Hi Matt, a well written post that pretty much sums up my frustrations and shortcomings as a rookie sailor of 3 years or so sailing Hobie Waves. And now I am the "president" of our little sailing club. I used to spend countless hours sailing by myself thinking I was going as fast as I possibly could only to find on "race" days that my peers could always read the wind better and point better and shout out the rules better etc. I longed for a website or some such resource that could just get to the bottom of what I was trying to learn. Over time it has become a matter of experience on the water but again I know I am limiting my experience simply because I don't have access to other types of boats to sail or enough time racing against other boats.

The single-most focussed learning experience I have had, even though it was "passive" learning, was to sail in the Hobie Wave event in January 07 in Islamorada. Passive because, as usual, I was observing what everyone else was doing and trying to learn how, why, when what etc on my own while out there racing against them. A great rush but no substitute for getting some focussed instruction which I suppose is the only real answer.

I will be watching this post with much interest for any scrap of info that will accelerate my learning and therefore appreciation of the little boats in our little club. Not only for my sake but for the rookies who join our club and have the same questions that I don't have answers for. And, some day, I will graduate to a Nacra 5.0 or Hobie Max or even a Dart (something skeg hulled due to all of the shallows here) as the Waves have become fun only during Regattas or when it is blowing +15. Perhaps then again, if I learned more about these little boats, I would be able to up the fun factor.

Not that sailing in 10 knots isn't fun...beats the hell out of most things I can think of...