You completed your cansail 1&2. That's a great accomplishment. It also means that now, you don't have someone to tell you when to show up at the club, what to do, with whom to sail and to watch over you. And it can be a bit daunting to participate in club activities with sailors seemingly much more experienced than you.

This is normal, but we want you to know that you belong and that there are many opportunities for you to participate as a beginner and improve your skills. Notably, you can learn to race, learn other boats or train other sailors.

Keep on Learning

There is many more opportunities to learn.

First, you can enroll into a cansail 3 and later on a cansail 4 class. Note that we do not typically recommend enrolling in a cansail 3 course immediately after your cansail 1&2. Instead, we suggest that you practice sailing for a season before, in order to derive the maximum benefit from that class.

Second, you can learn to learn how to sail other boats, such as a single person laser or a high speed catamaran by completing one of the clinics. These boats are quite different from an albacore, and some of the things you learned on the albacore might not be useful or being contrary to what you do on these other boats, so unless your goal is to mostly sail laser or catamarans, we suggest that you first improve your skills sailing albacores before exploring the other boats.

Racing

If you just started sailing this year, it is unlikely that you will helm your boat towards 1st place on a Friday night race, one of our most competitive event. Nevertheless, you can start racing by:

• Participating in a Monday Race Training. These are weekly, 6 pm sessions taught by our finest racers. These sessions are focused on one aspect of racing, with an onshore briefing and on the water drills, such as: practicing race starts, trimming for upwind.... You can be crew, helm or either and you don't need to be paired. Just show up!
  
• Signing up for a Fun Race. Fun Races are relaxed races for beginners, held several times a year. They are often preceded with a Racing 101 class where you will be introduced to the basic rules of racing (start lines, marks, protests...).
• Sign up as crew for a Friday Night Race (FNR). We have chronically more helms than crews on FNRs, so you joining as crew on Fridays is not only welcome, but encouraged! Most of our helms are very patient and will explain what they expect from you. You could be paired with some of our most experienced sailors, a unique opportunity to learn from the best and improve your skills. You may even earn a mug (given to both crew and helm of the top 5 club boats each race)!
• Other races typically require to join as a helm/crew pair. But you just need to befriend an experienced sailor and pair with them to join other races such as the Harbourmaster series, or club's regattas.

casual sailing

Just take a boat out and enjoy the Outer Harbour, the Inner Harbour or the Ontario Lake by yourself! Be mindful of the wind and area limitations: (e.g., cansail 2 stay within the Outer Harbor) and all sailors need to be back before sunset.

Participate in casual sailing activities such as:

1. Wednesday Socials. Organized most Wednesdays, members just sail in the afternoon before joining a communal dinner
2. Flotilla. Inaugurated in 2023, the Flotilla saw multiple boats heading together to TISC, in the Inner Harbour
   

Be mindful that as a CANSail 2 graduate (or old salt 1), you can only sail within the Outer Harbor. The exact boundary is:

• To the south, the hulk of the Toronto Ferry
• To the north, the Western end of Cherry Beach / entrance to the Eastern gap

CANSail 3 and above can sail beyond this boundary.

See the chart below for illustration.