Man…after the second and final day of the RYA Sailing Level 3 course, my muscles are sore, my fingers chock full of cuts. But I had fun and plus learned a whole lot– here’s how it went down.

The course

Whereas day 1 of the RYA Sailing Level 3 course was all about learning to work as a team on a 2-3 person sailing dinghy, the second day of the course focused more on honing and improving our skills on a single-handed dinghy. For this course the boat of choice was the Laser.

Rigging the Boat

Disclaimer– this section might bore you. Apologies, because this may be a bit more for my knowledge so I don’t forget how to rig up the lasers. Feel free to skip this part 🙂

As a general statement, the lines required were already in place, but none of them were secured or threaded through the proper pulleys. So we were not starting from nothing, but there was sill a bit of work to do before the Lasers were ready to sail.

The task looked impossible at first, but in the end most of the rigging was fairly straightforward. Unfurl the mainsail, insert the battens into the mainsail, drop the mast into the hole. With the mast in place, untangle the kicker (a.k.a “vang”) and inhaul lines to get ready to set them in place. Put the boom in place on the mast, then on the other side of the boom put the hook through the hole at  bottom corner of the mainsail (this hole in the sail is called the “clew”). Now that the mainsail is in place, go back to the mast and insert the key from the kicker into the slot on the boom. You may need to push down on the boom to get the key to slide in.

Now for the inhaul and outhaul lines. First the outhaul– The outhaul line runs all across the boom to the mast then down through two pulleys and through a stopping block (don’t know what that is called). Once the outhaul is through the block and the line is taut but no tight, form a handle at the end of the outhaul line by using a series of false knots to make a firm handle, then form a loop by tying the end of the outhaul line to where the series of false knots started. The inhaul line is simple, thread it up through the hole in the bottom part of the sail at the bottom of the mast, then pass it though the pulley at the bottom and then throug the stopping block. Create a similar handle of false knots.

The kicker line was already all set up, so all I needed to do was untangle it and it was ready to go.

Last step for the rigging was to attach the rudder, get a daggerboard ready, and thread the main sheet. once that was done, the boats were ready to launch.

A little instruction: setting the mainsail for different conditions

Before we headed out on to the water, we got a little instruction on how the sail should be rigged for high vs. low wind conditions.

Out on the water

With the onshore instruction out of the way, we launched out to the sailing course, which was your classic racing triangle course. For those unaware of what this means, you set three bouys in a triangle shape, such that from bouy 1 to bouy 2 you are sailing against the wind (up wind), then from bouy 2 to bouy 3 you are sailing across the wind, and then from bouy 3 back to 1 you are sailing across the wind in the opposite direction. Here we got comfortable with the laser racing techniques, to ensure we moved around the course in the quickest time possible.

Here is the first time I actually started to adjust the kicker line, since upwind it gets slack and you need to tighten it up, and then down wind you need to release the kicker line a bit to allow the boom more freedom to move. It was not as hard as we thought to get the hang of this, and in fact it started to become second nature after 3 or 4 times around the course. In the morning we didn’t stay out too long before heading back to shore for lunch.

Back on the water- The Race

After lunch, the wind picked up a bit more so it was ideal wind speed for beginner’s racing. During the racing I picked up a few good skills:

Stopping in position

I already knew how to stop the boat, by sailing upwind and then letting out the sail until it luffs freely. But for racing it’s important to know how to come to an almost immediate stop (i.e. to sit at the starting line). To accomplish this, you point the boat into the wind, then use force to push the boom out as far as you can push it. It’s important to use the rudder to point the boat into the wind while you push out on the boom, or the stop won’t be as immediate or complete. Then when it’s time to get moving (i.e. 20 seconds to go before starting sound), simply pull in the sail and point away from the wind. Easy!

Sailing towards a mark (close-hauled)

One thing I struggled with, was when I am sailing close-hauled (upwind) towards the first mark, how do I know when the ideal time to tack is, to ensure that when I finish the tack I will be on a direct course towards the first mark? Without this skill, I inevitably waste time with multiple and sloppy last-minute tacking. The fix for this is quite simple. If you are sailing port-side close-hauled, and then you tack to starboard-side close hauled, the difference between these two points of sail is 90 degrees. So if you are close hauled, then it is time  to tack when the mark is directly behind you. This can be easily detected by constantly checking over your right and left shoulders. if the mark is still a bit in front of you, you need to sail a bit further before tacking. If the mark moves to be behind the boat, you know you have gone too far. Using this method almost always  got me to the mark right on a course made good. Excellent!

Final thoughts

After the sailing was over, I had won two of the races. This typically happens when you start out in the best starting position and don’t screw it up. Of course, I had also seriously mucked up at least two of the runs. But all in all, the course was definitely worthwhile, and I picked up some valuable sailing skills along the way. Can’t wait to get out on the water again and flex my renewed sailing confidence!