INSTRUCTION

At Sail Your Own Boat I am here to give you the skills to sail a boat safely and enjoyably. Some of the areas that I find people commonly want to improve are mentioned below but I am happy to cover whatever you want to learn. All instruction is tailor made for you, your boat and your crew.

MANOUVERING

This is the bit that concerns a lot of people and needs practice. You're close to things you could hit - rocks, pontoons, other boats... This might be coming alongside, anchoring, mooring, or picking up a man overboard.

Understanding how things like wind, tide, prop walk and prop wash affect your boat is important and it's often possible to use them to your advantage. Once you understand the theory it's then good to practice in lots of different situations.

SAILING

From sail trimming for a bit of extra boat speed to continuing your passage in the event of engine failure there is always more to learn about sails and sailing. Some ideas below of things you might want to learn or improve but the list isn't exhaustive.

Sail trim

Spinnaker handling

Anchoring and mooring under sail

MOB under sail

Cruising chutes

Storm sails

Reefing

NAVIGATION

Are you wanting to:

go on longer passages?

be more confident navigating at night?

improve your pilotage?

learn more about tidal heights and streams?

gain confidence with paper charts?

Make better use of your chart plotter?

I'm happy to teach you any of this and 101 other things that could be considered part of navigation.

RYA

If you are planning sitting an RYA Yachtmaster Exam on your boat I can provide instruction in any areas that you feel need brushing up in preparation for an exam.

Sail Your Own Boat are not an RYA recognised sailing school and don't provide RYA courses. If this is what you are looking for then see the Links page for some recommendations.