Go Sail [With DVD]

Just make sure you take lessons. This book will help guide you and better prepare you for your lessons as it give you a better understanding to terms and how a sail boat works which can be quite confusing to a novice sailor.

I've sailed dinghies over the years, and I've always been able to get from point A to point B, but not always in great style, particularly in heavy wind. This book and DVD explain quite well the precise choreography of dinghy sailing. If you or your child have the benefit of a strong structured sailing program run by an experienced teacher or coach, then you can probably skip this book. On the other hand, if you're holding the main sheet with your teeth, fumbling the tiller extension and generally making up your technique as you go, then you could benefit a lot from this book and DVD. The DVD is short, about a half an hour. But it covers a lot of ground. The DVD section on capsize recovery is, alone, worth the price. Along with this book and DVD, I can also strongly recommend the free materials at the MIT sailing website. Just google MIT sailing and find the free video lessons and the excellent Tech Dinghy sailing manual pdf at that site. Another excellent site to view in conjunction with the DVD from this book is the t2p.tv website. Go to the programming guide and download some of the college sailing regattas. You'll see the best college sailors in the country using the techniques shown on the DVD and get a good feel for the rhythm of the movements used in racing situations in various degrees of wind. If you're already an experienced dinghy racer then you will already be familiar with the techniques shown in this combo set.