Short description
The complete how-to program for aspiring sailors with big dreams and little time
From two expert sailors, authors, and teachers who have helped more than 100,000 adults take the helm comes Fast Track to Cruising. This armchair-to-anchorage program takes first-time sailors off the dock and onto open water--in as little as seven days!
Based on the Offshore Sailing School's "Fast Track to Cruising" course, this program starts with sailing basics and moves quickly through daysailing to cruising. Part I highlights key information in outline form. Part II provides a fuller understanding of the concepts behind each technique.This fast-paced guide helps readers: Learn sailing and cruising basics in as little as seven days Develop steering, sail-handling, and anchoring skillsTackle navigation, engine maintenance, and radio operationGain confidence sailing at night and in strong winds
Long description
The Offshore Sailing School, founded by Steve Colgate in 1964, has taught sailing, racing, and cruising to 100,000 adults in its 38 years of operation - more than any other sailing school - and currently teaches 2,500 to 3,000 students per year at facilities in Captiva Island and St. Petersburg, FL; Tortola, BVI; Newport, RI; and Chicago, IL. Its Fast Track to Cruising course, established in spring 2000, has proved the most popular course in the school's history. Most adults getting into sailing view cruising as the ultimate goal; the "fast track" is appealing because so many have limited time. Those who don't know how to sail, and those whose basic sailing skills are rusty from disuse, can cover the basics of steering and sail handling and more advanced cruising topics such as anchoring, navigation, reefing, engine maintenance, radio usage, etc. in a single seven-day course. Like the "Fast Track to Cruising" course, this book starts with the basics of sailing and moves the reader quickly through daysailing to cruising. The first half covers all the steps from learning to sail to liveaboard cruising in outline format, offering synopses of key information along that path.;Each key point is cross-linked to a fuller exposition in the second half of the book, helping the reader to a fuller understanding of the concepts behind the techniques - for example, deeper explanations of apparent versus true wind, or navigating in current, or sail shape as a function of sea condition. Fast Track to Cruising provides armchair-to-anchorage coverage of how to handle a mid-sized cruising sailboat. It is a supplement to on-the-water instruction or a teach-yourself instructional text.