Sailing advice?

**Usarka** · 5th April 2010, 21:23

Originally Posted by yachtie10

There always skippers looking for keen crew for racing and cruising
get in touch with the yacht clubs in your area

there lots of social sailing thats not that serious and the weekend race to somewhere then back the next day can be great fun plus you will learn a lot
...snip...
Coastguard run courses quite cheaply and I recommend you do some

Cheers - is it worth doing a practical course as mentioned above before approaching clubs? Am doing the day skipper course at moment with coastguard - am quite impressed with the practicality etc.

Originally Posted by PirateJafa

If you plan to sail out of NZ's waters to overseas, there are some other things to take into mind.

Your yacht needs to meet some fairly hefty safety requirements (and if you've bought a yacht without taking this into consideration, potentially pretty expensive to bring it up to standard), and (IIRC) if you want insurance, you need to have completed a seamanship course (fucked if I can remember which one off the top of my head though).

Oooouchy - nice. I'll contact some insurance types to find out what the craic is.

Originally Posted by blossomsowner

no need to do winter sailing at all if you plan it right

Put it this way, planning isn't my middle name

**yachtie10** · 5th April 2010, 21:34

Originally Posted by Usarka

Cheers - is it worth doing a practical course as mentioned above before approaching clubs? Am doing the day skipper course at moment with coastguard - am quite impressed with the practicality etc.

you dont need the courses to crew (although they certainly will help)
If you have started with coastguard you will know theres a variety of courses which you could/should do if you planning on longer trips
get out there and do some sailing with people who you can learn from.
Make sure you get some good wet weather gear. Its worse than motorcycling as you cant just get off if your cold and wet
you dont say where you are so not sure if I can help

**piston broke** · 5th April 2010, 21:47

get down to a local sailing club,
see if you can get out on some sort of 2 man yacht as crew(forard hand)
best of luck,i'm sure you'll love it,spesh in winter with the breeze up

**Usarka** · 5th April 2010, 22:19

Originally Posted by yachtie10

Make sure you get some good wet weather gear. Its worse than motorcycling as you cant just get off if your cold and wet
you dont say where you are so not sure if I can help

Good old Onehunga.