Tackers 2 — Smooth Sailing School

Tackers 2 is the second level of Australian Sailing's Tackers program, where children aged 7 to 12 move from sailing with a buddy to sailing solo. Smooth Sailing School is a mobile learn-to-sail school: it brings its own trailer fleet, instructors and safety gear to partner yacht clubs around coastal Victoria, including Williamstown Sailing Club.

What you'll learn

Tackers 2 is about independence: sailors make their own decisions about where to steer and how to set the sail. The main skills are:

• Reading the wind – working out where it is coming from so they can choose a heading and set the sail to suit.
• Rigging and de-rigging – setting up and packing away the boat with minimal help.
• Points of sail and sailing upwind – learning that a boat cannot sail straight into the wind, so it zigzags upwind with the sail pulled in tight.
• Getting out of irons – recovering when the boat has stopped head-to-wind, one of the most common beginner problems.
• Tacking and gybing on their own, plus 360 and 720-degree turns, which are the penalty turns used later in racing.
• Capsize recovery – righting the boat and climbing back aboard.

By the end, sailors can sail solo in light winds and sail a triangle course upwind, downwind and reaching.

How Smooth Sailing runs it

The course runs over four or five half-day sessions depending on the program, using the school's own dinghies. Instructors hold current Australian Sailing qualifications, First Aid and Working With Children checks.

What parents should know

Boats, sails and lifejackets are provided, and everyone wears an Australian Sailing-approved lifejacket at all times on the water. Bring water, a hat, a snack, a towel, clothes that can get wet, a spare set of dry clothes and shoes; a spray jacket, wetsuit and water shoes are useful if you have them. Sailing continues in light rain and fresh breezes, but if conditions are unsafe the session moves to shore-based activities, and lightning means nobody goes on the water until the sky is clear.

Who it suits

Water-confident children aged 7 to 12 who have completed Tackers 1 or have equivalent sailing experience and are ready to sail a boat by themselves.

Where it leads

Confident solo sailors move on to Tackers 3, which adds sail trim, roll tacking and a first taste of racing.

Full course guide

For the full Australian Sailing syllabus, see the Tackers 2 course guide.