This is the outline for the offshore sailing course, January 2016.

=Title: Offshore Sailing Shore School

=Blurb: You know that MIT has a fabulous river sailing program, but did you also know that MIT also has an offshore sailing program, where you can sail MIT's 43-foot boat, X-Dimension, in Boston Harbor, to P-town, along the Maine coast, and even to Halifax, Nova Scotia?

The purpose of this IAP course is to show you that sailing a 43-foot boat differs from dinghy sailing only in degree: the boat and sails are bigger, you can stay out longer (days!), and you don’t have to come back to the dock at night. We are offering 8 sessions that will cover the fundamental and practical aspects of large boat sailing, with the goal of making everyone feel equipped with the knowledge to feel comfortable sailing along the coast. The classes will cover keelboats, weather, navigation (including celestial navigation), safety at sea, racing, and chartering a boat in the Caribbean.

No prior knowledge of keelboats or sailing is required (though the latter is very helpful); just an interest in learning about sailing in the salt water.

=Times: Tues/Thurs 6:30-8:30

=Jan 5th: Introduction to Keelboats - Eric Brown

=Jan 7th: Navigation #1 - Ted Young

=Jan 12th: Navigation # 2 - Ted Young

=Jan 14th: Weather - Eric Brown and Scott Dynes You’ve probably heard ‘Red sky at night, sailor’s delight; red sky in morning, sailors take warning’, but did you ever wonder why that is so? In this session we will cover many aspects of weather as it related to sailing, including: - Weather basics: high and low pressure, warm and cold fronts, and what it all means for the sailor. - Observational weather - what can you tell about future weather based on what you are seeing now? - NOAA weather forecasts - there’s a lot of information, and we will make sense of it. - How to get weather information at sea, when there is no 6 o’clock news.

=Jan 19th: Safety at Sea - Scott Dynes This session covers what you need to know to be safe sailing bigger boats offshore. Topics covered will include what to wear, boat handling, communication, things to keep you safe (e.g. harnesses and tethers), things to keep others safe (e.g. man overboard procedures), and sailing in different kinds of weather. To the extent possible we will demonstrate equipment and procedures.

=Jan 21st: Racing - Adam Traina

=Jan 26th: Chartering a boat - Tim Hall

=Jan 28th: Celestial Navigation - Adam Traina