Jacob Morgan

Review of Sail San Francisco

Team building- San Francisco Sailing Company unde...

Team building- San Francisco Sailing Company understands teamwork and the benefits of a an experienced crew. There is no better way to develop a team than to set them to the task of operating a sailboat on the San Francisco Bay.
Communication: Each person is assigned a position on the boat. They are individually instructed on the names of the instruments they must use and how their position affects the boat and therefore the team. Positions can be assigned arbitrarily by the captain or self assigned to begin the communication process. Once each crew member understands his/her position and the team has performed some simple tasks such as tacking the boat, the positions are rotated. Each person must now communicate to the person taking over their job what the names of the equipment are and how to use them while learning their new position from someone else. This can be continued until each person has had a turn at the helm and hence the leadership role.
As the team develops some cohesiveness and understanding of the boat and each other we begin drills such as heaving to and Man Over Board. In the case of the MOB drill, the team must retrieve a float dropped into the water with the boat under sail. This is a difficult task and often requires several attempts. The team must work together with each position working in conjunction to achieve the goal. This is often the time when leaders emerge and bonds are forged.