We give you MORE of what you go to sailing school for!sm
Beneteau First 21.0
& other sailing machines
(718) 885-0335  /  140 City Island Avenue, City Island, NY 10464

 

VIDEO page
watch our students in action

 

I want
   to start...


Sailing

Cruising

Racing

Bareboating

Navigating

 

Got charts?

Get 'em!

 

The world's oldest and largest manufacturer of sailing yachts!
 

Our Beneteaus have all passed Vessel Safety Checks and we remain the only New York school with the Gold Star/Green Dot status as of February 2009.  More details below.




Above: blueprint of our Beneteau First 21.0 (top),
and a Mini Transat design (bottom).
Note the starboard (right) rudder.		 Here's a blueprint of our Beneteau First 21.0, the 21-footer we use to teach you how to sail (Start Sailing course).  It's a performance cruiser-racer, and it's an award winner, having sailed off with Cruising World's Boat of the Year award in 1993 in the Pocket Cruiser category.  Most other boats in sailing school service were already entering a mid-life crisis by then, or worse.*

Beneteau's First Series is it's performance line up, as opposed to more cruising oriented designs (such as the famous Oceanis Series).  This gives the First 21.0 some serious performance pedigree.

The Beneteau 21.0 is an ingenious modern design.  One unique trait is its dual rudders (steering fins) for extra control with less physical work.  That makes learning to sail more efficient and enjoyable without sacrificing the feel that's so critical to get from a training boat.  Far from a gimmick, this system is used in the most serious ocean racing fleets:

Vendee Globe (Around Alone) - the singlehanded race around the world with no stopovers and no outside assistance!

Transat 650, also called the Mini-Transat - 6.5 meter boats, or 21 feet - sailed singlehanded across the Atlantic.  Very similar to our Beneteau 21!  Also see the "Unofficial" Transat 650 site - the 3 pictures on top tell it all!

Volvo Ocean Race - the Volvo Open 70 class, where the fleet does a circumnavigation race with a team on each boat.

Class40 - 40 foot one design offshore racer/cruisers.  Also see this private site maintained by an enthusiastic owner: Class 40 Racing

(Use the links above to read about these boats, the races, and even see photos and video.)
Twin rudders - best for you to learn on;
best for the world's best to race across oceans with!

The dual rudder system makes learning so much more efficient.  Why?  Because it's much more forgiving of errors, which you'll make plenty of when you're learning.  The difference with our boat is that you'll be able to figure out what your error is while still maintaining control of the boat.  The boat will suggest what it "wants" to do, but won't force you and go on its own.  In the process, you learn more quickly, and with less confusion.  You develop better sailing skills, too.

What happens when you first get on a boat with a single rudder after our course?

You can sail it easily - better, in all probablity, than if you learned on it!  It's all about proper training, and a proper foundation.  Once you achieve that, everything else is easy.  Our program is all about giving you that foundation.

As far as we know (and our heads aren't buried in the sand),  the Beneteau 21.0 is the only production sailboat with dual rudders, and we're the only school that uses it for teaching. That would be a true exclusive - not a vague, unfounded marketing claim!

Want a free test ride with no obligation to see for yourself?  Contact us!

 
Another advance is its cockpit seating area.  It's more spacious than most other school boats, and less cluttered than any other.  Even the deck is easy to navigate.  Yet the First 21.0 doesn't sacrifice any of the gear you need to be prepared to sail other boats.  Its layout is fairly similar to typical performance cruisers up to around 40 feet, making it easier for you to adapt when renting or chartering, or even crewing on races.

One reason the cockpit is so spacious is that there is no traveller cutting across the cockpit.  (A traveller is a track that runs "athwwartships," or side to side, to which the line controlling the mainsail is attached, or "mainsheet.") Travellers make the constant moving around and position rotating you do (or not, depending on the program) at sailing school a pain - both literally and figuratively.  Naval architects often face the quandary of where to put the traveller - in the cockpit where the mainsheet has better leverage, or up forward where it's out of the way but results in inefficient "mid-boom sheeting." If the traveller is not set up ideally, it's a liability for students learning the basics.

The traveller is not on the American Sailing Association's (ASA) list of sailboat equipment and controls whose functions a student must be able to describe.  Our Beneteau 21 has all the ones that are on the list, and more: main & jib sheets, winches, outhaul, cunningham, boom vang, adjustable fairleads, reef lines, rope clutches, and adjustable backstays.  

Before we started using these boats for teaching, we saw the advantage of the extra space afforded by not having a traveller immediately, but we were mildly concerned that this would be an educational problem, as travellers are pretty standard despite not being on the ASA list.  However, we quickly discovered that the opposite was true.  The extra cockpit maneuverability far outweighs not having a traveller for easier fine tuning in some wind conditions, and students are better off getting their basic sail shape and trim down before worrying about the traveller.  In fact, we found that having no traveller made students focus on more important devices that are needed more often, particularly the boom vang.  So, we found it to be a large net improvement in sail training.  Besides, we can explain how a traveller works to students in minutes.

From a safety standpoint, the 21.0 is top tier.  Lifelines, real seats, a self-bailing cockpit, positive floatation (lacking in most other school boats), and a stable design all contribute to her overall safety and comfort.  Fittings are thoughtfully laid out to ensure safe movement around the deck.  And that deck stays drier than any boat put into service at a sailing school, period.  So, for that matter, does the cockpit!

*Almost all other schools use boats designed anywhere from 18 to over 30 years ago.  That doesn't mean those boats are about to fall apart, even if they were actually built 20 or more years ago.  Well-made modern fiberglass hulls (boat bodies, for landlubbers) last almost forever.  But so do any outdated design properties!  Of course, wear & tear items like sails and lines (ropes) must be kept after.  A young boat with shot rigging and sails is worse than an old hull whose fittings, rigging and sails have been kept after and replaced as needed.

Above: our Beneteau First 21.0.
Below: the 60-foot IMOCA, designed for the open seas.

 
Left: A Beneteau First 21.0 as seen at idle on her mooring.  Note the twin rudders. Long bench-style seats with back rests make her comfortable.  The cutout transom (back, for landlubbers) is both to save weight and to allow water to escape the cockpit area quickly (with no tendency for it to come in) should the need ever arise in a serious storm.  This is nothing to worry about under sailing school conditions, however.  Racing students will appreciate the 21.0's complement of proper rigging and sail shape controls, and at the same time enjoy user friendliness.  Her spiffy and maneuverable design doesn't hurt, either.

In fact, the Beneteau First 21.0 has the best balance of properties we've found on teaching boats, and we've used many over the decades.  No quircks!  Many other boats have issues that make it hard for experienced sailors to handle them, let alone beginners.  The Beneteau doesn't have any of these issues.  It handles as a sailboat should in all conditions with no extreme tendencies.  Many other boats suffer from issues such as...

  • heavy helm (too much force need to hold and turn the tiller)
  • the need to be sailed flat to behave well (as opposed to heeling too much).
  • excessive weather helm (tendency to turn into the wind)
  • squirrely handling downwind (boat rolls frequently or wants to turn one way or the other)
  • no seats and backrests
  • nowhere to sit without landing on hardware
  • Mainsail or genoa that's disproportionately large (needlessly tough for learning)
We're not saying that all other school boats are bad - there are several that are good for training.  However, having used a number of them, and having sailed or seen most of the others, we think ours is significantly better.  Our students and renters seem to agree!
 
You can see the 21.0's twin rudders in the photo above (and those of the Vendee Globe's IMOCA 60 as well).  Each one is smaller than an average single rudder, and angled slightly outward.  When the boat "heels,"  or tips to the side (a natural occurrence), one rudder goes in deeper and the other one starts coming out.  The one that stays in works much better, and removal of the other reduces unnecessary drag.  We're the only school using such a forward-thinking system, which is increasingly employed where it counts the most - on serious ocean racing yachts.

The First 21.0 is also used for our racing clinics, for intermediate private instruction, and for corporate group events (team building, etc).

BOATS USED IN OUR CRUISING COURSES

For our cruising courses, we put you on larger vessels - but not TOO large. That's a major pitfall of most other programs: using boats that are too large for the course.  [Length, width (or "beam"), and weight (or "displacement") all factor into picking the right boat for instruction.]   We start you out on the venerable Pearson 26 or a Hunter 25.5 in Start Cruising, the Basic Coastal Cruising course.  These vessels are the perfect step up in size, weight, complexity of gear, and cruising accomodations.  They have outboard engines, the proper type to use in Basic Cruising.  They also sail very well.  The P-26 was recently featured in a Sailing World article on top used cruiser/racers under 30 feet.  For more details on the boat and the course, go to our Start Cruising page.

Next up is Start Bareboating, the Intermediate Coastal Cruising/Bareboat Charter course (you get bonus points on the exam if you can say that 3 times quickly.. :-)  Start Bareboating preps you to handle wheel-steered cruising sailboats with inboard diesel engines and more complicated boat systems and electronics.  You'll be aboard one of several potential vessels, such as the Columbia 9.6 (32 feet), designed by Alay Paine, an Australian naval architect of America's Cup pedigree, or a Shannon 38 - one of the most respected blue-water ocean cruisers in the world.  All are properly equipped to prepare you for owning your own larger cruising boat, or to go off on your own Bareboat Charter in any number of destinations, from the very local to the incredibly exotic.  For more info, go to our Start Bareboating page.

If you join us on one of our instructional sailing vacations in the Virgin Islands or Greece, you'll be aboard a great charter vessel from Beneteau or Jeanneau (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Beneteau).  These yachts range in size from 32 to 50 feet, depending on the nature of the trip.  We most commonly use the Beneteau 39, an exemplary vessel with a great balance of sailing properties and cruising accommodations.  Not too large to master after one week!

You can earn Basic Coastal Cruising or Bareboat Charter certification on these trips, and have an excellent vacation at the same time.

Vessel Safety Checks
and the
ASA Gold Standard

The American Sailing Association (ASA) maitains a special status for schools that have had their vessels checked by the US Coast Guard Auxiliary or the US Power Squadron.  Known as the Gold Standard, those schools taking this extra step are listed on the ASA web site with a spinning gold star.  Specially trained examiners check the vessels for Federal and State required safety gear, as well as additional recommended items.  Vessels that pass are duly registered, and receive decals proving this.

(n.b.: ASA recently replaced the spinning gold star with a green dot and changed the program name, too.  Everything else is the same.)
We joined the program at the outset in 2001, the first Tri-State area school to do so.  As of February 2009, we remain the only New York sailing school to have the gold start/green dot status on the ASA web site, and we have been the only one for years.  Our fleet will be inspected again in early summer of 2009.


Home Contact Us Sailing Instruction Club/Marina