Grades, Practice, and Oops.

We heard back from the sailing school.  I got a 100 and a 95 on the first two tests and my wife got 99 and 91.  Since anything over 80 was passing, I'd say we did rather well.

We've passed our first two classes and are studying for our third but I thought it would be a good idea not to lose those practical skills, so as a last minute idea this past weekend we rented a boat for an afternoon of sailing.

Unlike most of our classes, we again had a reasonable amount of wind.  We did all the usual maneuvers.  At one point I was having some fun doing figure 8's around two of the reservoir center-line buoys.  We even hove-to so we could enjoy our sandwiches for lunch.  It was good to get out and sail again.

Everything went well...until we came in to dock.  Now, I remember in the first class that the instructor said when you get on and off the boat that you have to commit to one or the other.  I was at the helm and my wife was ready with the dock line...but when she stepped onto the dock she was leaning back a bit and fell back so she was half on the boat and half on the dock.  Well, when one doesn't commit to one or the other she found that you are automatically committed...to the water.

It took a bit to secure the boat (an unsecured boat seemed especially dangerous with someone in the water around unforgiving docks) and then get her out of the water.  Docks don't have safety stairs and the easiest option was to use a neighboring boats swim platform (we did try using a line on the winch to create a makeshift ladder stair first).  Other than a bruise, the only damage I think was her pride.  She's a trooper though and all is well.

Overall, other than the unanticipated swim, it was a good day.  So, I guess now it is back to studying for our next class.

Talk Like a Sailor

A few days ago was International Talk Like A Pirate day.  Since we started to learn to sail, it has amazed me how much of our vernacular appears to come from the sailing days of old. While going through some of the sailing blogs I read (I hope this is the one I found it on), I just happened to come across a link to a pretty good list of terms and phrases used today that can trace their origins to sailing.  Many of these you would not even expect came from sailing ("devil to pay"...really?).  When you have a little time, take a look at the list:

The Nautical Origins of Everyday Sayings

Hope you find it as interesting as I did.  And who knows, maybe you did talk like a pirate...or at least a sailor....that day.

We Passed!

Or...at least I think we did.  Today we received our ASA log books in the mail.  No test scores, no notes, no other communication from the school at all, just the two logs in an envelope.  In the logs are entries for each course and the 101 and 103 entries were signed by the owner of the school and each entry states "Provisional certification for (3) months until seal is affixed".

My understanding is that the official seal (read: sticker) for the log is mailed from the ASA after they receive some sort of report from the school (along with the all important fees to join the ASA and take the tests).  Any bets on if the seals arrive before or after the first issue of the complimentary ASA sailing magazine (that comes with the not-so-complimentary ASA membership)?

I'd really like to know how well we did and what, if any, questions we may have missed.  Hopefully I can get the details from the school.  After all the goal for us here is the education, not the sticker.  When we have our own boat, I doubt it will care if we have a log book with a sticker...it will only care that we don't sink it (and we don't want that either).

Now to start reading the textbooks for the 104 (Bareboat Cruising)/114 (Cruising Catamaran) combined course we will be taking soon.  Looking forward to that course!

Taking the ASA 101 and ASA 103 Written Exams

Since we finally decided on a school that is affiliated with the American Sailing Association for our next course, we just completed the ASA 101 (Basic Keelboat) and ASA 103 (Basic Coastal Cruising) written exams with our current school.  Now, it's been a little while since I've taken a test and even longer since my wife has so we weren't quite sure what to expect.  Add in that our last classroom lecture was close to 4 months ago and we were a little nervous.

After work we make the trek across town to take the test.  As we're grabbing a quick bite to eat before we start the test we realize that we left the navigation chart we were supposed to bring at home.  This was not starting so well.

The ASA 101 test was a 100 question, multiple choice test and wasn't very difficult. It contained questions on identifying parts of a boat, right of way, knots, basic sail handling and points of sail.  Nothing too technical.  I breezed through the test fairly quickly, only really questioning my answers on a couple of the questions.

The second test, ASA 103, was another 100 questions and they were a little more technical. Buoys and channel markers, safety requirements and equipment, sound signals and lighting, as well as more boat part identification and more questions on knots.  It had a few questions on basic chart markings, but nothing that I think required us to have the chart.  Overall it was more difficult, but I think we did well enough.

Both tests took about 2 hours.  We don't know how we did yet...but I think we both managed passing grades (80% or better).  Hopefully should know pretty soon.

Update: We did get our grades and I posted them in this entry.

A Decision!

After looking at and talking with a bunch of sailing schools for our 3rd class (ASA 104), and suffering from a little analysis paralysis, we've finally made a decision.  Having spent all of our time thus far sailing on reservoirs in Colorado, our goal was to spend some time on the ocean and living aboard the boat in the process.  The school we chose was the Tracey School of Sailing Instruction.

Most of the schools we found had choices of single courses or "fast track" courses that combined the two classes we had already taken with the course we wanted to take.  While single classes would work for us, the fast track courses seemed like a waste of time and money.

The Tracy option is technically a single course but we believe they will provide us with a more unique opportunity.  The school operates in two locations during different parts of the year and they take their Maine Cat when they move locations.  So twice a year instead of their normal sailing classes, they divide their trip between New Jersey and Bradenton, Florida, into four live-aboard classes.  Yes, we'll actually get to travel some distance in the course of the course.  In addition, instead of just the 104 course, we will also be doing the 114 (Catamaran) course.  We think this should give us a better breadth of experience than the courses that essentially stay in the same location.

The Tracey School appears to be a smaller school.  My wife and I always like to support smaller businesses when we can.  We've found that smaller businesses seem to understand customer service far better than larger ones, so hopefully this will be the case here as well.

We are SOOOOOOOOO looking forward to this trip...we just need to finish planning it.

A First

I'm sure there will be a number of firsts as we make our way toward this goal (and we have already had several) but yesterday was definitely an important one.  This past weekend was the first time we took a sailboat out by ourselves.

It started out like a lot of our lessons, lacking any significant amount of wind.  That was probably best as we had a couple mis-steps, fortunately they were pretty minor.  We took most of our lessons at one particular reservoir, so of course the only available boats were at the other reservoir...and it is a bit trickier to get out of those slips.  After some maneuvering issues (somewhat equivalent to the 3 point turn in a car when it takes about 12 points) we were out of the marina and ready to raise the sails.  Oops...we forgot to rig the main halyard before we left dock.  Oh well, easy enough to correct that as well.

Of course, once we got the sails up there wasn't enough wind to fill them.  The interesting thing is that the water is apparently choppy on this reservoir even when there is no wind...how does this happen (the power boats I guess).  So we bobbed around for a little while, then decided to fire the engine back up and see if we could find a little wind elsewhere on the reservoir.  After a few attempts we found a very light breeze starting so we sailed...very slowly.  Good practice in light wind sailing anyway.

Fortunately the winds did pick up slowly so the last half of our 4-hour rental provided some decent sailing experience.  The winds were a bit variable in intensity and direction, but it was fun with full sails up.

Docking was uneventful, we returned the boat safely back to it's slip.

It is definitely a bit different only having the two of us on the boat.  Typically on the lessons we had at least three, so there was someone to handle the bow dock line, the stern line, and a third at the tiller.  While underway having someone work the jib, another on the main, and again a third on the tiller.  With only two of us, tasks are definitely more interesting, but very manageable.  Not sure how people do some of this stuff solo, at least on a crowded reservoir.

I guess we are now sailors...with a lot left to learn.

Last ASA 103 Class...Attempt Two

A couple days ago we again made the trek to the reservoir for our last ASA 103 course...again.  Instead of too much wind, if anything it looked like we were in for another light wind day.

My wife and I were the only two scheduled for our second attempt at the "graduation cruise".  The owner was there and decided we needed another person, so he grabbed a student from one of the regular classes.  As it turned out, I think this was a mistake.

Everything on this sail was pretty straight forward, just a little larger scale.  Since I docked the boat last time, I took the boat out of the marina this time.  While the boat is a fair amount larger, it doesn't really feel that much larger than the other boats.  We raised the main and unfurled the Genoa (I like the roller furling headsail) and were able to catch just enough wind to sail.  We did some basic maneuvers and a couple of man overboard drills.  A little more room on this boat made it a bit more comfortable with three students and an instructor than is typically the case on the smaller boats.  The lesson ended with my wife bringing the boat back to the slip.

The problem was that the other student the owner had grabbed was only on his 3rd lesson of the ASA 101 course...and he hadn't been on a boat for over a couple months.  So, instead of helping the situation, he was actually more of an obstacle.  The instructor had to spend a majority of the time explaining the basics to this student and the student didn't seem to be "getting it" at all.  This made it a little frustrating all the way around.  I felt sorry for this student as he was getting a LOT of information thrown at him quickly and I think this frustrated him.  Having the instructor spend the majority of his time with this student frustrated my wife and I as we had hoped to learn more about larger boat handling.  I think having students of such different levels of experience also frustrated the instructor.

All in all I think the lesson was worthwhile.  We did get to sail a larger boat, see how it maneuvers in a marina, and got to experience a couple of new mechanisms.  I do think the experience would have been better had the owner left the classes as they were.