We should stress right now that going to sailing school is a very safe proposition.  It's a controlled environment, help is usually nearby and easily summoned, and sailing is generally not a dangerous sport at all.  However, accidents can and do happen.  Sometimes severe weather can develop with little warning.  In the very unlikely event that your safety would ever be compromised, you'd want all the help you could get.  And that starts with the boat itself.
 

COMFORT HELPS, TOO.
Thousands of students have learned to sail on rather uncomfortable boats.  But they did so in spite of inefficient and potentially unsafe distractions, not because of them.  If you eliminate the distractions, and give up nothing in the process, you've got a winning boat for teaching people how to sail.  And we've got that boat!
 

PERFORMANCE RULES!
One of the first things you need to do when learning to sail is develop a feel for it.  A sensitive, responsive boat that handles the way you should expect a well designed boat to handle is the right platform to learn on.  People don't learn to drive on a lumbering truck; driving schools tend to use small to mid-sized sedans.

In the racing world, the best sailors cultivate their skills on small dinghies, mostly high performance ones. You can find these properties in a school boat without sacrificing safety and comfort.  The Beneteau First 210, like many other school boats, is a lightweight, performance keelboat.  But unlike other school boats, the Beneteau doesn't sacrifice other properties to achieve this.  It has the best balance of properties found on school boats.  And we make this claim as a family with over 30 years experience in trying and evaluating different school boats, including the introduction of both the J-24 and Sonar to sailing instruction.  No one else in the industry has that background - period.

SEATS.  They're not just for comfort; they can help prevent you from falling overboard.  Basically, you want to be sitting in the boat, not doing a balancing act on top of it.  No gymnastics are necessary on the Beneteau First 210.

LIFELINES.  These stout wires going around the boat through upright stanchions are the final barrier between you and the water.  The Beneteau First 210 has 'em.

HEAD CLEARANCE.  When the boom crosses back and forth over the cockpit during maneuvers, it can act like a baseball bat.  Guess what part of you is the baseball!  Having head clearance is simply safer.  Average adults sitting in the boat shouldn't have to duck during maneuvers.  On the Beneteau First 210, you won't.

CLEAR COCKPIT.  The cockpit is the seating and control area, located at or near the back of the boat ("aft").  Many boats have very cluttered cockpits that make getting around them difficult.  Some have hardware placed on the deck in such a way as to make sitting down a painful proposition, and the deck is the only place to sit.  Others have relatively spacious cockpits, but have a device called a traveler bisecting it, making crew rotation difficult - especially in a learn-to-sail setting when it's done the most.  The Beneteau First 210 avoids all these pitfalls.

POSITIVE FLOTATION.  This consists of special foam or devices sealed with air inserted during the construction of the boat.  This can make the difference between swamping and sinking.  (Swamping is when the cockpit fills with water, sometimes leading to sinking.)  If a boat runs aground hard enough to cause a leak, a sinking can result.

We're know of 4 sinkings in recent years involving boats in area school/club programs; all 4 times there was no positive flotation in the boat.  (One of those sinkings cost a life.) Tally: two J-24's, one Sonar, one Soling, and one 30-foot racer-cruiser.

All sailboats can be capsized given the right conditions!  Anyone telling you otherwise is patently irresponsible.  When we speak of non-capsizing keelboats, we mean boats that are very difficult to capsize in normal conditions.  But there's always a combination of wave characteristics, wind strengths (especially in gusts), and the amount of sail being carried - or sometimes just one of these variables alone - that's too much for any boat.

We're certainly not trying to scare you out of taking up sailing.  In fact, it's rare that anything worth mentioning ever happens with an instructor on board a school boat.  We just want you to be well aware of the potential risks, however slight.

You're far more likely to experience a "knockdown" than a capsize.  This is when the boat seems to really flip on its side, but doesn't get stuck horizontally with the sails in the water.  (It's kind of like a "flash knockdown" in boxing - the figher is off balance more than hurt and gets right back up).  Knockdowns are caused by a strong gust of wind.  They're a regular occurrence in racing, and will happen from time to time in sailing school settings.

But capsizes can and do happen.  And while many keelboats can recover from a capsize with no trouble, if the boat takes on water and doesn't have positive flotation, it can sink.

Seats, lifelines, and positive flotation are all safety features that could potentially save you from injury, or even save your life, in the event of a knockdown, capsize or grounding.  And on a day to day level, they'll make your time on the water more comfortable and more productive.  And, therefore, more fun!