About YouSail

It started with a dream to go sailing

We’re Gabriel and Kristy. We went looking for one place that brought the Australian sailing world together, could not find it, and started building it instead.

Gabriel and Kristy together on deck at sunset — Gabriel and Kristy — still working towards the boat that will be home.

YouSail was created by us, Gabriel and Kristy, a couple with a fairly simple dream: buy a sailing yacht, move aboard and see where the wind takes us.

Australia first. Then the Pacific. And, if everything goes according to plan, maybe much further.

We’re working towards making that dream a reality over the next few years. In the meantime, we’re learning, researching, taking courses, spending time on boats, asking lots of questions and discovering just how enormous the world of sailing really is.

And somewhere along the way, YouSail was born.

We were looking for this website ourselves

When we started seriously researching sailing in Australia, we found plenty of information, but it was scattered everywhere.

There are great websites for buying and selling yachts. There are organisations dedicated to sailing courses and qualifications. There are yacht clubs, marinas, sailing schools, boat brokers, marine businesses, forums, Facebook groups, YouTube channels and thousands of individual resources.

But we kept looking for one place that brought the Australian sailing world together.

Where do you learn to sail?
Where can you find a yacht club near you?
Which sailing course should you take next?
What does that sailing term actually mean?
Where are the marinas?
Who can inspect a yacht before you buy it?
Where do you find a rigger, sailmaker, marine electrician or diesel mechanic?
What should you know before buying your first yacht?
How does anchoring actually work?
Where can you charter a yacht?
What are the best sailing destinations around Australia?

And what happens when you just want to spend half an hour testing yourself with a sailing quiz or learning something new?

We couldn’t really find that place.

So we decided to build it.

YouSail is our attempt to connect Australian sailing

Our idea for YouSail is bigger than creating another boating directory.

We want it to become a useful home for sailing in Australia.

A place where someone who has never stepped aboard a yacht can start learning, but where an experienced sailor can still discover a marina, service, destination, business, course or resource they didn’t know about.

That means bringing together things like sailing clubs, marinas, sailing schools, courses, charters, boat brokers, marine services, destinations, guides, glossaries, quizzes, calculators, videos and practical sailing information.

Most importantly, we want those things to connect.

You might start by reading about learning to sail, discover a local sailing club, find a course, learn some terminology, take a quiz and eventually find yourself looking at yachts for sale.

We know how that happens.

It happened to us.

Built by sailors in the making

We’re not going to pretend we’re the world’s greatest sailors.

We’re learning too.

That’s actually an important part of what YouSail is about.

We’re building the kind of resource we wish we’d had when we started exploring sailing seriously. As we learn something useful, discover a great resource, meet someone interesting or find another part of Australian sailing worth exploring, we want to bring it into YouSail.

There will always be people who know far more than us about sailing, weather, navigation, yacht design, rigging, engines, offshore passages and countless other subjects.

We want those people here too.

YouSail isn’t supposed to be Gabriel and Kristy telling Australia how to sail.

It’s about creating somewhere that helps connect the people who sail, the people who want to sail and the people and businesses that make sailing possible.

The people behind the boats matter

One thing became obvious very quickly while building YouSail: sailing isn’t really just about boats.

It’s about people.

The instructor who gets someone through their first tack.
The yacht club volunteer running a weekend race.
The broker who knows the history of a boat.
The rigger who spots something you didn’t.
The marina team helping you into a berth in terrible weather.
The marine electrician solving the problem you’ve been chasing for three days.
The sailor sharing knowledge accumulated over 30 years at sea.
The couple who finally untie the lines and head north.
The teenager discovering dinghy sailing for the first time.

Those are the people who create Australia’s sailing culture.

We want YouSail to help people find them.

We want to promote the good people in sailing

YouSail doesn’t exist because we came up with a perfectly defined commercial model.

Quite the opposite.

We started building it because we thought this should exist.

We want to showcase great sailing clubs, marinas, sailing schools, instructors, yacht brokers, charter operators, marine businesses, insurers, service providers, creators and other people doing genuinely useful things for Australian sailors.

If we discover something good, we want people to know about it.

If a small marine business is doing brilliant work, we’d love more sailors to find them.

If a sailing club is welcoming new sailors, that’s worth sharing.

If somebody has spent decades building knowledge that could help the next generation of sailors, we’d like to help that knowledge travel further.

There doesn’t always need to be a transaction behind it.

Sometimes something deserves to be promoted simply because it’s useful.

Sailing is one enormous rabbit hole

The more we learn, the more we realise how much there is left to learn.

Navigation leads to weather. Weather leads to passage planning. Passage planning leads to boat preparation. Boat preparation somehow leads to spending three hours researching batteries. Then anchors. Then rigging. Then sails. Then diesel engines. Then suddenly you’re comparing 50-foot yachts at midnight and convincing yourself that living aboard and sailing across the Pacific is an entirely sensible idea.

At least that’s been our experience.

That’s why education is becoming such a big part of YouSail.

We want to create practical guides, reference material, quizzes, glossaries, calculators and resources that make sailing knowledge easier to understand and easier to find.

Not everyone learns by reading a 400-page textbook.

Sometimes you just need someone to explain something properly.

Australian sailing deserves its own home

Australia has one of the most extraordinary coastlines on Earth.

Sydney Harbour
Pittwater
Broken Bay
The Whitsundays
Moreton Bay
The Gold Coast
Tasmania
Port Phillip Bay
South Australia
Fremantle
The Kimberley
The tropical Queensland coast

And thousands upon thousands of nautical miles between them.

There are sailing communities scattered all around that coastline, each with their own knowledge, characters, conditions and culture.

We want YouSail to help connect those dots.

Because sailing Australia isn’t one experience.

It’s hundreds of them.

Where this eventually takes us

Hopefully, onto our own yacht.

That’s still the dream behind all of this.

Gabriel + Kristy + a sailing boat + Australia + the Pacific.

We’re working towards buying our vessel and eventually living aboard, exploring the Australian coastline before venturing further into the Pacific and, perhaps one day, around the world.

Fingers crossed.

YouSail will grow alongside that journey.

We expect we’ll make mistakes, change our minds, discover things we hadn’t considered and learn an enormous amount from people who have been doing this much longer than we have.

That’s part of the adventure.

And if YouSail becomes something bigger…

Great.

We don’t know exactly where YouSail will lead.

Maybe the sailing industry embraces it. Maybe businesses support it. Maybe sailors contribute their knowledge. Maybe brands send us products to test. Maybe clubs invite us down for a sail. Maybe someone teaches us something that completely changes how we approach our own boat. Maybe we make lifelong friends through it.

Maybe YouSail eventually helps someone who has always dreamed about sailing finally step aboard a yacht for the first time.

That would be a pretty good outcome.

For now, our side of the deal is simple.

Keep building. Keep learning. Keep sailing. Keep sharing what we discover.

And hopefully create something genuinely useful for the Australian sailing community along the way.

See you on the water

If you’re a sailor, yacht club, marina, instructor, broker, charter operator, marine business, sailing creator or simply someone dreaming about buying a boat and disappearing over the horizon someday, you’re part of the community we’re building YouSail for.

We’re Gabriel and Kristy.

We’re building YouSail.

We’re learning to become better sailors.

And somewhere out there is the yacht that will eventually become our home.

See you on the water.

Gabriel & Kristy

YouSail

For people who would rather be sailing.

Get in touch · Explore the directory

YouSail

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About YouSail

It started with a dream to go sailing

We’re Gabriel and Kristy. We went looking for one place that brought the Australian sailing world together, could not find it, and started building it instead.

YouSail was created by us, Gabriel and Kristy, a couple with a fairly simple dream: buy a sailing yacht, move aboard and see where the wind takes us.

Australia first. Then the Pacific. And, if everything goes according to plan, maybe much further.

And somewhere along the way, YouSail was born.

We were looking for this website ourselves

When we started seriously researching sailing in Australia, we found plenty of information, but it was scattered everywhere.

But we kept looking for one place that brought the Australian sailing world together.

Where do you learn to sail?
Where can you find a yacht club near you?
Which sailing course should you take next?
What does that sailing term actually mean?
Where are the marinas?
Who can inspect a yacht before you buy it?
Where do you find a rigger, sailmaker, marine electrician or diesel mechanic?
What should you know before buying your first yacht?
How does anchoring actually work?
Where can you charter a yacht?
What are the best sailing destinations around Australia?

And what happens when you just want to spend half an hour testing yourself with a sailing quiz or learning something new?

We couldn’t really find that place.

So we decided to build it.

YouSail is our attempt to connect Australian sailing

Our idea for YouSail is bigger than creating another boating directory.

We want it to become a useful home for sailing in Australia.

Most importantly, we want those things to connect.

You might start by reading about learning to sail, discover a local sailing club, find a course, learn some terminology, take a quiz and eventually find yourself looking at yachts for sale.

We know how that happens.

It happened to us.

Built by sailors in the making

We’re not going to pretend we’re the world’s greatest sailors.

We’re learning too.

That’s actually an important part of what YouSail is about.

There will always be people who know far more than us about sailing, weather, navigation, yacht design, rigging, engines, offshore passages and countless other subjects.

We want those people here too.

YouSail isn’t supposed to be Gabriel and Kristy telling Australia how to sail.

It’s about creating somewhere that helps connect the people who sail, the people who want to sail and the people and businesses that make sailing possible.

The people behind the boats matter

One thing became obvious very quickly while building YouSail: sailing isn’t really just about boats.

It’s about people.

The instructor who gets someone through their first tack.
The yacht club volunteer running a weekend race.
The broker who knows the history of a boat.
The rigger who spots something you didn’t.
The marina team helping you into a berth in terrible weather.
The marine electrician solving the problem you’ve been chasing for three days.
The sailor sharing knowledge accumulated over 30 years at sea.
The couple who finally untie the lines and head north.
The teenager discovering dinghy sailing for the first time.

Those are the people who create Australia’s sailing culture.

We want YouSail to help people find them.

We want to promote the good people in sailing

YouSail doesn’t exist because we came up with a perfectly defined commercial model.

Quite the opposite.

We started building it because we thought this should exist.

If we discover something good, we want people to know about it.

If a small marine business is doing brilliant work, we’d love more sailors to find them.

If a sailing club is welcoming new sailors, that’s worth sharing.

If somebody has spent decades building knowledge that could help the next generation of sailors, we’d like to help that knowledge travel further.

There doesn’t always need to be a transaction behind it.

Sometimes something deserves to be promoted simply because it’s useful.

Sailing is one enormous rabbit hole

The more we learn, the more we realise how much there is left to learn.

At least that’s been our experience.

That’s why education is becoming such a big part of YouSail.

We want to create practical guides, reference material, quizzes, glossaries, calculators and resources that make sailing knowledge easier to understand and easier to find.

Not everyone learns by reading a 400-page textbook.

Sometimes you just need someone to explain something properly.

Australian sailing deserves its own home

Australia has one of the most extraordinary coastlines on Earth.

Sydney Harbour
Pittwater
Broken Bay
The Whitsundays
Moreton Bay
The Gold Coast
Tasmania
Port Phillip Bay
South Australia
Fremantle
The Kimberley
The tropical Queensland coast

And thousands upon thousands of nautical miles between them.

There are sailing communities scattered all around that coastline, each with their own knowledge, characters, conditions and culture.

We want YouSail to help connect those dots.

Because sailing Australia isn’t one experience.

It’s hundreds of them.

Where this eventually takes us

Hopefully, onto our own yacht.

That’s still the dream behind all of this.

Gabriel + Kristy + a sailing boat + Australia + the Pacific.

We’re working towards buying our vessel and eventually living aboard, exploring the Australian coastline before venturing further into the Pacific and, perhaps one day, around the world.

Fingers crossed.

YouSail will grow alongside that journey.

We expect we’ll make mistakes, change our minds, discover things we hadn’t considered and learn an enormous amount from people who have been doing this much longer than we have.

That’s part of the adventure.

And if YouSail becomes something bigger…

Great.

We don’t know exactly where YouSail will lead.

Maybe YouSail eventually helps someone who has always dreamed about sailing finally step aboard a yacht for the first time.

That would be a pretty good outcome.

For now, our side of the deal is simple.

Keep building. Keep learning. Keep sailing. Keep sharing what we discover.

And hopefully create something genuinely useful for the Australian sailing community along the way.

See you on the water

We’re Gabriel and Kristy.

We’re building YouSail.

We’re learning to become better sailors.

And somewhere out there is the yacht that will eventually become our home.

See you on the water.

Gabriel & Kristy

YouSail

For people who would rather be sailing.

Get in touch · Explore the directory