By Jeff Hare, Intructor
Here at TWSC, we’re busy training hundreds of people each month and thousands each year using the American Sailing Curriculum to help them become skilled, safe, and confident mariners in our beautiful waterways—at least that’s what most of our students aim to achieve.
One of our January Basic Keelboat classes had a unique group of students with different experiences and goals than what we usually teach. These students were all three of existing Captains here in the bay each with a 100-ton license, who already spend their professional lives navigating the bay’s waters. They already know the right-of-way, sound signals, knots, and ATONs, so it was an extra challenge to engage them during our class. For instance, after demonstrating the required knots, they kept challenging each other with increasingly complex knots, like, “Yeah, but I bet you don’t know this one!”
Overall, it was a pleasure to help these three learn sailing skills that motor vessel operators don’t often use: reefing, crew overboard recovery under sail, sailing up to a mooring ball, heave-to, and refining their tacking and gybing skills. I’m looking forward to seeing them take their families out on the water and enjoy the bay recreationally, just like we do.
In the photo below, the student who is the professional Harbor Pilot for the bay borrowed the instructor’s handheld VHF radio and had a whole conversation with this tugboat on its way out to assist a tanker at the Chevron pier.
