Sail shades are made up of strong cloths which can withstand harsher treatment than the temporary versions of shade that are typically available. Sail shades are typically attached to permanent fixtures such as walls or permanent posts. As a result it is a longer lasting source of shade that should be dealt with as a key part of the design of the outdoor space. Garden designers can often use them to base the design of the outdoor space. Such is the striking nature of this type of shade that the whole theme of the outside space can be amended to work with the sail shade.

Sail shades were first utilised by ancient Roman and Greek sailors that hoisted sails up to protect them from the searing sun when they were on land. This innovative idea was exploited by many different people and the theory has developed into the modern day sail shade. It is said that the coliseum was covered with a sail so that the people that attended the sporting and theatrical events could be kept cool from the searing sun. This theory has been exploited to make the modern sail shade. The primary change has been that the type of cloth used to make the sail has changed. New technology has introduced new fibres that make the modern sail shade both sturdy and extremely effective at blocking out the harmful UV rays from the sun.

The sail shades come in a number of different shapes and sizes. Most sail shades that are used for large outdoor areas are designed by the sail shade manufacturers specifically for the place that they will be used in. The range of options if you decide to have your sail shade designed bespoke to your needs is infinite. There are also a number of sail shades that are sold off the shelf. These come in a number of different sizes and shapes. Each manufacturer and sales company produces different sizes and shapes bust most of these companies will provide something to suit your needs. Most sail shades are available in triangle and square shapes. These are generally called triangle shade sails and square shade sails and are a great way of providing a semi-permanent shade for your garden.

Other types of garden shade that you could utilise in your outdoor space are gazebos, umbrella shade and the larger marquees. Gazebos are another fantastic option as they are quite inexpensive and can be erected anywhere. They are small tent like structures that can be put up anywhere. Unlike tents they do not have walls and they are tall enough to stand under. Also they often provide rain cover as well as shade cover from the sun.

Where to Start

You’ll find many dinghy sailing clubs around the lakes and rivers of the UK coast. Always keen to take on new members, especially families, you’ll find them welcoming and friendly.

Cost

Fees vary depending on the level of facilities, but a good club will cost around £150 per year for a family and may include a dinghy parking place. Individuals joining on their own will expect to pay around £50 per year. There are no fees to use the water but you will need insurance. This should cost a further £50.

Equipment

There are two vital pieces of equipment that you will need. A buoyancy aid or life jacket and a pair of non-slip shoes. Trainers are fine to begin with but they offer no protection from the water. You’ll also need to invest in a good waterproof jacket in the summer and a wetsuit for the winter months. Wearing layers of clothing is always advisable.

Buying a Dinghy

Some clubs will lend you a boat and a sailing centre will provide a boat as part of a course. It’s a good idea not to rush in and buy a dinghy straight away. It’s best to start with a used dinghy while you’re new to sailing. Beginners to the sport will normally start with an older boat and after a few months, when you’re sure you want to continue, you can upgrade to something to a newer boat.

Types of Dinghy

- Car portable such as Toppers. – Fixed keel dinghies. – Performance dinghies such as Catamarans. – One person dinghies like the One Man Lasers. – Two person such as Fireballs. – Family dinghies like Wayfarers.

Courses

Dinghy sailing is always taught by RYA qualified instructors starting with beginners courses. Courses are designed so that the skills you learn in one boat are transferable to the next. And you can complete courses in stages, so you can finish one section and continue with the next when you are ready – on holiday for instance.

Learning to Sail on Holiday

Learning to sail a dinghy on holiday is a great way to enter the world of sailing. With better weather and time on your side, you’ll feel more relaxed and possibly learn to sail much faster. With warmer waters you’ll almost certainly feel more confident when you capsize the dinghy.

Inshore Lakes or Costal Waters

Dinghy sailing on an inshore lake is generally considered safer. You’ll be sailing within easy distance of a rescue boat, making it popular with families. It’s also easier to lean this way. Without the distraction of the tide and avoiding other craft, you’ll feel more comfortable able to concentrate fully on your sailing. With stronger winds and greater challenges, coastal sailing is for the more experienced dinghy sailor.

Start Racing

It won’t be long before you feel ready to start racing and most clubs run novice courses. Boats designed for one or two people, and even high performance dinghies with a crew, can be raced without any official qualification. You will, however, need to learn to handle the dinghy and have a good grasp of the basics for your own safety.

Cruising

There is the option to cruise rather than race and there are clubs for people who simply wish to sail with others and discover new waters. Smaller boats for cruising are slightly different in that they are not designed for speed but for comfort. This means they handle easily in all weathers and are safer when away from shore with no rescue boat. Larger and heaver dinghies are known as day boats. You will also need to complete a course for cruising and have a good understanding of the basics.

Buying a Dinghy

Before you buy a dinghy you must bear in mind that your requirements will change as your sailing develops. You should also consider whether you want to sail alone or with a crew, if it needs to be portable and if you need a faster performance boat more or one more suitable for cruising. Newer, high performance boats will come at a higher price but there are bargains to be had with older boats.

The courses you can choose from to learn to sail vary so that you can tailor the instruction according to your ability. Some of the longer courses offer the chance to practice skills and continue learning by sailing around the island. Other courses include theory as well as VHF radio and a first aid course, which compliments the practical skills taught on board. For. You are also given the opportunity to swim in the clear waters during the lunch break as well as giving spectacular views of the stunning beaches that Lanzarote has to offer which surely is an opportunity you wouldn’t want to miss out on.

In the height of summer, Lanzarote can reach high temperatures offering the golden sun and sandy beaches that all holiday-goers are after. So in addition to your normal holiday trip, why not try your hand at sailing? There are plenty of different things to try which will enrich your holiday. Instead of the usual water sports it may be more beneficial to learn practical skills that are fun to learn at the same time. Sailing offers a much more tranquil and relaxed setting for those holiday-goers looking for a more peaceful experience whilst also letting you be active.

There really is something for everyone, with sailing courses that would suit the solo sailor, couples and families as well. Class sizes are kept to a small size – generally a maximum of 4 or 5 people per instructor – which means that the teaching is most effective and so that you get the most out of your learning to sail experience. In order for you to learn as quickly and effectively as possible, the instructors first demonstrate and then allow you to practise as many times as you feel is necessary allowing you to pick up as much knowledge about sailing as possible.

It is important when looking to find a sailing course to make sure that the company you choose has experienced sailors, which are RYA qualified and therefore have the ability to teach you to the correct standards. Rather than looking for a great holiday why not try to learn new skills and find another way to enjoy what Lanzarote has to offer by learning to sail. Who knows, it may become your new hobby. If you’re visiting Lanzarote for a short trip or a long break, fitting in a sailing course will make your holiday one to remember and may even be the start of your sailing holidays for years to come.

Novices begin sail trim with the mainsail. More advanced sailors start sail trim from the most forward sail on the boat. For a typical Bermuda Sloop, the most common rig today, that means the jib or foresail. We will also introduce sailing by the tell-tales—the little pieces of green and red yarn, cloth or ribbon hanging in about the middle of the sail. To begin, we put our boat on a steady course and while on that course we sheet the sail to the “all the way in” position. At this point, the “inside” tell-tales, those closest to the centerline of the boat, should be pointing straight back in line with the motion of the boat and parallel to the water, while the outside tell-tales will be flopping about. To properly trim our headsail, we will ease the sail slowly out. Eventually, the tell-tale movement will change with the inside tell-tales flopping about and the outside tell-tales flowing back in a straight line parallel with the water. When you have reached this point, stop easing the sail and gently (and slowly) trim in until both sets of tell-tales are streaming aft. This is the ideal trim position. One final note on headsails, many will have several sets of tell-tales and it can be difficult to get all sets streaming aft simultaneously. For our purposes, we will trim to the bottom set of tell-tales when there are two sets and to the middle set when there are three sets of tell-tales.

Now, let’s turn our attention to the mainsail. We will still use just our mainsheet for trimming our mainsail at this point, continuing to avoid adjustment of the boom vang and traveler car. We will center our traveler car amid ship and leave it there. At this point, with the headsail already trimmed, you are likely to see a big “bubble” along the luff of our mainsail where the headsail has turned the wind into our mainsail if the mainsail is trimmed out. The goal of mainsail trim is to get the mainsail tell-tales, located on the leach of the sail, usually along the battens, to stream back parallel to the water. The procedure is similar to headsail trim above: start with the mainsail all the way in and gradually ease the sail out until the tell-tales are streaming aft. As with the headsail, they may all not stream aft simultaneously. Try moving in and out—slowly—if you still can’t get them all flowing, concentrate on the tell-tales from mid-sail to the top of the sail—that is where you will find the strongest wind.

Lastly, let me point out that there are conditions such as very light winds, wet sails, heading dead down wind, etc., when the tell-tale trim method may not work. When you are sailing in these conditions, my advice would be return to simpler rules of trim until you are ready for the advanced trim methods.

The headlines reporting our troubled economy and the bloodbath on Wall Street have sent shock waves throughout our communities.  Most of us have felt the effects of the recent collapse of well-known companies, evaporation of retirement savings, loss of  jobs, and political uncertainty.  These challenging times remind me of winds blowing a boat at sea.  Our lives are the boats in the brisk wind of change and uncertainty we are all experiencing.  Is the turbulence of the world’s events blowing you in the opposite direction of where you want to go?  Are you being blown off course?

An experienced sailor will tell you that a properly shaped sail (triangular instead of square) and the physics of “lift” will enable him to sail a boat into the wind.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could set the sails of our lives in such a way that we could sail into the wind of life’s difficult events?  Guess what?  We can do it! 

Think of your life vision as your map and compass.  Your personal experiences, outlook, and commitment make up the sail that takes advantage of the “lift” of faith.  We have a choice to make.  We can either use a square sail (our natural inclination to be victims of life’s difficulties) and accept the idea that we will be swept away in whichever direction life’s winds blow us or we can select a properly shaped triangular sail (a positive, persevering commitment that builds on our positive experiences and enables us to see the opportunities – not the challenges – in the world), take advantage of the “lift” (our faith), and sail in the direction we were created to go regardless of the wind’s direction.

Leveraging the “Lift”

“How do I create the sail in my life that will take advantage of the ‘lift’?” you may ask.  Here are some simple (though not always easy) steps to set your life’s sail to keep you on track:

§          Recognize you were created for a purpose – You have direction.  Before we set sail, we must make sure our map is clear and our compass is operational.  Each of us has been created with a unique purpose, or direction, for our life.  This purpose is intended to create in us a hopeful future.  “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  Jeremiah 29:11.  Study, pray, and discern your life’s purpose and vision.  Prepare the map.

§          Identify the events in your life that prepared you for this journey.  Everything that happens in life was designed to teach us a lesson and prepare us to live our purpose.  This is the structure and fabric of our sail.  Spend some time thinking about your “greatest moment in life”.  Why was that moment great?  How did you feel?  What did you do that made that great moment possible?  This is what you can use to build the sail.

§          Learn how to leverage.  Spend time in prayer and meditation to understand how to leverage what you did that made you successful in the past to make you successful in the present and future.  We have what it takes within us to live our purpose regardless of life’s situations.  If we can only discern what made our greatest moment in life great, we can work to replicate that personal outlook, skill, or focus to achieve what is before us.  This is your triangular sail that, combined with the “lift” of faith, will move your life in the right direction.

§          Have faith.  In order to sail into the wind using what we have learned from our past (our sail), we must have faith.  Faith is the firm belief in something or someone for which there may be no tangible proof.  How do we have faith?  First we need to ensure the object of our faith is worthy and will never let us down.  Find a fellowship of people who have strong faith.  Spend time in study, prayer, and meditation.  A proper sail (your outlook and behaviors that will move you forward) and the “lift” of faith will enable you to sail toward your vision.

§          Make the choice and move forward.  Author Stephen Covey asserts that in that split second between the stimulus and the response resides the life-changing opportunity to exercise choice.  Living in faith is an assertive choice.  Being controlled by the winds of fear is a passive choice.  When faced with difficult times, we can either default to the passive choice of “c’est la vie” or take the amazingly empowering opportunity to consciously choose faith.  Choose the right sail and take advantage of the “lift” of faith.

§          Don’t look back.  Once you’ve set sail and you are sailing into the wind, stay focused on your purpose; your map.  When you experience doubt or negative thoughts, engage in the practice of “mentally looping”; consciously refocusing your thoughts from the negative back to the positive direction in which you’re wanting to move.  In other words, keep referring to the map and compass.

Are you ready to take the next step?

Now that you understand how to use your map and compass, set your sail and realize you have a choice, the next step is to make the choice and create the attitude and actions in your life to affirmatively live your vision.  A life coach with a strong spiritual life can help you through this journey.  Or, you can “go it alone”, following these steps and partnering with other people of faith on their similar journey.

Get out the map.  Set your sail.  Leverage the “lift”.  Make the choice to move forward in vision and faith today.