How to become self-sufficient in boating with cruise courses at Caprera
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At the Caprera Sailing Center you become self-sufficient in sailing with cruise courses, learning to experience the sea by grinding out miles and maneuvering only under sail. We interviewed Enrico Bertacchi, secretary of CVC, about the structure of the new courses from C1 to C5, which allow the student to develop complete autonomy from the first maneuvers to off-shore sailing.
On Caprera you become autonomous sailing
Bertacchi began, “At the Caprera Sailing Center we now offer five levels of cabin cruiser courses. C1 and C2 are initiation courses, C3 is for consolidation of boat maneuvers and technical knowledge. You do shore-based teaching and go out every day. In the new C4 and C5 courses you live on a sailboat for the duration of the course. C4 and C5 allow you to become self-sufficient at sea. In the itinerant C4 course and the offshore C5 course abroad where you make the leap, you learn the difference between day sailing and shipboard life at sea.”
The C4 course on your new Pogo30 is among the most popular, how does it take place?
“Course C4 is the most coveted coastal itinerant course, since last year it has been equipped with the new Pogo30s, on which we are able to safely conduct teaching even in conditions over 30 knots. The Pogo30 is riggable with both Gennaker, CodeZero and Spinnaker, has a stay for the stormstay and is a very technical boat. The C4 course is not a cruise, it is a challenging course where the crew lives on board for a week and sails about 40-50 miles a day . You sail the whole area of the Straits of Bonifacio to get all the way below Tavolara or westward to Asinara.”
What is the technical content of a C4 course?
“You are at sea for real, with a sailboat to maintain, a galley to manage, a route to plan according to the weather forecast, between wind conditions and daytime and nighttime coastal pilotage. You sail some of the most beautiful but also some of the most challenging stretches of sea in the entire Mediterranean. C4 courses start in April, end in November, to my knowledge, we are the only school that sails 36 weeks a year.”
One can further refine oneself with a C5 “Offshore” course, what does it consist of?
“C5 is an itinerant offshore course is the culmination of our cabin cruiser teaching progression. They sail 600-700 miles each week to Greece, where the Meltemi blows, with weekly departures from Laurio below Athens. At C5 we do continuous day and night sailing, on a 45-footer leased from a company that of always guarantees brand new, high-performance boats such as the Pogo 12.50 or Pogo 44″.
What are the challenges faced at sea in the C5 course?
“The goal of C5 is to learn to experience the sea by grinding out about 100 miles every 24 hours, with shifts at the helm, at maneuvers and for rest. At C5, you cannot make mistakes in boat preparation, safety on board, energy and water economy. Whoever is on duty has full responsibility for the boat. A great deal of attention is given to meteorology; you learn how to take advantage of even disturbances in favor of navigation. On-board electronics and GDMSS communication systems are used. There are two of the Caprera Sailing Center’s most experienced instructors on board, and six students. It is the course that allows you to experience real offshore sailing.”
However, in order to register for the C4 and C5 courses, one must have taken the Caprera Sailing Center’s cabin cruiser courses?
“Yes, because in order to tackle an itinerant and offshore course, only the Caprera Sailing Center can certify the necessary technical preparation offered only by the pre-cruise courses C1 to C3. The boats we use for pre-cruise are all without engines so they are perfect for our teaching purposes. C1, C2 and C3 are among the very few that teach seafaring culture with instructional days ashore and at sea in which they also sail the maneuvers of buoy catching, anchoring, and swath mooring.
In the C3 course we use the very fast Beneteau First27, (formerly Seascape 27), light, modern boats with carbon masts and double rudders, in which the student perfects technique and learns, for example, how to handle gennaker planing and safe sailing in the often challenging sea and wind conditions that the Magdalena area offers us. These are preparatory and fundamental courses to safely approach itinerant cruising.”
When can the student be considered autonomous?
“As I said, the C5 is the last step in our educational progression. Already after successfully completing a C4 for us, the student is ready to cast off the moorings and take on a Mediterranean cruise independently. If everything went right, already at C4we formed a sailor, both in terms of technique and values.”
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