Lessons that you can learn whilst enjoying being out on the water include:
· Decision making
Good sailors understand that the faster you make a decision, the sooner you can correct it if it’s proven to be wrong. A decision could mean opting for a particular side of the race course, choosing to set a different sail, perhaps experimenting with different people doing different roles on the boat.
In business, it is often easier for a manager to stop a new initiative than have the courage to sign it off – you’re less likely to get fired for maintaining the status quo than trying something new. Of course, this approach results in the company stagnating and, eventually becoming uncompetitive – the manager will probably end up becoming redundant in any case….
Also, a lot of managers don’t objectively track the results of their decisions. By contrast, a good sailor will always be monitoring his progress to see if a particular decision had a good or bad outcome. Getting used to being proven wrong and taking quick corrective action is a useful life skill.
· Resilience
Sailing is a sport of eliminating mistakes rather than brilliance. You have to manage your equipment and team, make the best use of the weather and wind shifts and use the waves and currents to your advantage. It’s tremendously complex and fulfilling as a result. Having the strength of mind to acknowledge when you’ve made a mistake and to bounce back from it, without going into a panic and changing all the things that brought you success in the past, will stand you in good stead for life, which is invariably tough and confusing.
An important aspect of sailing is that you can’t just stop when you’re tired or conditions are unfavourable or rough. Children as young as 10 get caught in gales and they are forced to decide to deal with it or have a thoroughly unpleasant time. Most choose to make the best of the situation and actually learn how to relish pushing their limits of endurance and achievement.
· Leadership, teamwork and communication
Yachts are incredibly confined spaces. Depending on the size and focus of the boat, there could be anything from 1–30 people on-board – as you can imagine, getting large crews to work as a team requires leadership. Moreover, the confined space means that you need to work with other personalities that might not gel well with your own – you can’t simply ignore the problem.
Successful sailing crews have well defined roles and clear communication about what is going to happen next. Not everyone takes a leadership role and not everyone contributes to every decision. Part of the team is responsible for making sure the yacht heads in the chosen direction while others ensure that each manoeuvre is performed correctly. The key things are that people are empowered to do their jobs, they understand how they contribute to the overall goal, and they are able to provide feedback to enable the whole team to learn and improve.
In “real life”, it’s important to be able to move in and out of leadership roles – sometimes you call the shots, other times you are part of the team implementing the decisions. One of the best bowmen (one of the “workers” on a race boat) I have sailed with is Mark Sadler, who was also skipper of Shosholoza, South Africa’s first entry into the Americas Cup. On Shosholoza, Mark was the main decision maker, carrying the hopes of our nation in the world’s most important sailing competition. However, during a race in Cape Town, Mark was also modest enough to be bowman on a friend’s yacht – he did a fantastic job and was as focused as he would be as skipper, even if he wasn’t in a decision making role.
How to get involved?
There are sailing schools in South Africa’s main centres (Cape Town, Durban, Gauteng) and yacht clubs throughout the country, some of whom also have sail training programs.
There is a perception that it is extremely expensive and it is true that it can be costly to buy and run a large yacht. However, sailing dinghies (generally boats under 6m) and small catamarans can be available for a few thousand rand and, once you have developed some skills, there are usually people who already own yachts that are looking for crew, both here in South Africa and abroad. If you’re reliable, keen to learn, easy to get on with and reasonably fit you should have no problem finding a sailing team to join.