.
Now you know what to practise.
Perhaps your tacks are good but you sail much further than everybody else.
That suggests tactics and course planning.
Perhaps you keep pointing too high and slowing down.
Now you can work on sail trim and boat speed.
A race gives you feedback.
But You Absolutely Do Not Have to Race
This is important.
There can sometimes be a tendency within sailing clubs to assume that everybody eventually wants to race.
They don't.
And that is perfectly fine.
Some people simply enjoy sailing.
They enjoy the quiet.
They enjoy the feeling of the boat moving through the water.
They enjoy spending an afternoon outside.
They enjoy exploring.
They enjoy sailing with friends or family.
There is no requirement to turn every hobby into a competition.
Sailing for the pleasure of sailing is reason enough to sail.
But even sailors who have little interest in racing may occasionally benefit from joining a club race simply because it provides structured practice.
Spinnakers — Suddenly There Is Another Sail
Once you become comfortable with mainsail and jib, somebody may introduce you to a spinnaker.
This can initially appear to be an enormous piece of brightly coloured cloth specifically designed to become tangled around everything on the boat.
Sometimes it succeeds.
But once understood, spinnaker sailing adds an entirely new dimension.
You begin learning:
- hoists;
- drops;
- spinnaker sheets;
- poles;
- gybing the spinnaker;
- apparent wind;
- reaching angles;
- downwind tactics.
In modern asymmetric boats, the technique is different again.
Suddenly sailing downwind becomes every bit as interesting as sailing upwind.
Trapezes — Why Is the Crew Standing Outside the Boat?
Progress into faster dinghies and you may encounter the trapeze.
The first time you see somebody standing almost horizontally over the side of a sailing dinghy, supported by a wire attached to the mast, it can look slightly ridiculous.
There is, however, an excellent reason.
The sailor's weight creates a turning effect that opposes the force trying to heel the boat.
Moving bodyweight further out increases that effect.
The result is a flatter, faster boat.
For sailors who enjoy athletic sailing, trapeze boats open another branch of the sport entirely.
And Then There Is Foiling
Modern sailing has pushed this principle even further.
Some boats can now rise almost completely clear of the water on hydrofoils.
Reduce the hull's contact with the water and drag can fall dramatically.
The result can be extraordinary speed.
Foiling requires a different level of balance, control and anticipation, but it demonstrates something wonderful about sailing:
This ancient activity is still developing.
We can sail traditional wooden boats whose designs are generations old and, on the same stretch of water, watch boats using technology that would have seemed almost impossible only a few decades ago.
Keelboats and Yachts Open Another World
Dinghy sailing may eventually lead some sailors towards larger boats.
Keelboats introduce different handling characteristics.
Yachts introduce another world again.
Now sailing might include:
- navigation;
- tides;
- anchoring;
- engines;
- weather forecasting;
- longer passages;
- living aboard;
- coastal sailing;
- offshore sailing.
The afternoon sail around the local club can eventually become a weekend voyage.
For some sailors, that might become a Channel crossing.
For others, perhaps something considerably further.
But every one of those sailors still depends upon the same fundamentals they learnt at the beginning.
Where is the wind?
How should the sails be set?
How do I steer efficiently?
What is the boat telling me?
Traditional Sailing Can Be Just as Exciting
Progress does not always mean newer, faster and more technologically advanced.
Sometimes it means looking backwards.
Traditional sailing classes can provide some of the most fascinating sailing available.
They may have unusual rigs.
They may require large crews.
They may demand techniques that have been passed between generations of sailors.
They may also have histories stretching back more than a century.
There is something rather special about sailing a boat whose design connects you directly with people who raced on the same river many decades ago.
Modern sailing and traditional sailing are not opposites.
They are different branches of the same extraordinary sport.
And Perhaps One Day an A-Rater...
My own sailing has certainly demonstrated how the journey can keep developing.
You might begin with modern training boats and gradually discover other classes.
Then one day you find yourself looking at something considerably more specialised.
An A-Rater is hardly the obvious beginner's boat.
Long, narrow and carrying a remarkable amount of sail, these Thames racing boats belong to a tradition stretching back well over a century.
They require teamwork.
They require understanding.
They reward good boat handling.
And they remind us that learning to sail is never really finished.
That is perhaps the most important lesson of this entire series.
Eventually You Become the Experienced Sailor
There is one final stage in the sailing pathway which is rarely shown on diagrams.
It looks something like this:
Beginner → sailor → experienced sailor → person helping another beginner
One afternoon at your club, somebody new will arrive.
They will look at the boats and the ropes and the sails and feel slightly bewildered.
They may ask:
"Which rope do I pull?"
"How do I know where the wind is coming from?"
"What happens if I capsize?"
And you may suddenly realise something.
You know the answer.
So you take them sailing.
You explain the mainsheet.
You let them hold the tiller.
You reassure them when the boat heels.
And perhaps ten minutes later they feel the boat accelerate under sail for the first time.
That is how sailing clubs continue.
There Has Never Been a Better Time to Learn to Sail
At the beginning of this series I argued that sailing does not have to be an expensive or inaccessible sport.
I still believe that.
You don't need to begin with a yacht.
You don't need to buy a boat.
You don't need every piece of sailing clothing in the catalogue.
You certainly don't need to know everything before you arrive.
Find a welcoming sailing club.
Talk to people.
Have a go.
Crew for somebody.
Take the helm.
Make mistakes.
Ask questions.
Try another boat.
Join a coaching session.
Perhaps enter a race.
Perhaps don't.
Then see where sailing takes you.
Your journey might eventually lead to racing, cruising, yachts, foiling, traditional boats or something you haven't yet imagined.
Or perhaps you will simply spend many happy afternoons sailing around your local stretch of water.
Both are perfectly good outcomes.
Because the real destination was never the race course, the yacht marina or the championship trophy.
It was becoming someone who can look across a stretch of water, feel the wind on their face and think:
I could sail that.
And if you have reached that point, your first sailing lessons haven't really ended.
They have opened the door to everything that comes next.
My name is Philip. I started sailing when I was 65.
I joined a club and because my son had already been part of a club for many years - borrowing all types of boat. He knew what we needed and the type of boat I would require.
So we did by an RS Toura - a virtually unsinkable dinghy which has given me the confidence to experiment and learn and take my RYA exams and become a competent sailor and then to move up to the boat of my dreams - the A-Rater.
Coming Next in the Beginner Sailing Series
Your First Sailing Knots — Only Learn the Ones You Actually Need
Start with:
- figure-eight;
- bowline;
- reef knot;
- round turn and two half hitches;
- cleat hitch.
Return to https://pmrsailing.uk/Lessons.html
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