Skip to Main Content
Bringing It Home – The Saint Rose Blog

Smooth Sailing from Here!

If you’ve been reading the Saint Rose blog for a while, you might be familiar with some past Online Ambassadors (Hi Meghan and Courtney!) blogging about the infamous sailing class, which is offered here at Saint Rose as a Physical Education Course. Well let me just add myself to the list of Online Ambassadors that have successfully sailed a boat and can share their experience of taking this awesome class!

This being my second Physical Education course I have taken at Saint Rose with professor Ann Neilson, I knew I was in for some fun. I had recalled seeing students on the quad one day in semesters past that were standing around a sailboat learning how it worked, and when I found out that it was a class offered here, I was all over it!

The majority of this class, yes, takes place in a classroom learning the ins and outs of sailing terminology or with our boat on the quad adjusting our sail to the direction of the very limited wind in the middle of our campus. Although this was tedious at times, we knew that these were the skills we would need to eventually reach our goal of sailing a real Flying Scott on Saratoga Lake.

Although sailing was fun, I was pretty excited to be back on land when the trip was over.

Although sailing was fun, I was pretty excited to be back on land when the trip was over.

Our adventure actually on the water was quite interesting. Myself and my friends Rebecca and Jordan were in the same group and paired with a sailing instructor, Tony, who didn’t quite know what he was getting into when he stepped into a boat with me. Let’s just say I specifically wore a Saint Rose t-shirt in case there was a malfunction with my life jacket and I needed to be identified at the bottom of the lake if I fell off the boat.

However, there was absolutely no falling off the boat or boat flipping involved! It was definitely scary at times when the wind was moving us much faster than I had planned, but I was the first one in our boat to successfully steer (almost) on my own, and even change the direction of our sail to adjust for the wind! Trust me, it’s a lot harder than it sounds. But all in all, once we finally got the hang of it, it was awesome!

This class would probably not have been one I would have thought about before coming to Saint Rose, but I’m sure happy I did! It made me step outside my comfort zone and I was forced to try something new and different.

So, what’s the most fun/bizarre/interesting class you’ve taken during your time at Saint Rose? Leave a comment below!

What do you think?

Comments posted on this site are held in moderation until approved by a site administrator. Vulgar, profane, obscene, offensive terms or personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Loading