I like to test out books first before I buy them to make sure I can use them as a resource. I will be adding this book to my per­ma­nent col­lec­tion when the tri­al is up. It is both prac­ti­cal and very fun­ny. I def­i­nite­ly rec­om­mend it.

Read­ing these books gives me enough back­ground knowl­edge to fol­low the videos, which I often have to stop and replay. For exam­ple, I was read­ing the sec­tion about chart­ing your course. Just the descrip­tion of how to move the tools across the chart was beyond me. Actu­al­ly, the whole process of plot­ting dead reck­on­ings, account­ing for drift, and com­par­ing your loca­tion to where you thought you would be was over­whelm­ing. How­ev­er, after watch­ing sev­er­al YouTube videos, what I’d read made sense.

But I didn’t stop there.

My Learning Strategies

As a teacher, I know how to use strate­gies when things aren’t click­ing, so I was far from dis­cour­aged. I’d read a chap­ter, find a video (or two or three) cov­er­ing the top­ic, watch until I felt I could explain it to some­one else, then go back and read the chap­ter again. This was the key! The final re-read is like the mor­tar between the stones when build­ing a house. It con­nects every­thing and holds it together.

As my under­stand­ing of the vocab­u­lary increased, fol­low­ing instruc­tions became easier.

Addi­tion­al­ly, I cre­at­ed an inter­ac­tive note­book of quick ref­er­ence mate­ri­als— basi­cal­ly my notes from videos and from my read­ings. Remem­ber­ing where I found spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion is a strug­gle, espe­cial­ly when jug­gling mul­ti­ple sources at once. While I have always tracked the essen­tial resources so that I can eas­i­ly ref­er­ence them over and over again and saved videos (on anchor­ing, pass­ing oth­er boats, heav­ing to, and what­ev­er else we may need to recall with­out access­ing the internet—so we can watch them on the go!), I didn’t want to weed through tons of sail­ing mate­ri­als I’ve col­lect­ed to find that one thing I was look­ing for. This is where the inter­ac­tive note­book comes in!

Using the note­book, I found I could sum­ma­rize the essen­tial ele­ments or steps from a nine­ty minute video on one page in the note­book (and ref­er­ence it quick­ly) with­out hav­ing to re-watch the whole video.

Interactive Notebook Set-up

My set-up is easy! This is actu­al­ly an orga­ni­za­tion­al strat­e­gy stu­dents are now taught in schools. And it works!

I leave the first cou­ple of pages of a spi­ral note­book blank (these will be my table of con­tents). Any time I want to sum­ma­rize a video, for exam­ple, I turn to the next avail­able note­book page and take notes. I title the page and give it a page num­ber (upper right hand corner).

Then I enter that infor­ma­tion into the table of con­tents I’ve cre­at­ed at the front of the note­book. Spend­ing a minute doing this at the front end saves me loads of time lat­er. Since my goal is to save the infor­ma­tion, access it quick­ly, and to be able to refer back to the orig­i­nal source if I need to, I include oth­er infor­ma­tion in the table of con­tents such as the source/author, and the page num­ber I have assigned to the notes I’ve writ­ten in my note­book. You can also add the date, if you like.

Now, I can eas­i­ly find what I’m look­ing for at a glance! And no more hunt­ing for information!

It’s frus­trat­ing flip­ping through a note­book sev­er­al times to find some­thing I know I’ve writ­ten down, only to give up in dis­gust when I can’t find it—especially when I know it’s there. If you’ve ever had the same issue find­ing your notes, feel free to use my inter­ac­tive note­book table of con­tents (you can use a three-ring binder instead, and add my pages to the front) or you can set up your own. It’s easy!

As I write these blog posts, if I come across some­thing I can make that will sim­pli­fy my life (like the doc­u­ment I’ve includ­ed here) or can help some­one a lit­tle behind me on this jour­ney, I will add it to the site so you can ben­e­fit from it as well. Just as the pro­duc­ers of the con­tent I have list­ed below have helped me, I am using this blog to pay it for­ward as well.

One More Tip

I have cre­at­ed a file with the essen­tial “and free” PDFs for sailors we’ll need to take with us, so they’re all stored in one place. Sev­er­al YouTube mar­itime school videos and count­less hours lat­er… I had a list of key doc­u­ments we’d need.  I’ve emailed the file to myself so I can upload it eas­i­ly to every device we are tak­ing with us. See which doc­u­ments we’ve saved.

Often­times, doing research is like going through a maze. One path leads to anoth­er essen­tial loca­tion that may not have been a part of the orig­i­nal direc­tions. If you fail to take note of the place and what you’ve found there, you might nev­er make your way back to it. So, I always enter research with an open mind. And I always take notes.

My sug­ges­tions are like video game hacks. I mean, why start from the begin­ning if there are short­cuts from peo­ple who have gone before you! Many peo­ple have learned web design, paint­ing, tiny-house build­ing, and sail­ing from watch­ing YouTube videos—while avoid­ing the pit­falls made by the video mak­er. The prob­lem is keep­ing track of all the infor­ma­tion, specif­i­cal­ly what was the objec­tive of this par­tic­u­lar video.

In oth­er words, if you have twen­ty videos saved on nav­i­ga­tion, how do you eas­i­ly locate the video with the sec­tion on using tran­sits to avoid haz­ards with­out watch­ing all those videos again?

Just like you, my time is impor­tant and in short sup­ply. Find­ing valu­able resources among the mas­sive amounts of infor­ma­tion avail­able online reminds me of a Hal­loween par­ty I attend­ed as a child. There was an apple bob­bing activ­i­ty set up where kids had to try to grab a cer­tain col­or apple with their teeth. Many kids end­ed up with a wet face and no apple. Imag­ine work­ing so hard and final­ly pulling out the one red apple only to throw it back into the buck­et and start again. That’s what hap­pens when you don’t make note of the resources you find online. They’re almost impos­si­ble to find again!

If you have a sys­tem in place, you get your time back. I’m one of those peo­ple who love research­ing; how­ev­er, I hate look­ing for what I have already found. And real­ly, that’s one of the pur­pos­es of this site—to gath­er what I’m learn­ing on our jour­ney to becom­ing a live­aboard sail­ing fam­i­ly in one place.

FYI: More Free Stuff

I thought I would have to pur­chase all of the resources because they are actu­al­ly for sale on book web­sites, and not cheap­ly either. Watch­ing a range of videos on the same top­ic point­ed me to what I needed—as FREE down­loads. Each video added to the over­all pic­ture so I think it’s impor­tant to lis­ten to as many dif­fer­ent experts as you can. I most­ly focused on videos by instruc­tors at mar­itime schools. Each teacher con­tributed to the whole, build­ing upon one anoth­er. My favorite YouTube chan­nels to learn about the art of sail­ing are Life is Like Sail­ing, North­east Mar­itime Insti­tute, US Cap­tains Train­ing, Mary­land School of Sail­ing, Mon­key­See (sail­ing tips), RAN Sail­ing, Jeff Quit­ney (Navy Nav­i­ga­tion Train­ing), Sail­ing SV Delos (their video on may­day pro­ce­dures is great!). The oth­er chan­nels list­ed above have so many amaz­ing videos that I could not list them all! (These are not the only sail­ing videos we watch or love, but as far as train­ing videos, they are def­i­nite­ly worth check­ing out!)

Here is a list of PDF files we downloaded to use for our journey (All FREE!):

*You can buy print­ed and bound copies as well. 

1. Navigation rules

2. Light lists Volume 2 and Volume 3

3. Tide and Current tables of the US

4. US Chart #1 NOAA (key to nautical symbols)

5. Coast Pilot 3 and 4 (they are all here)

6. Bowditch American Practical Navigator

7. Radio Navigation Aids

8. Radio Watchkeeping Regulations

9. Mayday Procedure

My Final Thoughts as a Sailing Newbie

I’m sure I will look back on this learn­ing phase (before our very first sail­ing trip) and laugh as I remem­ber what I novice I was. Right now, how­ev­er, I’m sop­ping up all the infor­ma­tion I can like a sponge and work­ing smarter. Research writ­ten down saves time, even if it’s just the time you save not hav­ing to find that par­tic­u­lar web­site or issue of a mag­a­zine again. I am writ­ing this post with that idea in mind.

Plen­ty of times, I have lost resources or had them so jum­bled togeth­er in my mind that I had no clue where I found the information.

Now, I am track­ing my jour­ney so I can retrace my steps and refer back to the mate­ri­als when I need them.  And maybe help you too!

I would love to hear from you. What do you wish you knew before you start­ed sailing?

Also, if you’d like to con­tin­ue the con­ver­sa­tion, and/or read my lat­est posts or be the first to receive my FREE down­loads, please sub­scribe to our newslet­ter below.