Sailing Lessons for Beginners

Start your sailing adventure now with our Basic Keelboat course!

Our Basic Keelboat certification course is a comprehensive 4 days of sailing lessons. It is designed both for students who have no sailing experience and for those who have some experience, but want to be sure they learn to sail the right way, from the ground up.

With an emphasis on practical training, you will learn all the essentials of sailing quickly and more thoroughly than you thought possible. You will be at the helm and learning to sail on the morning of your first lesson, and in command of the boat through all of the fundamental maneuvers by the next afternoon. While you learn about sailing using practical training, you will enjoy several short classroom or dockside sessions sprinkled throughout the course.

Unlike other Bay Area sailing clubs, we teach Basic Keelboat on a 24-foot tiller-steered keelboat called a “J/24.” This boat is strong and sporty, and in fact is the most popular and prevalent one-design keelboat with a rich racing pedigree. The boat provides instant feedback thanks to the tiller (vs. a wheel) and a low profile in the water. (The downside - or fun side - is you can get a bit wet in rough conditions.) The boat is fairly “manual” which means there is extra work to rig it for sailing, but also means you have many sail shaping and sizing options before departure or while underway.

Here is a summary of the topics we cover in the course:

• Sailing terminology

• Sailing theory

• Knots

• Safety on the water

• Rigging and bedding the boat

• Docking and departing under power

• Marina procedures

• Tacking, gybing, heading up, and bearing away (the four basic maneuvers)

• Points of sail

• Sail trim

• Crew overboard recovery

• Reefing

• Rules of the road

• Tides and currents

• Equipment regulations and inventory

• Aids to navigation

• Nautical charts

Here’s what is included with your course fee:

• Four days of training (mostly on the water, but some dockside/classroom instruction as well)

• ASA Basic Keelboat textbook

• Free use of foul weather gear and personal flotation device

• Personal attention - there are only 3 students on board, plus an instruction. (Most SF Bay sailing schools have four students on board. Our approach gives you 33% more time at the helm learning to sail!)

• Additional option for Seminars and Development Sails. Sailing is difficult, especially in the San Francisco Bay. We offer supplemental classroom and on-the-water sessions for those students who need a little extra time.

Successful completion qualifies you to crew on keelboats at Inspire Sailing and satisfies the prerequisite for enrollment in Basic Cruising.

Price: $1,195 (Member), $1,435 (Non-Member)

Sound like fun? You bet it is! Check our Schedule to find available course dates and sign up online.