At the end of each April, the Annapolis Spring Sailboat Show is a weekend outing spent ogling boats along City Dock that cost nearly as much as a house, if not more, and dreaming about sailing around the world.
But for those who participated in the hands-on First Sail Workshop, the show was a chance to begin pursuing what could be a lifelong love of the sport. And, is there really a better way to spend your Friday morning?
For one student, the class was a way to dip his toes in the water, testing it out before he committed to a three-day introductory course. Another student had inherited a boat and needed the skills to sail it. Ron Soberano, a Montgomery County resident, had spent years watching sailing videos on YouTube and hoped to make his own channel. Others were seeking out something new.
I also wanted to get a glimpse of what it was like to learn how to sail, but full disclosure — it wasn’t new to me. I’m already a sailor and an American Sailing Association certified instructor with several years of teaching ASA 101, the introductory keelboat sailing course that many sailors start with, under my belt.
While it never hurts to brush up on skills, even as a seasoned sailor, the workshop was a chance to see others experience the same joy that I felt the first time I went sailing, an enchantment with the water that still holds steady more than a decade after my own first sail. That experience is craved by others, too — several dozen spaces offered in the First Sail Workshops on Saturday and Sunday are sold out.
We started our journeys before the show opened for the weekend, learning the ropes in our makeshift classroom, a sunlit space above Latitude 38. The blue skies outside and a light breeze made for a perfect first day on the water.
ASA instructor Ken Roach, a longtime sailor from Delaware, walked us through the basics, using a model cutter rig sailboat to show us the parts of the boat — keel, hull, bow, stern, mast, standing and running rigging, jib and mainsail, port and starboard, among others, scratching the surface of the new vocabulary to be learned when embarking on your first sailing journey.
Adding to the lesson, Roach also showed us how to interpret a diagram of the points of sail, the directions of the wind that dictate where a boat can sail, and informed us of the rules of the road, or water.
As we walked outside after our classroom lecture, eager to hit the docks, the boat show was coming alive. Vendors and yacht brokers milled around, setting up for an eight-hour day under tents and on boats. The three-day event continues Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday.
Amid a sea of cruisers, our boat, a Beneteau First 22, awaited. The 22-foot keelboat boasts ample cockpit space and responsive, yet forgiving twin rudders, a design specifically tailored for beginner courses.
Rick Robey, another longtime ASA instructor and captain, was ready to get on the water, guiding each of us on the correct way to board the boat, ensuring we each had a hand on the shroud and a foot firmly planted on the deck as we stepped on — multiple points of contact are crucial when transferring from a floating dock to the boat.
The power of a tiny electric outboard motor would help us leave the dock once our lines were cast off, and Soberano guided us out past the mooring field in Spa Creek toward the Severn River. For him, taking the helm was bringing his years of watching others sail around the world on a screen to reality.
Once our bow was pointed into the wind, another classmate, Angela Ring, and I worked to raise the mainsail, tightening the foot of the reefed sail before unfurling the jib. With sails up, the motor was switched off, with only the sound of water lapping against the hull and a faint din from the show to be heard.
Ring, a Bowie resident who had casually motored around on powerboats for years before taking the workshop, decided to set sail on Friday to see if she liked it before diving deeper into lessons.
At 10 a.m. on a Friday, boat traffic on the water is light, lending itself to an ideal first-sail environment. A moored boat dead ahead, however, meant that we needed to change course. It was up to us, under the watchful eye of Robey, to navigate onto a new tack.
“Prepare to tack,” Soberano, our helmsman, said.
“Ready!” Ring and I replied, readying at the winches as the bow turned through the wind.
That would be the first in a series of tacks and jibes, with our responsibilities switching between taking the helm and working as crew over the 90-minute voyage. Although the breeze faltered at times, we were smoothly sailing throughout, possibly hitting a top speed of 4 knots.
All good things must come to an end, however, and the time came to drop the sails and motor back to the dock.
Though our arrival back to shore ended the trip, for my classmates, it wasn’t a true ending: it was the beginning of their sailing journeys. I can only hope that this morning excursion sparked a similar love for sailing in them, and that they, too, will find this to be a joy lasting a lifetime.
The First Sail Workshop, presented by the American Sailing Association, is available at the Annapolis Spring Sailboat Show in April and the Annapolis Sailboat Show in October.
