A Forest of Sails

Portland Sailing Center's Basic Sailing Textbook

Sailing is best learned where local waters present as many flavors of sailing as can be hoped for in one place: Winds from all points of the compass, and wind speeds from gentle wafts to violent gales. Tidal and river currents, ships, barges, and recreational boats. Shoals and lee shores, bridges, and locks. Parades and races. State of the art aids to navigation and local marks in use for thousands of years. And within a day's travel, an ocean, the other way, a mountain river gorge! All these assets and more are available to us. We live in a grand place to sail.

After too many years of teaching a watered down curriculum crafted to plug into places with few or none of these gifts, we produced our own book. A Forest of Sails was first published in 2013, and is now in its fourth edition, and has grown to 160 pages and fourteen chapters. It is written based on decades of teaching sailing from the Gorge out to the coastal waters of Oregon. Fae Young, designer, editor, and artist, has created over 100 ink drawings including charming river scenes and dry technical charts for the book. Students say it is readable, fun, and relevant.