Performance Sailing and Racing

Sail trim is one of the key elements in making your sailboat perform to its max. In these courses you'll learn a lot about sail trim on every point of sail. When you're back home sailing around on a leisurely afternoon, you'll find yourself fine tuning your sails to beat every boat that ventures nearby. 

But that's not all we teach in Performance Sailind and Performance Racing. In addition to trimming your sails for speed, pushing yourself, your boat and crew to maximize performance in a club race, regional or international competition is the only way we know to get your adrenalin going without having a stress meltdown.

In fact, performance sailing – thinking all the time about how to get maximum speed and performance, then actually reaping those rewards whether off sailing on your own or in a fleet – is one of the greatest mental and physical exercises there is. 

Performance Sailing

This course – taught on our lively Colgate 26s – comes with a lot of praise and personal successes. It's the next step up from Learn to Sail for anyone who wants to continue sailing in performance boats of any size. If you intend to sail on your own (rented or purchased) or a friend’s boat and you’re a thinking person who likes to stay busy, Performance Sailing is for you.

You’ll learn how to make a sailboat perform to its highest level – trimming sails and rig for speed, placing you and your crew where weight does the most good, mastering the art of spinnaker flying.

When Doris Colgate took Steve’s racing course in the Bahamas back in 1968, a crew mate called the spinnaker “that machination of the devil!” Well, in Performance Sailing flying that chute will feel like dressing an angel when you’re finished.

Performance Sailing expands and solidifies your knowledge and confidence level of safety procedures aboard with repeated exercises to master techniques with out even thinking about them. Even if your ultimate goal is cruising, you'll find this course invaluable in re-establishing your understanding of sailing.

“This experience exceeded all of my expectations. I learned so much and had a great time!”
Patti Caldwell – Tucson, AZ

 Racing Programs

 Our annual Performance Race Week with North U celebrity racing speaker, Bill Gladstone, is the absolute best for a whole lot of reasons. You’ll get more starts in practice and real-regatta-time than you’ll probably ever experience in a whole year of racing back home. And every minute is occupied with super racing drills, coached by Offshore Sailing School instructors with racing in their blood. Upwind, downwind, on a reach – you and your crewmates will push your Colgate 26 hard to get to the first mark, and eventually the finish line, first!

And it’s all fun. The people you meet are friendly competitors with a desire to learn. The activities surrounding your racing and seminar schedule include happy hours and time to learn more about one another. Best of all – you’ll likely go home and win next season, but we hope you don’t keep your learning vacation a secret from your amazed racing pals.

Fast Track to Performance Racing

 If you don’t know anything about racing and have only taken our Learn to Sail course or sailed  small to mid-sized boats back home with not a lot of go-fast knowledge, put it all together in Fast Track to Performance Racing. The boats in the photo adjacent are about to round a mark  in pretty good winds. They are preparing to set their spinnaker. The second boat is a little late, but who cares – it’s all in the learning process and improvement is seen race after race, day by day.

Fast Track to Performance Racing gives you all the skills you need to start winning in one terrific getaway. You’ll take our accelerated three-day Performance Sailing course first and then immediately join the Performance Racing course. What a hoot! What satisfaction when you go home with a silver award and a whole lot of knowledge to put you in the winner’s circle.
 

So what are you waiting for – click here to get a quote on any of the above options. 

Call 888-454-7015 to talk to one of our friendly sailing advisors.