LIFE ON THE OPEN SEA
Sailing is an invigorating sport that offers many rewards, not the least of which is that it’s simply so much fun. Imagine white sails billowing against a clear sky, the brisk feel of the breeze on your face, harnessing the power of nature and relying on your skills and expertise to guide gentle motions of the boat as it cleanly slices through the water. Sailing is more than a sport…
it’s a lifestyle.
It practically goes without saying that the active nature of sailing means that it can be terrific exercise for both you and any passengers who are inclined to help out. While sailing can involve its share of physical work, it can also be an incredibly rewarding as well. Learning how to sail doesn’t have to be complicated, especially if you invest in a simple sailing course and start out learning on a small sailboat.
Sailing is a giant network of people with a shared passion, you won’t meet many sailors who aren’t self motivated and have a passion for life. Meeting these people is easy once you have learnt to sail.
Sailing can be challenging at first as there is a lot to learn however very fulfilling, being out in nature and spending quality time with friends and family.
While sailing is a great way to enjoy the outdoors, it also requires you to be an active participant more than almost any other type of boating. When you learn how to sail, you’ll not only become intimately familiar with all aspects of your boat, but also how your boat relates to its environment in terms of everything from the wind to the weather. This is why learning how to sail can be so fulfilling and can foster such a sense of accomplishment.
As you step onto the boat, the busy world that you’re so used to starts to fade away. As you sail away from the shore, the things that happen on land become small, background concerns.
The boat is the centre of the world and everything that matters is right there, in the boat or immediately around it. It’s not as much about where you are sailing to, but the enjoyment and challenge of the journey itself.
Matthias Oberholzer
Ian Keefe
Slows down time and helps us understand ourselves
Some sailors gain a profound sense of oneness with their boat, the sea and the wind. The boat becomes a self-contained universe, the process of sailing becomes all consuming. Any sense of time changes and expands, small moments becoming more important. Sailing can be a meditative, reflective and engrossing experience.
increases the sense of freedom and speed
There’s a great freedom in sailing, that of gliding effortlessly across the water, the boat slicing through the waves as the wind fills the sails. If you’re in a race, the perfect breeze with the right boat, trim and technique means that you can speed along and get a real appreciation of space, time, excitement and life.
teaches technical and expertise
A large part of sailing is about experience, self-confidence and learning the right skills.
Moment to moment, you develop an understanding of what needs to happen to keep yourself, your crew and the boat safe and get to where you need to be.
Every moment on the water is different, and being able to react and deal with any situation that comes up is a challenge that many sailors relish. The combination of artistry and science when sailing is a great way for people to enhance their understanding of both and get a real feeling of accomplishment. In addition to the mental skills needed, sailing is also a good way to be active, as there’s plenty of exercise to be had.
being part of a team
You can sail alone or with a crew. When you’re alone, it can lead to some profound, reflective moments, but when you’re with a crew it deepens the sense of trust, working together as a team.
There’s also lots of opportunities to chat with people and develop good communication skills when sailing, you can be an instructor or a crew member.
find some peace and quiet
Sailing is a great way to bring peace and quiet into our busy lives, the simple sounds of the wind as it fills the sails or the water as it flows past the boat can be very relaxing and centring, a perfect antidote to the stresses of the world.
It gives busy people the understanding that they can relax, whilst at the same time being very present while focusing on sailing.
feel connected to nature
Sailing is a very pure form of being with nature. Whether that’s capturing the wind in the sails to propel you along, feeling the currents in the river or the sea or understanding how the weather is going to affect the boat, you learn a tremendous amount of respect for the natural world. Sailing is also very environmentally friendly, you’re not polluting the sky or the ocean with fossil fuels, but travelling the same way that mankind has done for thousands of years.
Sailing can bring you closer to others, enhance your own experiences and deepen your connection with the world around you. It demands attention, creates challenges and helps you understand your own strengths.
To check out courses
https://www.rya.org.uk/courses-training/courses/dinghy-multi-keel/Pages/adult-beginners-courses.aspx
https://www.sunsail.co.uk/sailing-schools