Sail And More

[Yahaira Petrov]

TheArizona Yacht Club is the largest sailing organization in Arizona, enriching our community by promoting the sport of sailing through social activities, competitive racing, cruising, education, and fellowship among our members, their families, and friends.

Another important aspect of knowing yourself is to recognize what you have fun doing and how it contributes to the program. Is an early morning walk to clean the boat, rig, and sort sails fun? Or is your style staying late and checking off work list items? Even with a full-time boat captain, everyone on the team should pull their weight in ways they enjoy.

Learn the language and develop a wide range of skills. Master the bow, repair sails, know how to fix a broken engine, service a winch, become versed in meteorology; but, never stop learning! These skills are helpful for both inshore and offshore sailing and add to your value as a professional sailor.

Part of staying relevant in the field is by pulling your weight physically. It quickly gets old when others complain about sore backs and knees. Good nutrition and regular stretching are worth the investment. You should start both at as young of an age as possible. Balance and strength are important for high-level competition, and joint and nerve health are worth investing in. Talk to experts who train sailors to learn about specific routines and sailing body maintenance to practice while on the road.

Buy a beer for someone or go out of your way to help someone, especially at sail lofts and boatyards. This is valuable advice: Simple acts of kindness open the door to making friends in the industry. Sometimes the favor is returned in a cross on the race course, with sail setup advice, or by borrowing a spare spin pole. Sometimes it is returned as an invitation to sail a Wednesday night beer can race, which can lead to racing a bigger regatta the following weekend. If you have the right attitude, you may soon be a big part of the team.

This year, our team thoughtfully constructed a program that would recreate in the virtual world the community that makes being on the pier so special. Our top priority was to support our kids emotionally and help them address the feelings of isolation, anxiety, and stress that many were experiencing.

Our strategy:

Courageous is committed to providing equitable access to high-quality learning programs for kids of all walks of life, regardless of financial means. Sailing has traditionally been a sport of the rich and the white, and that needs to change! We are proactive in our efforts to reach out to and include young people who might not otherwise get involved. Course fees are determined by financial need, and our Swim Sail Science academic summer program and new school-day programs are completely free for participants. To eliminate potential barriers to participation, Courageous provides Swim Sail Science students and alumni with school bus transportation throughout Boston, meals, and ongoing swimming lessons. In 2021, over half of our intermediate-level sailors started their Courageous journey with Swim Sail Science!

Windsurfing is a sport that is done in a potentially hostile environment. This means that before we hit the water it is important that we must take the time to ensure that we will be getting back to shore. There are many thorough articles on safety out there and I will write one myself shortly. For now keep in mind these checklist items:

Before we start, we must first determine the direction of the wind and adjust the board and sail position accordingly. The board and sail will be put into the T-position. This means that the board will be set out 90 to the wind, and the sail 90 to the board pointing downwind.

Now with one foot on either side of the mast-foot we grab the up-haul and making sure we stand up straight start pulling up the sail. Why the back straight? The sail can be anywhere from 2.5 to 6m2 big, maybe even bigger. All that surface is filled with water which makes it very heavy. Trying to lift this through our back instead of the legs can and will hurt your back. Pressing up with your legs is a simple way to avoid pulling a muscle or doing other serious damage to your back. This factor is usually something we forget about quickly, especially as we get tired. Try not to forget! The easiest way to pull out the sail is to stand up straight and to turn our shoulders and move up the up-haul line with our hands until the mast is in our reach with the next shoulder turn.

We pull the sail up until the point where the sail is only just touching the water. As long as the sail still has contact with the water, it has some resistance and gives us something to hold on to. This is especially useful if we are in a location with waves which are going to knock us off balance. This is our base position. Here we will control the board position, making sure that we maintain the T-position. The next step is a sequence of steps. Memorize these three words like a mantra for this moment: Mast. Feet. Boom

Why not move the feet after grabbing the boom? Mainly because once we have grabbed the boom, we will not be able to move our feet. At least at the beginning. This is for two reasons: On the one hand, once we have power in the sail, you are going to be constantly on the verge of falling over forwards, using a lot of resistance in the toes. This is because the pivot point (or centre of rotation) is the mast-foot which we are going to have between our feet. On the other hand, we are going to be quite concentrated on controlling the power in the sail and will not really have any concentration space left for focussing on the feet as well.

Hey Carlo. Thats great that you have gotten back into it ?

What do you mean with that you cant get sailing? Do you not move forwards? Do you lose balance? Does the board turn into the wind so that a few seconds later tge wind comes from the other side of the sail and pushes you in backwards?

There are quite a few things that can be done wrong, those are just a few common ones.

Let me know exactly what happens either here in the commens of via the contact form and I will get back to you ?

Lets get this sorted out and get you sailing!

Yes, one of the biggest and most immediate challenges for almost every beginner is to keep the sailboard from rounding up and holding a steady tack. To keep it on a straight and steady tack, you have to apply equal force forward (where the foot of the mast pushes at a downward and downwind angle into the board transferring power from the sail into the board) and aft (where you place your feet on the rear portion of the board to also transfer power from the sail into the board) of the imaginary pivot point on the sailboard. Put greater force on the aft and the board starts to turn upwind. Place greater force on the board via the foot of the mast, the board starts to turn downwind.

Yes, I agree. At the beginning, hold the front hand close to the body with the elbow down so that the mast it as upright as possible so that the weight of the sail is literally resting and balanced over the mast foot. This minimizes the energy needed to hold the sail upright due to not only the weight of the sail, but also the wind blowing on the sail. Straighten the front arm after you have sheeted in and the board is moving. Once I learned how to balance the sail over the mast foot and leaning it into the wind, I was able to barely hold the sail and mast while sitting down on my knees in the board (just for fun).

Good morning from Turkey. First of all thank you because I learned too much from your lessons, I can say I am intermediate surfer now. My question is about inflatable windsurf boards. I am planning to buy a inflatable windsurf board (STX windsurf 280). As an intermediate surfer, can I progress on inflatable windsurf board? Or Should I stick to old fashioned hard boards?

I dont think so.

If we are talking about a real sail design there are a lot of factors that influence twist.

Depending a lot to the particular design of the boat.

For the above shown 505 mainsail that could be:

wind force

mast stiffness fore-aft and sideways and taper of top section

sail layout ( cross cut, vertical) sail material and stretch in different directions

sail battens - layout, length and pretension

boom vang tension

cunningham tension

shroud tension

spreader angle and length

mast ram position

outhaul

There is a particular excursion hubby and I had our eyes on for our next cruise, but when I go to the shore excursions available, it is not listed. Just a short list of about 14 for Belize. I've never booked a cruise this far out before (May 17, 2015) and was wondering if they add more later on, or if for some reason this particular sailing is just low on excursion choices. Any insight is appreciated!

I had the same situation when I booked my January cruise in April. There were no excursions available at that time. When I called Carnival I was told it was too early and they would show as they made agreements with the operators of the excursions. They are now showing for my cruise. Be patient, they will come!!

Thanks so much for the quick reply! I kind of figured that was the case, and I was hoping lol. On our last cruise we kept hearing how great the ruins tours were and hubby has his heart set on the Altun Ha and River Wallace tour. Great to know there's still hope! :) Thanks again!

They'll probably add more. For my upcoming NCL cruise, they started off months ago with only a handful of excursions and added a few every so often. The last couple were only added about a month ago. I think we started with nine excursions available and now there are almost eighty.

They will add more in coming months. I have a February cruise booked and they are still adding new excursions ever so often. But I am posting more to say that this past November we did the Altun Ha and River Wallace Tour and I thought it was a great tour.

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