Several years ago I began searching for a sailing school to enroll in and, hopefully teach for. What follows are the criteria that ultimately led to my selection of The Maryland School of Sailing and Seamanship.
Several schools that I found on the east coast offered only introductory courses, whereas the Maryland School offered the full ASA (American Sailing Association) curriculum from 101 through 108, including offshore passages, celestial navigation, and instructor certification. For me, a school offering introductory courses and advanced blue water sailing meant credibility. Maryland School also exceeds ASA minimum requirements by including docking classes and additional training not provided by other sailing schools. Maryland School is the only school I found to train exclusively on blue water boats (Island Packets) with an overnight live-a-board experience included as part of the tuition – even for a beginning 101 class. Other classes that I compared required that you either commute to class each day or establish a temporary residence in a nearby hotel. And now Maryland School offers charters to former students of MSSS. Finally, I made note of the Maryland School instructor resumes. The fact that ASA themselves approached the Maryland School owner – Tom Tursi - to incorporate Maryland School’s lesson plans into the ASA curriculum made the choice easy for me. And as if that weren’t enough, add the fact that Lankford Bay Marina – host site for the North America based locaton for Maryland School - is a full service marina voted among Chesapeake Bay Magazine’s 10 Best Marinas – I think other students will be equally pleased with Maryland School as their choice for either introductory or advanced sailing instruction in North America or the B.V.I..
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ATTENTION, ATTENTION all arm-chair want-to-be Jack Tars... For the past 9+ years, I've been dreaming of, reading for, and studying about an after retirement circumnavigation... My wife, Jan, has calmly, patiently put up with my romantic rantings about far-off islands, beautiful beaches, scents of aromatic spices, indigenous island cultures, and the on-going boat-life of lazing in becalmed seas, frantically changing sails as the tropical squall line approaches, days of a steady trade wind beat with chute or wing and wing while trolling, or the inventive language of the sailor trying to find/fix/jerry-rig various boat componnents that have taken the exact wrong moment to quit... Well, all the dreaming stopped in October 2007... Jan had secretly been in contact with several sailing schools... For a myriad of reasons, Jan picked MSSS... The most important reason, of course, that she knew that the only boat I'd ever sail off-shore would be an IPY... For all those years, she has watched me amass a huge file on IPYs... It truly was not until I arrived at Lankford Bay Marina did I realize that this was going to be a great experience... The Lankford Bay Marina is a quaint and any marina found in "Cabot Cove"... It is clean, clean, clean (oh, did I mention how clean it was?)... The personnel are as helpful as can be... The store is well furnished... The heads/laundry facility are very good... And don't worry about 0food, there are several wonderful restaurants near the marina... And believe me, if you are not a Northeasterner, you'll never believe how many ways crab can be cooked, with each being just as tasty as the last... But it wasn't until I met Capt. Chip that I realized how well my wife had picked a sailing school for me... From the first session to the last, Chip was able to clear the foggy mists of sailing and seamanship... Of, course, being the only student in the class that had never, ever stepped foot upon a sailboat, I was certain that I was going to be "dead in the water" with my nonexistent skills... Reading is one thing, doing is drastically another thing... Capt. Chi; took the time to thoroughly expain each and every system of the IPY 32... Of course he thought that he was so smooth when he would question us every once in a while, but I wasn't fooled in the least... I know a TEST when I hear one... All went smoothly... Even though we each tried so mightly to smash Moxie into the pilings, a few words and suggestions seemed to always be enought to "straighten her out"... Well, I passed ASA 101 and ASA 105... Now Jan is signed up for ASA 101 and I am signed up for ASA 103 and ASA 107... Of course we are taking classes apart, for you see even a marriage of 40 years might be tested by the passage of rites incurred during the early sailing classes... And who knows, perhaps my dream might yet come to fruition... But for MSSS and its crew, I might still be sitting, reading and dreaming...
Thany you MSSS...
James N. Wallace
Alabama
PS: Chip: Jan and I can hardly wait until June...
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