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Flexibility & Hands-On Learning Opens New Doors
Dear Sound Sailing Center Staff,
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Martin and your entire SSC staff for the training you provided me for my Intro to Sailing and Basic Keel Boat Certification program for the summer, year 2007, months of July and September.
Prior to meeting your staff and starting your program, I had absolutely no background in sailing and a very limited understanding of the concepts of sailing. Your class structure and enthusiastic instructors have brought me to a new level where I have attained a confidence level in my ability to captain a day sailor, such as your Pearson 22-foot Ensigns, and leading into the future to be able to one day captain various 30-footers and beyond.
Without your program, I would most likely not have been able to accomplish this goal as your program offers practice sessions and flexibility that reinforce the hands-on concepts taught on the water with fellow classmates and a certified instructor.
Your program opens doors to new and up-and-coming aspiring sailors like me to the sport of sailing and to the vast nautical miles of exploration and stress reduced relaxation.
Once again, I thank you very much for the lessons and the blessed opportunity.
Sincerely,
Mark Zakrzewski
Senior Manufacturing Systems Engineer
United Technologies Corporation
Pratt and Whitney
SSC Program Excels Over Others
Martin:
I was an inexperienced daysailor with two short-term goals in mind. First, I wanted a place to practice daysailing to hone my basic skills. Second, I wanted a Basic Cruising course that would advance me to confidently skippering cruisers on the LI Sound.
Being a member with SSC for almost 1 year now, I can say that SSC has well exceeded my expectations for the first goal. I am generally a lazy shopper, but when it came to investing time and money into improving my sailing, I diligently researched around 10 daysailing clubs and schools in the tri-state area, and I have actually sailed numerous times at 3 other than SSC. While I have nothing negative to say of my experiences at these other schools, to me, SSC outranks them in several respects.
First and foremost, the level of instruction is exceptional. I know that every school’s staff brims with official qualifications, but SSC demonstrated to me a level of intensity and dedication beyond the others. This is apparent from the moment they hand you their detailed, self-written guidebooks (for daysailing as well as cruising) to the end of every sail, when an instructor observing you from the dock might politely (not deridingly) offer valuable tips on your sail trim or docking maneuvers.
Next, I wholeheartedly applaud their philosophy with respect to single-handing. While other schools often discourage or even forbid single-handing their boats, SSC promotes it and their boats are well rigged for it. Apart from getting on the water frequently, I have found single-handed practice to be one of the greatest contributors to my control, awareness, and confidence while daysailing.
With respect to my second goal, I had actually taken a Basic Cruising course 2 years ago at another school in the area. While I enjoyed the course tremendously, I retained a nagging lack of confidence in my ability to actually go out and charter a cruiser on the LI Sound. When I consulted SSC about their course, it sounded like a completely different course, despite offering the same US Sailing certification. I wasn’t sure whether my prior course was lacking or SSC’s was excessive, but given my positive experience with their daysailing, I decided to re-enroll for Basic Cruising at SSC.
In all honesty, I cannot say that the teaching part of the course was fun. Not that SSC does not believe in having fun, but it is a potential by-product rather than a priority when you’re training on the water. SSC courses are intensely focused on imprinting essential skills and knowledge into your brain, your senses, and your body. The simple method they employ is hard work and repetition done by the students, not the instructors. SSC is neither a certification factory nor a “fast track,” and my impression was that their curriculum went comfortably beyond what is covered in the US Sailing texts.
As a result, at the end of the teaching part of the course you are exhausted, mentally as much as physically. But the efficacy is immediately apparent. In fact, for a final round of hammering home the lessons, SSC sets students (sans instructors) off on an overnight cruise. This speaks volumes about SSC’s confidence in their methods and their graduates. And yes, the cruise was fun.
Apart from SSC’s quality instruction, there are numerous other factors that contributed to my choosing SSC over other tri-state area clubs and schools including boat availability and condition, the challenging and equally rewarding venue of the Norwalk Harbor and Norwalk Islands, membership levels for all skills and budgets, paths to advanced seamanship, simple web-based reservations, etc. Compared to both large, popular chains as well as small, local, independent schools, I think that SSC has a uniquely effective and superior combination of staff, philosophy, and facilities.
Peter Sparks
Application Process & Instruction
As we discussed, I would like to join. You mentioned that you could fax me the application or whatever other paperwork needs to be done.
I want to thank you, Martin, and Tim for your patience but also for setting a high standard. Also, I want to put in a special word for Sven: He turned my check-out sail into the best lesson I’ve had by pointing out what I was doing right, while calmly pushing me to figure out and correct my own mistakes.
Thanks,
Harry
Beautiful Outing on the Monhegan
Dear Martin:
I just wanted to drop you a quick note of thanks regarding our recent successful outing on the beautiful Monhegan. The day was, as you know, a big success. It was, if you remember, a very important event in many lives, especially Stuart's children, and we all felt that you handled it wonderfully.
Your sailing skills are, of course, fantastic, given that you've sailed the boat across the Atlantic Ocean alone. The boat was great, making seven knots in five knots of wind. The kids loved the bosun's chair dunking, and got their first taste of big boat sailing, which they will never forget.
Your sensitivity to our cause was really appreciated, and everyone on board commented on what a nice guy you are. We were really lucky to have found you for our very important day.
Doug and I both enjoyed sailing with you, and hope to do some more of it in the future.
We would recommend you to anyone looking for a sailing instructor, captain, or all-around good guy.
Best regards,
Capt. Monroe Hemmerdinger
Choosing Sound Sailing Center as a Sailing School
Dear Martin,
It is almost exactly a year since we first set sails with your Sound Sailing Center, a good opportunity to look back. On the whole, we were lucky. There are quite a few places on the Internet that advertise sailing lessons and choosing one is not an easy task for a newcomer. Since then, we've made new sailing friends, compared their experience with other schools and rental arrangements to ours, and realized that your place is much more unique than we originally thought.
When we first heard that the curriculum for your basic keelboat class included topics like single-handed reefing or grounding the keelboat in tidal waters, we thought you were referring to classroom discussions. To our surprise, the poor Ensign, aptly named Reliance, had to endure our attempts to sail away from a mud trap on a second day of the course, and single-handling was practiced throughout. The course was quite demanding but it gave us confidence to day-sail around Norwalk Islands on our own, and soon to take out guests. So far, we've managed to avoid any further grounding practice.
The club membership provides virtually unlimited Ensign usage all year round, which was perfect for us. We even sailed during winter, sometimes with a block of bilge ice adding to the ballast. Although we went out whenever we could, the boats were always available for at least half a day, even on busy weekends with picture-perfect weather.
The Ensign experience encouraged us to sign up for more advanced classes, the Basic Cruising, and recently the Advanced Cruising. Both were run in a similar manner -- very friendly but fairly demanding, leaving us with a sense of real accomplishment by the end. We did have a lot of fun, too. Even the mighty Alzheimer will have trouble to wipe out memories of climbing the mast of a Pearson 37 in a beautiful Stonington Harbor, or negotiating the tight channel leading to the Little Narragansett Bay.
The Advanced Cruising class on board of Rod Johnstone's graceful racer-cruiser J/44 took us from Norwalk all the way to Falmouth
Foreside in Maine. It was comforting to know that this boat had crossed the Atlantic taking a few good gales, and that the guy who had taken it there was standing close by, ready to help. After a while though, we gained a bit of trust in our own abilities. We sailed in a downpour with frequent lightning, we saved a man overboard (volunteered for this exercise by his wife), we flew a spinnaker through a peaceful full-moon night. We also entered so many harbors, day and night, that this initially stressful task became almost routine by the end of the week.
The Sound Sailing Center classes are probably not for everyone, especially the Advanced Cruising. Students expecting marketing-booklet-like cruising experience with guaranteed periods of sunshine and a professional chef on board of a floating-apartment-by-the-dock will be disappointed. There are no PowerPoint presentations either. However, those who want to get ready for the occasional nastiness of the sea, or a rebelling ship system, will most likely appreciate the real-life approach of the Sound Sailing Centered sailors. We certainly did.
With many thanks and best wishes,
Honza Hrabe and Sabina Hrabetova
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