Here’s a question: How did you learn to sail in SL?

I’d guess the chances are pretty good that you somehow found your way over to Starboards Yacht Club on a Sunday and  landed in Nber Medici’s ”Introduction to Sailing” class.  For a long time now, Nber’s program has been an extremely important resource that helps new sailors learn the basic skills necessary to operate a sailboat. That class is also how most people in SL first connect with the SLSailing community.  

There is a problem, however.  “Learn to Sail” is a bit of a misnomer. It teaches newcomers how to control their boat and avoid drowning. It probably doesn’t get them to the point where they stop asking “Am I sailing now?  Are we having fun yet?  When will I be ready to Race for the Cup?”

Although “Learning to Sail“  is a great start, it probably takes a lot more input to bring students to the point where they develop confidence sailing.   My guess is we lose a very large number of these people because they get intimidated or frustrated with simple issues, such as using the start line, understanding wind and windsetters, or figuring out the charts.  M1sha Dallin’s Forum thread discusses this issue in detail, and she provides a clear and concise outline of what we might do to help these intermediate sailors.  This week we saw the first results of those discussions, and it was fascinating.

This week Francois Jacques launched a new series of Thursday “Sailing Skills” Classes at NYC for intermediate sailors. M1sha Dallin is in charge of the 12:00 session, and Chaos Mandelbrot takes the helm for the 5:00pm slot. Yesterday’s inaugural sessions were extremely well done, and enthusiastically received by the large audience of sailors at each event.

(At this point, I need to stop and ask everybody to drop what you’re doing, stand up, and give a huge round of applause to Francois Jacques. Francois usually prefers to stay in the background and let other people take the credit. But let me tell you, in this initiative and so many others over the past year, François’ wisdom and steady hand have been a real driving force advancing the SL Sailing community.)

The new one-hour Sailing Skills Class is currently described as “part-classroom and part on-the-water instruction.”  However, after watching yesterday’s sessions and the lively discussion, my personal guess is that the group will end up spending the entire hour in the class covering a wide range of topics and the flood of questions from the audience.

M1sha yesterday reviewed basic principles of sailing physics, and how they apply to SL sailing and racing.  That might sound dry and boring… but believe me, it wasn’t!  Have you ever wondered whether a downwind course is faster by doing a single 170 degree tack or two 150 degree tacks? Is that answer true for boats besides a Tako? What if I wing the sails going downwind in a Trudeau Larinda? At what point-of-sail does raising the centerboard help? How important is heeling to Beach Cat performance? A Tako heels… doesn’t it? How do different SL boats calculate apparent wind effects? What about wave action and shadowing? 

Chaos Mandelbot’s 5pm class continued that discussion with pretty much a standing-room only crowd. Chaos emphasized practical issues of sailing and racing, dovetailing nicely with M1sha’s earlier emphasis on sailing physics. Once again, he nailed in detail a whole series of issues that people in the audience - like me - wonder about a lot. Want a good example? OK… What camera angle do you use sailing and racing? I broke at least three number 2 pencils scribbling down everything Chaos said…

The Thursday 12:00 and 17:00 Sailing Skills classes at NYC are intentionally scheduled right before the Svar Beckersted’s weekly Tako races at SYC, so the group has an immediate opportunity to put the ideas to a test in our own wet-lab environment.

NYC originally planned the two Sailing Skills sessions on Thursdays so the same material would be repeated at times convenient for American and European sailors. It was actually fascinating that M1sha and Chaos discussed the same material, but the topics are so diverse that there was virtually no overlap between their lectures.

It was pretty clear that the Sailing Skills Class will cover a lot more ground in future weeks. The sessions look so useful that SLSailing.com is already working with NYC, SYC, and WYC to make sure that copies of slides, notes, and transcripts of Sailing Skills will be readily available for those who miss the meetings.