Affordable routes into sailing

Sailing doesn’t have to break the bank. Crewing on other people’s boats offers many low-cost sailing opportunities, says Robin Ashcroft

 Pardon the liberal use of cliches, but as somebody once said, ‘Sailing equates to standing in a cold shower tearing up £10 notes.’ If it’s racing, it will be £50 notes you’re shredding! And as a wise soul further commented, ‘The two happiest days in a sailor’s life are when one buys a yacht and then, when one sells it!’

That may not be strictly true, but even running a small cruising yacht on a modest budget is unlikely to count as ‘cheap’.

Sailing itself needn’t be expensive, however. My own route into sailing came after I gave up mountaineering, when, hitting my late 50s, my joints started complaining. I had sailed in my youth and in the Army, but boots and crampons were more affordable once I’d left the military. Having swallowed the ice axe – so to speak – like many I set out on the RYA programme, starting off with Competent Crew and then working my way through Day and Coastal Skipper. This undoubtedly gives a good grounding, but the issue then emerges, what to do when you have these tickets, but no boat?

As with driving a car, you only really learn to drive once you’ve got your licence, and I needed some experience to actually know what I was doing. I certainly wouldn’t disparage the RYA training programme and doing the tickets opened up my first affordable access to yachting.

I must have appeared reasonably competent when doing both my Day Skipper and Coastal Skipper, as both instructors suggested a solution.

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