Offshore Sailing School Tip: Some sailors are content learning to sail close to the shore; others may venture offshore and return the same day. The most adventurous sailors want to learn advanced sailing techniques, the kind they will need if they set their sights on blue water cruising and coastal passage making. It's called blue water cruising because you’re sailing across deep indigo blue oceans with no land on the horizon, and ports-of-call hundreds or thousands of miles away.
If you are comfortable cruising or chartering boats that are 35 feet or longer and looking for a true blue water cruising experience, you should sign up for the Offshore Sailing School's most advanced sailing course –Coastal Passage Making. This course will teach you the ins and outs of long distance navigation, sailing at night, standing watch and even cooking meals while at sea. These advanced sailing lessons are offered from Tortola to St. Martin and back or from Canouan and throughout the Grenadines. You'll sail for six nights aboard a Moorings 50-foot yacht.
Offshore Sailing School is run by renowned sailing educators, Steve and Doris Colgate. All Offshore’s instructors are certified by US SAILING and Offshore’s cruising course instructors are USCG licensed captains. For the Coastal Passage Making course, a maximum of six students and two instructors are divided into two watches – three students and one instructor on each watch. The boat does not stop until it reaches its turning point destination and heads back (non-stop again) to the original port of embarkation. This course entitles students to earn US SAILING coastal Passage Making certification when you study blue water cruising with Offshore Sailing School.
You'll become an expert in many advanced sailing topics including: sail inventories for passages, open water seamanship, tide and current tables, impact of pressure systems, and navigating inlets, shoals and reefs. If you've ever dreamed of blue water cruising, this advanced sailing instruction is something you should do first.
