Sailing experience days - Bosham or close

[Smiler.]

Anyone know of such a thing? The mrs has expressed an interest (proper sails etc) so would like to book something for a couple of days.

She has sea legs, but is a total novice.

I've found a couple of places via google, but any recommendations would be great.

Thanks me hearties

[ThunderSpook]

Stormforce in Southampton are usually very good for this sort of thing. They even do ladies only courses I believe.

[SpeedYellow]

We do days in the Solent and weekend runs across to France for a slap up meal based out of Southampton in the summer, it's a bigger boat than normal but loads of fun to sail. www.bigspiritadventures.com

[RobM77]

It depends what you mean by sailing (yachts, dinghies, racing yachts etc). I got a birthday present for my Dad last year from "Bluebox Sailing" where he spent a whole day on a really pucka racing yacht. He loved it and it was actually extremely reasonably priced.

http://www.blueboxsailing.com/

[NicoG]

Hello

I've lived in and sailed from Bosham for 20 years.

Send me a PM with more specific requirements and I can help you out!


All the best - Nick.

[anonymous-user]

personally i would suggest she has a look at the RYA competent cerw certificate. it sounds serious and i appreciate its a five day course but it covers the basics and she will get a lot of hands on experience. if she doesnt like sailing after that then fair enough, but if she does, she will have all the skills necessary to go on and do the day skipper course as it gives agood understanding of tides,

the "experience" days wont teach her anything, yes you get to take the helm and trim the sheets but in reality its just being taken out on a boat for the day. loads of people will gladly take your cash for a day on the water but why not get some proper sea skills instead. the full practical comp crew course should cost about £500. A good size charter for the day will be about half that.

comp crew stuff.

http://www.rya.org.uk/coursestraining/courses/sail...

[RobM77]

pablo said:

the "experience" days wont teach her anything, yes you get to take the helm and trim the sheets but in reality its just being taken out on a boat for the day. loads of people will gladly take your cash for a day on the water but why not get some proper sea skills instead.

A very good point, but if someone hasn't sailed before, then an experience day is a perfect low cost way of finding out if sailing's for you or not. Paying for a course and getting sea skills is only appropriate if after an hour she realises she likes it; if she doesn't then it's a lot money wasted.

Also, as with most sports, the technicalities are something that most people can learn if they apply themselves, but working out whether you enjoy it or not is more a case of whether you enjoy the experience of being on a boat at sea or not, which an experience day will tell you. If anything, not actually concentrating like mad to learn something new can help give a better impression of what things will be like once competant, and sailing can be very confusing for a beginner! I've been on two sailing courses now; had some very poor instructors and I've now given up learning. If you get a good instructor then I guess things would be different, but given the price difference between the quick one day experience and the full five day course, I'd suggest looking at just doing an experience first to see if you like it or not.

Just my thoughts

[hidetheelephants]

If you want to try sailing to see if you like it, there are plenty of opportunities to do it for free; there are numerous websites(the crew forum on YBW.com is one) that cater for people looking to crew on yachts and vice-versa, some of which are location-specific. I'm sure there will be one for the Solent/South coast. Not having any experience is no barrier, just be willing to make mistakes and learn(you'll do plenty of both).

Edited by hidetheelephants on Wednesday 30th March 13:47

[Legmaster]

Big tall ships perhaps?

Everything from a day sail from Portsmouth to a month long trip to the Caribbean.

www.jst.org.uk

Bar onboard you and proper bogs, showers and 240v for hair straightners for the missus

You can't beat feeling sick, getting cold & rained on at 4am for that 'real life sailing experience'.

[Hard-Drive]

I think there's also an RYA "start yachting" course which is a halfway house between a "pleasure cruise" and a competent crew course and would be a better bet. I'd also steer clear of trying it out on a really big race boat...it's unlikely to relate to the type of sailing that she would be doing to start with.