Slow learner

Thanks to all. Very helpful and supportive. A couple of stiff gins and a night's sleep and I am feeling a bit better, although a little sore from being thrown around the yacht. It is a 10 metre racing yacht set up for training and I guess to be fair on the instructor he did heave to but took a fair while to do so in the strong winds. Will think of trying another school but may have to go north to Auckland for that. But right now I'll stick to the after sailing G&T until the bruises heal. Funny enough, we had a course test and one of the questions was "what  do you need to know before deciding to go out in 30 knot winds" and one of the things is the confidence of the crew... of course today the sea is lovely and calm with a steady gentle breeze, although gales are back tonight. I wanted to be able to sail in the weekends for fun, not to be a round the world sailor battling the Southern Ocean.

Interesting to know, Sargesail. Well at the end I was quite free and frank with my course appraisal form and today the school sent me an email saying they were sorry to hear it and offered me 2 hours one on one instruction and 3 hours of just sailing. I'm in two minds but I think I will accept as long as I can choose the days and conditions. One comment in the email was that we were sailing " within our normal operating parameters". Hmmm

I don't want to alarm you - but if your instructor took a while to heave too with you in the water on the lee side in F6-7+ conditions....then don't go sailing with the company again.  Simple.

I always feel I should be fair and in this case it does occur to me that while it felt like ages for me inthe water being held on to by another trainee on the yacht (an army chap so good at rescues!) my sense of time may of course have been distorted.

Thanks for that. No I wasn't harnessed and yes the water from the wash was being forced into my mouth.  Not nice. I was surprisingly calm.