Adult Learn to Sail

Start Crewing A Small Keelboat

The Start Crewing Course is the first step on the Australian Sailing accredited pathway to learning how to sail a small keelboat. The course is ideal for anyone with no previous sailing experience looking to learn the basics of sailing.This course provides a fun and accessible entry into sailing and gives participants the opportunity to improve and develop sailing skills and techniques. As your skills progress, you will also develop an understanding of each person's role and how teamwork plays a major part of being an effective crew. Upon successful completion of the 12-hour course (run over 4 weeks) you will understand basic sailing terminology, ropework, safety procedures, rigging, wind awareness and sail trim. You will come away with the knowledge and confidence to crew on a small keelboat competently and for those that wish, you can progress to larger yachts or participate as crew on a racing yacht.This course is an excellent way to become more involved in sailing and meet other sailors at a similar skill level in an inclusive, encouraging club atmosphere. After completing this course sailors can join twilight racing on Wednesday afternoons.

Course Review and Feedback by course participant Dianne Green:

"My partner had been bugging me to come sailing with him since we moved to Sydney. For some reason we never got around to it until we moved to the Central Coast. I looked up the GSC on the internet and found that they had an Adults Learn to sail course on the Magic 25s -no experience necessary. I thought "great, it’s not just for kids so I won’t look like a colossal fool trying to stay afloat in dinghy!" My partner enrolled with me and together we commenced the course.

When I commenced the course I was simultaneously thrilled and nervous at the immediacy of hands-on involvement: sailing really is doing, and doing is sailing. Not just that it was encouraged, but because it was expected and I was learning directly through my actions, this was a rapid confidence booster. I also acknowledge the teachers’ excellent communication skills: reminding us to talk, loud and clear and to remain alert. This inspired synchronicity with each other and helped to apprehend problems before they escalated.

What I did not know until I started the course was that GSC had cultivated a swathe of world class sailors, from Olympic gold medalists to Sydney-Hobart veterans and a multitude of lesser known, local sailors with extraordinary experience and skills in their fingertips – all willing to impart knowledge, particularly to the new students. Often these sailors would skipper the Magic 25s so we learned from a rich, diverse, deep body of teachers with varied practices.

GSC offered a unique solution with friendly, hands on teachers who were distinguished sailors and competitive to boot! The delivery of this course, with its practical and theory components, provided a fine blend of learning which was reasonable and reliable: once you had that knowledge, it laid a great foundation upon which to build your sailing education.

Enrolling in the course also provided opportunities I had not foreseen: crewing on yachts for in-shore and twilight races and eventually commencing regular crewing in the off-shore races. At the end of the course my partner and I purchased a Fireball and began racing it in the Mixed Fleet at GSC.

I would absolutely recommend the GSC to any person, young or old, with even the slightest interest in boats, water and/or sailing. I can’t promise you won’t get addicted but I can promise that it could potentially change your life – for the better!

Thank you Peter, Neil & all the other teachers at GSC."