Tips for Newbies

E Andy

New Member
Hi Everyone,
I'm fairly new to the sailing world and am here to learn. I'm wondering what tips you seasoned folks have to share with newbies. I'm interested in tips about anything related to sailing that you think will be helpful. Things like, "if I had only know such-and-such when I first started sailing" type thing. I've already found one thing that has been really helpful. I got Navionics and have discovered the automatic route option. You select a starting location and a destination and it calculates the best route. It even highlights precautions on the route like for shallow water and bridges and other hazardous things. I LOVE it!
Thanks in advance for any help!

Route.PNG
 
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Based on the chart you posted I would suggest you become very familiar with the rules of the road before you spend much time “cross country” in this area. It would be good to have knowledge of everything you may encounter while sailing especially if there are ships in the area you are sailing in. Check with the Power Squadron for some of their more basic courses’ in navigation. You can gain a wealth of information in their training sessions and classes are cheep!

The second word of advice would be to stick your nose into “how to” sailing books to learn the basics of sailing and perhaps spend time at a marina where there are sailboats of similar size of yours and get to know some of the sailors – try to build some time crewing for one or more of the better, more experienced sailors.

If you do these few simple things, pay attention and sail a lot there is a good chance you will be offering advice to newbies in a couple of years.

There are a number of different types of sailors but they usually fall into two categories: casual and serious. If you are a casual sailor and have no interest is becoming an accomplishes sailor you can pretty much ignore the advice above. If you classify yourself as a serious sailor you will find the advice above will only point you in the right direction toward discovering even more of the wonders of sailing.

Good luck! If you have specific questions I am sure someone on this forum can provide good answers…
 
Based on the chart you posted I would suggest you become very familiar with the rules of the road before you spend much time “cross country” in this area. It would be good to have knowledge of everything you may encounter while sailing especially if there are ships in the area you are sailing in. Check with the Power Squadron for some of their more basic courses’ in navigation. You can gain a wealth of information in their training sessions and classes are cheep!

The second word of advice would be to stick your nose into “how to” sailing books to learn the basics of sailing and perhaps spend time at a marina where there are sailboats of similar size of yours and get to know some of the sailors – try to build some time crewing for one or more of the better, more experienced sailors.

If you do these few simple things, pay attention and sail a lot there is a good chance you will be offering advice to newbies in a couple of years.

There are a number of different types of sailors but they usually fall into two categories: casual and serious. If you are a casual sailor and have no interest is becoming an accomplishes sailor you can pretty much ignore the advice above. If you classify yourself as a serious sailor you will find the advice above will only point you in the right direction toward discovering even more of the wonders of sailing.

Good luck! If you have specific questions I am sure someone on this forum can provide good answers…

Thanks very much. Very useful information and suggestions! I will definitely check with the Power Squadron for classes!
 
You will probably find that the Power Squadron focuses more on power boats than sail boats; at least that has been my experience. However, what they teach is 99% applicable to sail boats so just get past those power guys and focus on a lot of very good information that you can use often. Who knows, you may end up converting a few to our way of thinking:rolleyes:
 

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