Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:

On Mon, 20 Nov 2006 13:59:04 -0500, DSK wrote:

That said, the best answer is really to let somebody else
teach your wife to sail.

All those words for that one gem of wisdom.

One of the best things I did when we were in the process of buying a
sailboat was to talk to my sister who recommended that I take a course
in sailing without my husband. I did that - actually I took 3
courses. One in a Rainbow 23 foot with no engine, one in a Newport 30
(I think), and the third one was a weekend with my husband on a Morgan
45.

In the first (beginner) course, they had a short class work session,
and then we went out in the boats and we each took a turn steering and
sail handling until everyone had mastered each of the skills that were
presented in each lesson. You could do this in 4 sessions - morning
and afternoon Sat and Sunday, but I picked to do it in the morning of
4 successive weekends so I could process the information between each
lesson.

BTW I was already completely comfortable in the water, as in swimming
and I can canoe and row.

My biggest problem was learning to reverse think when I was using a
tiller. I still can't do that, and if I try, I then can't use a wheel
either for awhile. There are some skills that just aren't worth it to
me to learn and that is one of them. Another one is a racing flip
turn and also any kind of diving (as in diving off a diving board - I
love SCUBA and snorkeling, but I just am not coordinated enough to
reliably go into the water head first when I start out standing up on
my feet)