Learning to Sail: The Annapolis Sailing School Guide for All Ages - Softcover

Few forms of outdoor recreation offer the freedom, the challenge, the sheer exhilaration and excitement of sailing. Sailing can be about racing for the prestigious America's Cup against an international field of competitors, or to see who buys pizza for the neighborhood dinghy racing club. Sailing can mean crossing oceans on great voyages of discovery, or just cruising a pleasant bay on a sunny day with a few good friends, a small, simple boat, and no particular destination or schedule.

Some people say that sailing is expensive or hard, but it's really neither. A very good small sailboat can be bought for less than a very bad used car, and is a lot more fun and safer to boot. If you don't want to buy a sailboat or can't afford one, you can always rent one; many communities near water have a sailboat rental shop. And as for sailing being hard? Nonsense. It isn't hard, it's just different.

This book is about learning to sail. It follows the techniques perfected at the world-famous Annapolis Sailing School, where thousands of people just like you have learned to take tiller in hand and harness the wind. You'll learn your way around a boat--what its parts are called, what they do, and how to use them to ride the wind wherever you want to go.

It's written using the language of the sea passed down for centuries from sailor to sailor--port and starboard, fore and aft, tack and jibe. These words may sound odd at first, but before you know it you'll think and talk like a sailor, and not feel like an extra in a bad pirate movie.

Read this book, spend some time on a boat, and practice your new skills, and pretty soon you'll be a sailor, one of a select group of people who think there's nothing finer than hiking out to windward in a close-hauled dinghy--racing against friends or a neighboring sailing club, or alone and just for the fun of it. Or kicking back with your feet up on the centerboard trunk and running slowly downwind, listening to the waves and watching the gulls. Or plotting a course to a mysterious island just offshore that you've always wondered about, and now can sail to and explore.

Learn to sail, and you'll find out what has drawn humankind to the water for thousands of years--the urge to head off into the freedom of a very different environment.

Just following the wind.

". . . this wonderful little book is destined to become a classic for all who wish to sail."--The Ensign

"This would be a good book for sailing parents who want to teach their kids to sail, or as a reinforcement for beginning sailing lessons."--Chesapeake Bay Magazine

"It's to the point and covers all the bases of basic sailing, including safety, clothing, and avoiding thunderstorms. Learning to Sail is a quick and easy read and a good primer for those contemplating getting their feet wet aboard a sailboat, whether they be young or old."--Capital, Annapolis, Maryland

"Reading this book before putting out for the first sortie will give any new captain steadier sea legs."--Booklist

". . . the first book to provide a comprehensive, up-to-date sailing course aimed especially at young people. . . . Students will learn to become confident, self-sufficient sailors with the help of this book."--Rhode Island Boating