- The goal
- Race regularly at a club, as crew or on your own boat.
- Assumes you have
- Anywhere, including no sailing at all.
- How long, honestly
- You can be crewing within a fortnight. Being wanted back takes a season.
- What it is not
- Racing is not a qualification, and no certificate gets you a berth on a good boat. Reliability does.
Step by step
Join a club and put your name down for crew
Almost every Australian club runs a crew list or a "come and try" night. Boats are short of crew far more often than crew are short of boats.
Learn to sail well enough to be useful
Dinghy Level 2 or an Australian Sailing keelboat course. You need to be safe and know the vocabulary; you do not need to be good yet.
Learn the rules
The racing rules are the part you cannot pick up by watching, and the part that gets you shouted at. A short rules course or a club rules night pays back immediately.
Learn spinnaker work
Downwind handling is where crews win and lose races, and where a new crew member becomes genuinely valuable rather than merely present.
Own a job on the boat
Pit, bow, trim, main. Pick one, get good at it, and become the person who is asked back.
Move to offshore racing if you want moreoptional
Category 1 and 2 events have their own safety and experience requirements set under the Australian Sailing Special Regulations.
Racing is the cheapest sailing in Australia and the fastest way to get good. A club membership and a willingness to be on the dock at 1pm on a Saturday gets you more time on the water than any course budget will.
Why crewing is the way in
Racing boats need bodies. A twin-spinnaker 40-footer wants eight or nine people and rarely has them. If you can be relied on to arrive on time, sober, in the right clothing, and to do one job without being reminded, you will get sailing.
Skill is not the entry requirement. Reliability is. Skippers will teach a willing beginner all season and will not call back a good sailor who cancelled twice.
What a course is genuinely worth here
Two things. First, safety — knowing where to put your hands, what a loaded sheet does and how to move on a heeled deck. Second, vocabulary, so instructions land the first time. Beyond that, races teach racing.
Twilight racing
Most Australian clubs run mid-week twilight series through summer. They are short, informal, forgiving of beginners and the single best entry point into a racing fleet. If you are looking for one thing to do, that is it.
Every pathway
I want to charter a yacht
Hire a yacht without a skipper and sail it yourself.
I want to bareboat the Whitsundays
Charter a yacht or catamaran in the Whitsundays and sail it yourself.
I just bought a boat
Sail your own yacht confidently, including short-handed and in a crosswind berth.
We want to sail as a couple
Both of you able to sail the boat, including bringing her home without the other.
I want to sail offshore
Make ocean and extended coastal passages, as crew or as skipper.
I want to teach sailing
Qualify to teach sailing at a club or a commercial school.
I want to work on boats
Be paid to operate or crew a vessel in Australia.
Not sure this is your pathway?
Three questions — your experience, the boat you want to sail, and your goal — give you a starting course and the schools that teach it near you.