Dinghy sailing & windsurfing are brilliant hobbies for a family. A bit of family bonding, exercise & pleasant days at lakes and beaches beckon. It's a great way of entertaining active kids and teenagers, enough of a challenge to inspire and fulfil a sense of adventure but all within a pretty safe environment if you join a club and abide by the rules.

If you want to sail and have kids consider the following:

1. Ensure paricipants want to sail and are strong swimmers before even considering sailing. You may need to book the kids in for swimming lessons first.
2. Check out the cost. There are club membership fees, course fees, clothing and equipment fees to consider. It may be possible to enrol for a short course at a local sailing centre to check sailing is for you before going ahead. You may be able to visit a club as a guest of a friend who sails or attend an open day when clubs take visitors out for a short sail to encourage membership uptake. Phone your nearest sailing club and ask, they could be willing to help.
3. Allow time. Sailing is one of those hobbies where preparing to participate and clearing away is all part of the fun. You can easily be out for over three hours for a one hour sail.
4. Wait if you are planning to buy a boat. Consider whether you require single handers or wish to sail together. If you want to keep dry, consider a keel boad. You need to sail several different types of dinghy to establish which will suit your needs. Boats such as Pacers are quite heavy to launch but are fairly stable in the water so it's less likely you'll end up wet. Lasers are sporty (you will get wet). Toppers and Picos are lighter weight and more suited to teens. Catamarans are FAST.
5. Be prepared to take sailing courses. It's essential that you know how to tack, jibe and have practised capsize drill to right the boat when you all end up in the water (it happens) plus you need to be able to rescue a man overboard. The Royal Yachting Association run courses in which reputable sailing clubs participate.
6. Accept that you will have to learn a foreign language - sailing talk.
7. If a child in the family is reluctant don't force them to sail, it's the quickest way to put them off. If one adult stays on dry land to look after the child and he/she sees people having fun out on the water they are much more likely to wish to participate. If not, well sailing isn't for everyone.
8. Ensure that buoyancy aids are a good fit. Too large aids are a hazzard, the child could slip through. During capsize drill an over large bouyancy aid can come up around your shoulders inhibiting movement consequently making it difficult to right the boat - a safety issue in a real life capsize. This is an item worth getting right, rather like a child's car safety seat.
9. Ensure your child has a sound knowledge of water safety and is well supervised at all times when on land around the water as well as when sailing.
10. Remember water temperatures are cooler than you might expect in the spring and first half of the summer. Suitable clothing is essential, always assume it will be cooler and windier on the water than on land.

The following could be considered disadvantages of sailing as a hobby:

• The cost, it's not usually particularly cheap. Costs can be kept down if you use a club's boat or share. You wil have club membership fees to pay, boat repair, insurance and berthing fees. If you race at other clubs there will be travel costs.
• If you don't like getting cold your sailing weeks are limited due to the weather.
• It is time consuming.
• Sailing needs to be planned. If you are sailing on the sea it is usual to have rescue boats out when you sail, hence you are tied to sailing when the cover is available.
• You need patience to cope when pulleys do not work, springs break and bits fall apart.

• Well, need I say anything. Just look at the photograph of my now adult son and husband sailing our Hobie 16 Catamaran together in Sussex. Sheer exhilaration, does she sing!
• Great family time together
• Excitement, something different from football.
• If you join a club there is the fellowship that goes alongside it. People usually help each other launch, winch each other's boats up the beach, combine for maintenance working parties and help the club out on duty rotas. There's often even a bar and social events such as BBQs.
• Fresh air and exercise
• Kids learn responsibility, especailly regarding water safety, plus how to cope in a 'crisis' e.g. when the boat is about to capsize. Don't let this put you off, all dingy sailors capsize, especially at first. The kids at our club often do it on purpose as it's great fun, the instructors often allow this as the experience of righting the boat is good practice. Just make sure you always sail when a rescue boat is out on the water.
• Teens often have a chance to help in the club, e.g doing rescue boat duty for the children's summer sailing school and for races.
• Opportunity to make friends
• Opportunity to learn about sailing from enthusiasts who have been sailing for years
• Opportunity to sail on holiday or on a specialist sailing holiday.
• Increased self confidence.
• Your kids will learn about weather patterns, the rules of sailing and how to follow a course.

The following link should give you all the information you need to get started http://www.rya.org.uk/

RYA Training Courses

Youth Training Courses.

Level one covers the parts of the boat, launching and recovering the boat, steering and basic sailing.

The courses progress through to level 4 which covers rigging, sailing technique.s and recovering a man overboard, launching and recovery and manoeuvres in crewed boats

Adult Courses

Level 1

This teaches you to sail in light winds under supervision. The course lasts a minimum of two days.

Level 2

Level 2 equips you to sail in good conditions. Rigging, launching, recovery, capsize drill, sailing in all directions and safety are covered.

A variety of other courses follow on from these.

Here are a few sailing terms just to get you started.

Adrift - Your kid's lost the oar, or even worse, you have.

Apparent Wind - You launched, the wind dropped so now you're sitting bobbing about like an idiot.

Ashore - Where you'd really like to be when the gale gets up.

Bail - You forgot to put the bungs in.

Boom - the stick that swings across the boat and hits you on the head.

Ballast - Certain middle aged men on boats.

Breaker - The wave that just capsized your boat.

Centreboard - The bit of the boat that goes down in the water to help stabilise it that you always forget to take up as you come into shore.

Course - The other way to the way you're currently being blown.

Fair-weather sailor- sensible sailor with high IQ.

Irons - Boat stuck. You embarrased. Bad language. Rescue boat arriving.

Jibe - To steer away from the wind or the manouver you made just before the boom hit you on the head.

Launch - The time in sailing when the waves push you back onto the shore

Mutiny - Parent child disagreement.

Pitchpole - Teenager thrown from the end of his/her boat whilst learning to return to shore on a steeply sloping beach.

Quay - Is that the ferry coming?

Reeds - Things kind fishermen help push you away from at the edge of lakes.

Rig - A process during which part of your boat will get stuck or break off.

Shift - What will happen to the wind as soon as you launch and set your course.

Shipshape - How you wish your boat was when you catch your foot in a loose rope.

Tillerman - He/She who holds power.

Weather - A howling gale that arrived from nowhere.