Sailing in Seattle

The United States is bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east.

It's one thing to sail on a lake, quite another to do ocean sailing!

So, let's talk about sailing in Seattle.

If you're going to go ocean sailing, and you've never sailed before, or even if you have sailed, but only on a lake, you need to take a few classes, or at least sail with some other, experienced people, until you know everything you need to know.

The Seattle Sailing Club, located out of Shilshole Bay Marina for over forty years, is one place to start.

They:

run American Sailing Association certification courses starting with Basic Keelboat 101 through Celestial Navigation 107 on weekends, weekdays and weekday evenings every month of the year. They also run spinnaker handling courses, racing courses and weeklong cruise-n-learn courses in the San Juan Islands. They keep their class sizes small, no more than 4 people, to give people as much one-on-one time with their instructor and as much time as possible on the helm/crew positions on 24-36 foot racing and cruising sailboats.

Sailnet.com explains some differences between ocean sailing and lake sailing.

In ocean (or "blue water) sailing, the waves are bigger BUT the wind does not gust like it does on many lakes.

Lake sailors spend a lot more time tacking.

Blue water sailors are, usually, better prepared to handle things like chafing issues and securing the interior of the boat for these things as well as things like running preventers.

And then there's the all important issue of navigation. "There's not much to navigation on "most" inland water ways!"