# New to sailing



## Diese Ziet (May 30, 2021)

Hello! My husband and I are in a position to drop everything to get a boat and start sailing. We have found a nice solid boat that we trust to be seaworthy. We are in the process of purchasing it. It is our goal to become close to self sufficient and live a minimal lifestyle aboard. My husband wants to purchase the boat and jump right into sailing on our own, entirly self trained in just a few weeks. Where I do have faith in his ability to learn and survive and I am also a quick learner I am also the more cautious one. I would really like to set us up for success without to many hiccups to start with. We don't want to dump a bunch of money into lessons if we don't have to. Perhaps find a person with some experience who would do the same thing for less in a quicker setting. Not asking for handouts by any means but maybe I can get some better options on here. Living aboard with somone who is experienced in sailing for a week or 2 would be nice. We want to jump into it and learn it as quick as possible but do it safely. Maybe somone can also convince my husband to take some sort of help lol.


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## SanderO (Jul 12, 2007)

This sounds not well thought through.
What is the boat you are about to purchase?
How did you determine it would be suitable for the mission? Did you look at other boats? Did you do research? Where are you planning to "live aboard"?
You certainly can go from a complete newbie to a competent ocean / live aboard sailor. It takes time. Let me repeat.... It takes time. How much time? That depends.

In my case, I was 38 yrs old, in a lousy marriage with no children and working as a self employed architect with a small woodworking business. I had control of my time... but business obligations too,

I bought a brand new 36' Dutch boat which was already set up to sail... not live aboard... not to do ocean passages.
I attended a one week "learn to sail course" (inexpensive) and got my friend who owned a sailboat to mentor me and sail with me on the boat for several months of weekends. There was no WWW at the time so I bought books and read a lot and sailed whenever in whatever until winter forced me to store the boat.
I was engaged in a continual "upgrade" / fit out of the boat... I did all the work myself... planning, researching... electronics, diesel heating, engine drive refrigeration, below decks autopilot, solar panels, Sunbrella dodger w/ stainless bows, new running rigging. new toilet, roller furling, anchor windlass and chain, electric system monitor and alternator w/ smart regulator upgrade, running back stays, inner forestay, staysail track, secondary winches, mast winch, reaching pole, cruising spinnaker, Dutchman for the mainsail, bought storm sails and a drogue, life raft...dinghy and OB and numerous joinery improvements. I upgraded the stanchion bases... added jack lines. And since these upgrades, I have replaced all ports and and hatches, rebuilt the the teak in the cockpit and shower. I spent about 5 years doing the projects and sailing locally in LIS and as far as Maine. I sailed in any weather that came my way including snow once! Final preparation was doing a offshore race to Bermuda and then sail back.

I suppose I could have compressed this from compete newbie to confident mildly experienced sailor in less time. But I was in no rush and had to cut the ties to my life ashore and deal with all my possessions. The later took months. I sailed thousands of miles single handed and tens of thousands of miles shorthanded.

You can learn on the fly... I suppose. What's the rush?


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## Interlude (Jun 16, 2016)

Sounds exciting and all new endeavors come with both apprehension and excitement. A few thoughts:

Unless you are talking about a known boat and little capital invested, please do not "trust it to be seaworthy". Find a good surveyor and some boats simply are terrible no matter the shape.
Unless you are already comfortable with DYI and have a good background working with your hands and tools it is not prudent to assume you can become self sufficient without much trial and error. Read cost and time. Boats WILL cost you more time and money than you can imagine.
Unless you both have common vision for this, a boat is much too small a place to sort out such differences. Do it ahead of time.
Unless you have sailed on small craft already, do so before a large sized craft. Small boats will teach you sailing, large boats will hide a multitude of sins when sailing.
Unless you wish to start without a basic understanding of sailing, navigation, rules of road, etc. take a basic class, even a free bee though the CC auxiliary. 

We started with a seaworthy little 16' foot sloop, a basic class, a couple well recommended books, and sailed our hearts out for several years before we began to consider the kind of move you are considering. Too many folks have viewed the VLOG lifestyle that is now prevalent and assume it is reality. It most assuredly is a production, some better than others, but regardless it is not reality.

I wish to encourage but also wish to help you both manage expectations so your dreams don't die. There are many boats in our marina that languish unused because of that exact reason.

May you learn the art of tricking the wind into moving your boat. It truly is art as much as science and it truly will take a lifetime to become both an artist and a scientist. Best get started, but understand it will take time.


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## Donna_F (Nov 7, 2005)

Diese Ziet said:


> We don't want to dump a bunch of money into lessons if we don't have to. Perhaps find a person with some experience who would do the same thing for less in a quicker setting.


If there is a place where you don't want to skimp, it's with the learning process. I agree with the question: What's the rush? You're never going to know everything there is to know about sailing, operating, and maintaining a boat and your two week time frame is not reasonable in my opinion. I find that one of the joys of sailing is always having something new to learn or learn how to do better.

I wish you the best of luck but don't set yourself up to fail or become frustrated before you reach the fun parts. I hope you stick around the forum and learn from those with a vast amount of experience.


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## PatMc57 (Aug 23, 2016)

Where are you based?


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## MarkofSeaLife (Nov 7, 2010)

The local sailing club will have races on the weekends. Go see them and see if there's a Crew List. Put your name on it and people might take you out and give you a run as part of the crew. Great fun! Great learning!


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## PhilCarlson (Dec 14, 2013)

Exciting and ambitious! 

No reason you can't learn to sail on your own. I had one day of training before I started sailing my own boat. It is from that perspective that I recommend taking an accredited sailing course ASA or US Sailing. Taking the course together will give you a foundation of basics and a common experience to build upon. The accredited school is important because you can build on that credential later, which you may need to demonstrate your competence to meet insurance or international requirements. After you have a good bit of experience, the advanced classes will refine your skills, help clean up the bad habits, and fill in the blanks. 

+1 on the survey. You need to know the boat is sound, not feel like it.

If you're new to sailing, there is a lot you haven't even considered and there is a big difference between sailing, living aboard, and cruising full time. 

The key is to build your experience and skillset and a deliberate method will help. Start with day sailing, do some overnights, then longer costal trips. Consider that the USCG's most basic license requires a minimum of 360 sea days, and use that as a milestone towards building a solid skillset. 

Good luck!


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## Diese Ziet (May 30, 2021)

SanderO said:


> This sounds not well thought through.
> What is the boat you are about to purchase?
> How did you determine it would be suitable for the mission? Did you look at other boats? Did you do research? Where are you planning to "live aboard"?
> You certainly can go from a complete newbie to a competent ocean / live aboard sailor. It takes time. Let me repeat.... It takes time. How much time? That depends.
> ...


There is no rush apart from the fact that we want this and have all the time and money to make it happen. We are both dropping everything and selling it all to adopt a different type of life style.

The boat is a 1978 34 Cal known for live aboards and is a well know sea worthy vessel but everyone will.have somthing to say about that. It comes with a mooring ball and can be there year round. Currently in dry storage and ready to sail. We will be going to see her in a few weeks.

My husband is a supervisor industrial mechanic and I am a carpenter / jack of all trades. All in all very handy and go getters. We make a great team.

We are ready to make this jump and want to learn as efficiently as possible. I feel finding somone to liveaboard with for a couple weeks would get us the results we want in the shortest about of time and the u would be compensated for their time.

My husband and I don't take our time twiddling our thumbs. We do things right and we want to learn but we dive in all the way. We don't procrastinat. Since we want to live aboard and travel the world we want the full learning experience not the 2 hours here and there. Since we will be doing it full time we don't see a reason so take it slow. We are 31 and 32 years old. No kids. Nothing but us and our dream.

We have nothing holding us back right now and that is why we are doing this. Who know what tomorrow holds. All we have is this.


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## contrarian (Sep 14, 2011)

Diese Ziet said:


> We have nothing holding us back right now and that is why we are doing this. Who know what tomorrow holds. All we have is this.


Go for it . Better to do it now and not regret not doing it in 40 years.
The one thing I would recommend for experience is to help with a long delivery before you jump in feet first so to speak. It will give you a real taste of what you can expect down the road.


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## SanderO (Jul 12, 2007)

Diese Ziet said:


> There is no rush apart from the fact that we want this and have all the time and money to make it happen. We are both dropping everything and selling it all to adopt a different type of life style.
> 
> The boat is a 1978 34 Cal known for live aboards and is a well know sea worthy vessel but everyone will.have somthing to say about that. It comes with a mooring ball and can be there year round. Currently in dry storage and ready to sail. We will be going to see her in a few weeks.
> 
> ...


Good attitude...and sounds like you both have good backgrounds and enjoy "mechanical things" . Stowage space is very important in a live aboard boat.


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## Minnewaska (Feb 21, 2010)

I dare say, to live aboard, one's mechanical aptitude may be more critical than their sailing aptitude. You need both and one's ability to uptake new information and learn is what's going to determine the speed at which you can assimilate. 

Confidence is important and it seems you both have that. It allows one to think calmly and more clearly. Arrogance can hurt anyone, if they aren't willing to focus on figuring out what they don't know. I'm not hearing arrogance, it's just a warning. Learning to sail is very easy. Learning to deal with emergencies (weather or mechanical) is not. The most important thing is to be properly aware of what you don't know. For example, land based electrical wiring and adhesives/caulking are not the same as marine standards.


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## Izzy (Feb 14, 2016)

The best and quickest way to learn to sail is to take a basic dinghy sailing course from your local yacht club. The basics apply no matter the size of the boat, there aren’t any shortcuts. Confidence alone in ample amounts will not make any boat sail to windward.


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## SanderO (Jul 12, 2007)

Minnewaska said:


> I dare say, to live aboard, one's mechanical aptitude may be more critical than their sailing aptitude. You need both and one's ability to uptake new information and learn is what's going to determine the speed at which you can assimilate.
> 
> Confidence is important and it seems you both have that. It allows one to think calmly and more clearly. Arrogance can hurt anyone, if they aren't willing to focus on figuring out what they don't know. I'm not hearing arrogance, it's just a warning. Learning to sail is very easy. Learning to deal with emergencies (weather or mechanical) is not. The most important thing is to be properly aware of what you don't know. For example, land based electrical wiring and adhesives/caulking are not the same as marine standards.


My sense is that people who have mechanical aptitude make the best sailors. In don't think one can be a good sailor without mechanical aptitude. Sailing is really not intuitive. Sure sailors develop heightened senses for things like the wind. Land lubbers are hardly aware of the environment except what they weather forecast tells them.
Sailboats ARE complex. Some very complex. The complexity is mechanical They are "wind machines" and cruising boats have all manner of systems as a house would and all these need care and feeding and that means mechanical competence. It is certainly much much harder to call a plumber to fix something on a boat than it is for a house. The high level of mechanical competence of sailors MAY be the main reason why there are so few marine mechanics out there. The demand is less.
Actual sailing is art and science, a skill which one can learn and improve at with experience. Like most knowledge you can learn from reading or watching... but like skiing, for example, you have to actually get on the slopes to learn to and improve at skiing.
Sailing competence is very different from say driving a car competence. While a car is complex as well... operating it is much easier and one simply follows roads and signs and the car has only basic controls steering, gas pedal and brakes. Being a driver does not mean one can be a sailor.
Mechanical competence is mission critical to owning and cruising a boat.


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## Siamese (May 9, 2007)

There are people who could do what you propose, and there are people who would fail miserably, endangering themselves and destroying their boat. 

I'm in the process of selling my boat right now, and based on my interaction with the buyer, it's clear that my ex-boat will be unrecognizable in a couple years. 

We can't predict where you'll be on the success/fail spectrum, but there are a couple indicators in your post. One, is that you "trust" that the boat you're purchasing is seaworthy. Trust won't cut it. You either know or you don't know. 

And, you're adamant about cutting corners in the learning process. At this point, you don't know what you don't know. There are two things you need to master. Sailing the boat, and maintaining the boat. The latter probably takes longer to learn, even for people with good skills for land based projects. Boats are different. 

I get that you're looking for cut rate instruction, not criticism, but....

Assuming you're not a troll, I'll wish you the best of luck.


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## emcentar (Apr 28, 2009)

Diese Ziet said:


> Where I do have faith in his ability to learn and survive and I am also a quick learner I am also the more cautious one. I would really like to set us up for success without to many hiccups to start with. We don't want to dump a bunch of money into lessons if we don't have to. Perhaps find a person with some experience who would do the same thing for less in a quicker setting. Not asking for handouts by any means but maybe I can get some better options on here. Living aboard with somone who is experienced in sailing for a week or 2 would be nice. We want to jump into it and learn it as quick as possible but do it safely. Maybe somone can also convince my husband to take some sort of help lol.


You aren't going to find anyone to take you aboard and teach you how to sail for free. Generally, you need to pick your parents very carefully to luck into a situation like that. Plenty of folks will tell you to find a local club race and volunteer as crew. It's mostly free but does take time and luck, there's generally a lot more newbies offering themselves as crew than there are boats looking to train new crew. You are in a hurry so how to start?

Best option is to hire a captain to teach you to sail on your own boat. That's what most people who bought a boat without knowing how to sail do. You should budget this into your purchasing plan, and like the survey and sea trial, it will be some of the best money you spend during the purchase process.

FWIW I think you are right to be cautious. Maybe you and your husband can wing it, but even if you don't get in a dangerous situation, it's not fun. Neither of you will know what you are doing and there will be lots of screaming and blame distributing when things go wrong. The difference between sailing being fun and sailing being stressful is knowledge and experience. You don't have any right now, so the key is to build some before one of you gives up and decides this isn't any fun


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## overbored (Oct 8, 2010)

78 cal 34 would be 34-III not a bad boat to own for a first boat but not to live on, not as bad as the earlier models but still very small. if you are ready to learn how to sail and want to do it quickly then learn in a small boat take a course wear they teach all the basics in a class and in a small boat and you will be a able to sail in a 3 days then you can move on to the larger 34' and learn all the other things you need to know about owning and maneuvering a larger boat in and around a marina and anchoring. learn in a large boat and you will learn the big boat stuff but will take a lot longer to learn to really sail a boat. you could also learn more the hard way then you would want to. I do lessons all the time and I don't charge for kids. I find if the kid already has learned to sail a small boat. then I just hand them the tiller on our boat and they are good. then we teach them docking and they do just fine. I start my students in a Sabot first then the bigger boat after they can sail the Sabot up wind and down. going to be doing a lot more teaching this summer than last . so if you are on the left coast look us up


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## Annapolitan (Feb 22, 2021)

Welcome from another new member.

Wow - lots of great insight and advice here which shows the inherent value of this forum.

Best of luck to you and your husband in this endeavor.


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## MoonBeamEstate (Jan 1, 2021)

Diese Ziet said:


> There is no rush apart from the fact that we want this and have all the time and money to make it happen. We are both dropping everything and selling it all to adopt a different type of life style.
> 
> The boat is a 1978 34 Cal known for live aboards and is a well know sea worthy vessel but everyone will.have somthing to say about that. It comes with a mooring ball and can be there year round. Currently in dry storage and ready to sail. We will be going to see her in a few weeks.
> 
> ...


Congrats and welcome! Take it slow, use your caution to balance his seat of the pants and have fun. We learned from book and on our own. It's not that hard. Experiences that you survive are the best teacher.


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## PhilCarlson (Dec 14, 2013)

MoonBeamEstate said:


> Experiences that you survive are the best teacher.


It's true! One of those experiences is why I always double check if the wave data is in English or Metric. (4 foot seas? no problem!)


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## boatpoker (Jul 21, 2008)

Diese Ziet said:


> Hello! My husband and I are in a position to drop everything to get a boat and start sailing. We have found a nice solid boat that we trust to be seaworthy. We are in the process of purchasing it. It is our goal to become close to self sufficient and live a minimal lifestyle aboard. My husband wants to purchase the boat and jump right into sailing on our own, entirly self trained in just a few weeks. Where I do have faith in his ability to learn and survive and I am also a quick learner I am also the more cautious one. I would really like to set us up for success without to many hiccups to start with. We don't want to dump a bunch of money into lessons if we don't have to. Perhaps find a person with some experience who would do the same thing for less in a quicker setting. Not asking for handouts by any means but maybe I can get some better options on here. Living aboard with somone who is experienced in sailing for a week or 2 would be nice. We want to jump into it and learn it as quick as possible but do it safely. Maybe somone can also convince my husband to take some sort of help lol.


It cab be done but you don't know what you don't know .... Col Regs, weather, navigation among many others.
How about starting with some basics ..... Marine Survey 101, pre-survey inspection


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## P-Factor (Jun 12, 2021)

Sorry for hijacking the post, but Donna_F are you still the owner of Halcyon? I think I'm correct that I saw it for sale somewhere but can't remember what website it was, I happen to be here in RH now and saw it sitting on the hard.
-James-



Donna_F said:


> If there is a place where you don't want to skimp, it's with the learning process. I agree with the question: What's the rush? You're never going to know everything there is to know about sailing, operating, and maintaining a boat and your two week time frame is not reasonable in my opinion. I find that one of the joys of sailing is always having something new to learn or learn how to do better.
> 
> I wish you the best of luck but don't set yourself up to fail or become frustrated before you reach the fun parts. I hope you stick around the forum and learn from those with a vast amount of experience.


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