>>469571Continued:
Now, I'm a reasonable guy, so I'll ignore your insults and condescendence.
>Learning the basics takes months or years>Maneuvers and navigation are extremely complexYou have your experience, I have mine. I learned the basics of sailing in a week, and the basics of manoeuvres and navigation in two. You may not believe me, but since I can't prove it, I'll just let it go. Still, burden of proof is on me, fair enough.
There is a French sailing team (Team Jolokia), who is always partially made up of complete newcomers to sailing, that team changes every year, except a core from the previous year, for transition. They use a Volvo Ocean 60', and compete every year (with rather good results). In 2014, there were an airline pilot, a dog trainer, a teacher, a wheelchair sports coordinator, etc. Ages ranged from to 24 to 64, and only 9 out of 25 members had sailed before (granted, these 9 were quite experienced), and some of them are actually handicapped (there was a selection to get in, but they made it, good for them). Within a year, the experienced ones taught everything there was to know about competitive high performance sailing. They weren't just ordered to do stuff, they LEARNED HOW TO SAIL.
Now I may think that sailing is easier than it actually is (I haven't mastered everything, and I know how dangerous the sea can be), but you kind of sound like an elitist.
By the way, using a sextant to get latitude can be taught in an hour. Using it to measure heights and apply these principles to coastal navigation takes about two or three.
Using a marine chronograph to get longitude using the sun also takes a few hour to learn.
That's only using the sun as reference, though, for other celestial objects, it does take more time, because it's not as intuitive. Also, it's hard to grasp, so people get bored quickly. I don't recommend learning it in one go like lat/long using a sextant/clock/almanach.
