I'll heartily second what I believe is the underlying point DR made above. You can (and should) read a lot, and there's lots of great stuff out there TO read, but everything you read will click into place SO much faster when you're out on a boat, seeing it all in action. I can't tell you how many times I've read certain passages about sail trim or rigging, trying to visualize what's happening on my couch with the book in my hand for hours, then, once on the boat, in about 20 seconds of sailing, it just clicks... "Ohhhhhh!!!!! That's what they were talking about!" AND, once you're out there and your captain tweaks a sail a certain way and you feel the boat pick up a little speed or settle in, but you can't figure out why it happened, you can either ask the captain to explain it or go back to your books and research it.
I'm a voracious,obsesive reader, to a fault sometimes, and I'm hesitant to try or do anything until I feel I have complete comprehension of the task at hand. At least in my experience, that's not the best way to go about learning to sail. Read some, sail a lot. Don't read a lot and sail some. That's my biggest problem.
Enjoy!
Barry
