So what does a person that wants to start sailing do?
Learning to sail is a good place to start.
When i grew up in Italy I learned to windsurf at the hotel Sol Palace in San Gineto Lido in Calabria, and from there small keel boats were an easy transition.
Every time we went to a lake or the beach if the possibility of renting a small sail boat or a windsurf was there, I would take advantage of it. A favorite was the Bracciano Lake near Rome, where we would swim , eat “pasta alla carbonara”, drink wine and sail.
It has been a few decades since then, therefore I decided to take a refresher course.
I really needed to do this because I don’t know the English terminology for boat parts and sail .
One thing is to feel your way around on a small boat and another thing is being able to give instructions to other people on a boat.
After many years of procrastination and a lot of googling I found the “Hudson River Community Sailing” this is an ASA accredited sailing School on the bike path along the Hudson which I take
while I bike to work from 145th street in Manhattan to Chamber Street .
Attending this school I got my first accreditation ASA 101 or Basic Keel Boat. The dream is starting to become more real. Check out the second part of this blog for when i got my RYA accreditation in Antigua.