A sailing class for those who don't know port from starboard

The ice is gone, the docks are in, and another season of sailing on Minnesota lakes has begun. But for all the recreation that our beloved lakes afford us, sailing is still one sport that's relatively foreign to many Minnesotans.

Keith Morical and Joan Gilmore hope to begin changing that this summer.

The two passionate sailors, who themselves discovered the sport later in life, are leading a group of instructors teaching an adult sailing course through the Upper Minnetonka Yacht Club starting in June.

The club has taught children's courses since the 1960s but has never offered the same instruction for adults. And that has ended up excluding a lot of people, said Morical, who is president of the nonprofit Upper Minnetonka Sailing School.

He hopes the new program will draw at least 60 aspiring sailors this summer and grow from there.

"I'm always hearing about adults who want to learn to sail but don't know how to get into it," he said. "This is a way to get more people involved. It's really all about getting people up on the lake."

It's also about shedding some of the misconceptions about the sport, said Gilmore, who is the lead instructor for the new adult courses.

Sailing is surprisingly easy to pick up, she said. Classes are on the water the very first day, and students start at the helm of their boat.

The classes take off from Enchanted Island, in a calm corner of the lake close to the yacht club in Spring Park. The vessels are keelboats, which are bigger and slower than other sailboats to ensure safety. The weighted keels at their base keep them from tipping.

After four sessions and about 12 hours on the lake, students will have all the basics they need to sail without an instructor, Gilmore said.

Simply put, "They will be sailors," she said.

And at $395, Gilmore and Morical consider it an affordable way to enter into a "lifestyle" sport.

"I think [sailing] has a reputation as an elitist sport, and there might be the perception that yacht clubs are elitist," Gilmore said. "We want people to see that sailing can be for anyone who wants to get out and have fun on the lake."

Gilmore is similar to many of her students in that she picked up sailing as an adult rather than growing up with it.

After captaining boats of teenagers on Lake Superior several years ago, she ditched a successful career in marketing to dive into the sport as an instructor. Now, her Minneapolis-based Sail Away Sailing School runs classes on the Great Lakes, White Bear Lake and Lake Minnetonka. She even charters sailing expeditions to the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean.

"It was sort of a mid-life crisis kind of thing," she said of her change of careers, "but now it's my life."

Her atypical route to becoming a sailing expert helps her have patience with people who come into the sport blind, she said, because she remembers what it's like not to know things.

The classes aren't as much about safety as they are about attracting people to the sport. But that, too, is part of the training, Gilmore said.

Safe boating is especially an issue on high-traffic lakes like Minnetonka and White Bear, where sailors share limited space with hundreds of other sailors and motorboats.

As it stands, adults on Minnesota lakes don't need a license to operate a boat, which can lead to problems, Gilmore said.

Gilmore teaches her classes general lake etiquette like the rules of right-of-way and has each student go through a man-overboard drill.

"If you can operate a car, it is not always the same as operating a boat, and that's where you run into problems," said Alan Greene, an instructor for the sailing school. "It's the motorboats, not the sailors, that are causing the problems, but you have to know the rules and protect yourself."

Still, the instructors insist that there is plenty more room on Minnetonka and other popular lakes for responsible sailors who are new to the sport.

Gilmore and Morical believe their adult classes will be a hit with the untapped market. And it's a niche that could benefit the yacht club as well, which has a reputation for being one of the friendliest and most inviting clubs on the lake, said Greene, who is also a head judge for the club's sailing races.

New students are eligible for a $50 yearly membership to the club, where they'll have the chance to sail with other members, eliminating the need to buy their own boat, Morical said.

Along with the adult beginners course, the instructors will offer a one-on-one racing course for more experienced sailors with their own boats. That class costs $295.

And at the end of it all, students from all the courses will be invited to participate in one of the yacht club's races.

"At that point, we're hoping we can hook them on the sport for life," Greene said.

Erik Borg is a University of Minnesota journalism student on assignment for the Star Tribune.