Coaching & training

Avoid stress and mistakes during your first boat maneuvers. Support can save you time and give you confidence, so no more panicking with your family!

Our approach focuses on efficiency and simplicity of navigation.

Hoisting the sails, taking in or dropping a reef, choosing the right sail, trimming your boat, and using the equipment correctly.

Gaëtan has sailed dozens and dozens of boats, large, small, and multihulls; his experience can be invaluable to you.

It can be stressful, especially in windy conditions and strong currents.

It's important to spend a few hours practicing mooring maneuvers at the dock, understanding your boat, its inertia, its pivot point, the effect of its propeller, etc.

On a racing boat or cruising boat, how to jibe safely, trim the sails, pole out a sail, reduce sail downwind, etc.

First surfing under spinnaker.

Learning to calibrate your autopilot

• Choosing the sails
• Taking in and dropping a reef

• How to Recover a Man Overboard
  This often-overlooked topic is nevertheless crucial. In light airs or breezes, what equipment or technique should you use?

  First, it's imperative to establish a man overboard recovery plan, know your boat, and perhaps improve it with the right equipment.

• Techniques under spinnaker, with a crew or double-handed.
• First aid.

  "On the Clipper, during the pre-race training sessions, we practiced at least one exercise of this type per day with a real, full-weight dummy, day and night, under spinnaker in the breeze."

• Electronic navigation.
• Paper chart navigation: While paper charts are becoming obsolete these days in the face of onboard electronics, it's still useful to know how to navigate "the old-fashioned way."
• Review the basics like taking a bearing, calculating the tide, preparing your passage, etc.
• Using routing software: Get to grips with TimeZero or Adrena, play with the boat's polars, and create a route.
• The sextant: Learn to navigate with the stars, calculate a meridian, or take a line of altitude.

  Gaëtan has completed three transatlantic voyages using a sextant; it's a passion he loves to share.

Sailing single-handed requires a good autopilot and/or a self-steering vane, but also technique and a few tricks.

In the end, it's a bit like a double-handed operation, with one at the helm and the other maneuvering.

The goal here is to teach you how to perform single-handed maneuvers:

• Port maneuvers under power.
• Tacks, gybes.
• Reefing.
• Hoisting the spinnaker, gybing under spinnaker.
• Sailing in a breeze etc.

  Safety and life on board are also covered, particularly how to manage your sleep.

Get a successful sailing once the boat is ready!

This section covers all the aspects of a boat:

• Seamanship
• Rigging
• Deck layout optimization
• Installation of electronic equipment, safety, etc.
• Cleaning
• Various logistics
• Interior optimization (racing)
• Help on the winter dock, careening, small composite work, spray painting, etc.
• Skipper service for boat launching

• Learn how to make textile shackles, splices, oversheath halyards or reefing lines, and repair sails at sea.
• How to properly prepare your seaman's kit and the equipment to take on board for repairs (racing and cruising).

• Inspection of the boat, wheelhouse, and rigging.
• Learn about your equipment and how to maintain it.
• We help you choose the right maintenance products and techniques.
• Acid cleaning of teak.