Courses
Two courses take absolute beginners: basic keelboat, and navigation ashore, which is at a table and needs nothing at all. Everything else hangs off those two.
Rung 1
Start here — nothing required
Four days from never-been-on-a-boat to sailing a 24-footer round a triangle without an instructor touching anything.
You leave able to: You can rig, leave a dock, sail all points, and come back alone.
Rung 2
After Basic keelboat
One day, entirely in close quarters. The manoeuvre everybody is frightened of, repeated until it is boring.
You leave able to: Springs, backing, and a plan for arriving at a strange dock.
Rung 3
After Basic keelboat
Three days on a 32-footer with an overnight, working the middle bay. Anchoring, reefing, and cooking under way.
You leave able to: You can take a larger boat away for a weekend with a crew.
Start here — nothing required
Two evenings at the table with paper charts, tide tables, and a pencil. The only course we teach indoors, and we are unapologetic about it.
You leave able to: You can plan a passage without the plotter and check the plotter.
Rung 4
After Coastal cruising
One evening leaving at dusk and returning after dark. Lights, night vision, and how different a familiar creek is at eleven.
You leave able to: You can enter and leave a marked channel after dark.
After Coastal cruising
Run only when the forecast is genuinely unpleasant, which means the date moves. Reefing early, heaving to, and crew who are cold.
You leave able to: You have reefed in twenty-five knots with somebody watching.
Rung 5
After Coastal cruising and Navigation ashore
Four days aboard as skipper, with an instructor who says as little as possible. The week before a charter, in other words.
You leave able to: You have skippered a 36-footer with your own crew for a week.
Three things that do not sit on the ladder, because they are booked by the hour, the week, or the month.
Your boat or ours, by the hour, on whatever you actually want to work on. Most common request by a distance is docking your own boat in your own slip.
$140 / hour, our boat · $95 / hour, yours
Five-day summer weeks for ages 11 to 16 in small dinghies, off the beach rather than the dock. Nine to two, bring lunch.
$495 / week
For graduates. Book a keelboat for a half day with a staff member ashore watching the creek and a phone number if it goes sideways.
$85 / month
Prices are per student and include the boat, the sails, the fuel, and the coffee. They do not include the jacket, which you will want.
Hold a place