Many sailors are familiar with the American Sailing Association, or ASA, and we have found their resources to be most helpful. The ASA website says they were “founded in 1983 with a simply stated mission: to teach people to sail safely and confidently.”
ASA offers a wide range of services including over 400+ affiliated sailing schools, online courses, charters, professional sailing instructors, and more. While we opted to take online courses through NauticEd and receive on-the-water practical certifications through RYA, instead of through ASA, we did find the ASA textbooks to be of value. They offered a wealth of information in an easy-to-understand format for us beginning sailors. The review questions and diagrams at the end of the chapters are also a great way to test our knowledge and understanding.
Kory and I purchased the ASA Advanced Collection which includes the following textbooks:
Since Kory and I knew nothing about sailing when we first began, these textbooks were invaluable in teaching us the practicals about sailing before we even started. In the Sailing Made Easy book, we learned the language of sailing, the parts of a boat, the points of sail, how to hoist and trim sails, weather basics, seamanship, docking, mooring, and safety. In the Advanced Cruising & Seamanship book, we learned sail theory and balance, upwind and downwind sail trim, weather and navigation, passage making, engineering and troubleshooting, heavy weather sailing, and much more.
As beginners, it was difficult to understand everything just by reading the textbooks. That is why we opted to take NauticEd’s online courses and read the ASA books concurrently. NauticEd’s courses were very instructional, with videos, interactive diagrams, etc. For us, both of these resources were essential in helping us learn about sailing, and broaden our skills. Since then, we’ve found many other great educational resources, but the ASA textbooks were definitely of value as we began this journey of sailing!
I also recommend the ASA YouTube channel, especially the “Bite Sized Lessons” and the “Sailing Made Easy Tips.” In addition to being educational, they are just plain fun to watch!