Skippers

Our knowledgeable and supportive Captains will provide you with the education needed to experience the ultimate pleasure and respect for sailing on the Pacific Ocean and other locations, worldwide. All of our instructors are US Coast Guard licensed and have either the American Sailing Association (ASA) or US Sailing Instructor Certification. They all have qualities of unsurpassed communication skills, patience, and the ability to connect on a personal level with each student. Among all of our instructors there are enough ocean-going miles to go around the world over 17 times! Their experience and confidence is reflected in the way our sailing students rapidly learn and assimilate the practical knowledge.

You're in the hands of experts, and your safety is our first priority. Not only do our instructors build your confidence and trust in your own ability to sail, they will teach you to comfortably enjoy the learning process. Your only risk is exposing your own potential to become an expert at sailing.

Joseph Rogers

Dear Pacific Yachting and Sailing,

We spent an incredible Father's Day with the finest captain any of us has ever met on sea or land: Joseph. This captain is by far the most gifted at sea that I have been with, and an exceptional human being to spend 3 hours with. We were all in awe of Joseph's patience with beginners, while teaching the fine art of sailing. Our 3-hour sail is, perhaps, one of our most memorable events as a family.

Thank you for giving my father one of the best Father's Day he has ever had: all due to one captain who had the personality and charm to coach a neophyte crew with the positive insight and warm patience of a saint.

My compliments to Pacific Yachting and Sailing for your choice of Captains, and elegant taste in human beings. We will be back!

Sincerely,
David, Rene, Bethany

Tina Schwendemann

Marc, sorry it took so long for me to find the time to thank you for your help, and your wonderful skipper "Tina". Neither my wife nor granddaughter had ever touched a sailboat before this past Saturday. Tina has created two monsters in my home after her cruise with us. My wife wants to purchase a boat and learn to sail it NOW, not next week, and my granddaughter thinks she should drop out of college to just go sailing. Again, thank you very much for letting Tina show them the joys of sailing.

AL Lamkin

Tina can also sail you to your future ocean front home. Tina is a Realtor with Coldwell Banker Real Estate in Capitola.May you be looking at ocean front homes or anywhere in the Santa Cruz county,Tina will go the extra mile for you in order to get your dream home. Please feel free to look up Tina on her website at :www.SantaCruzHomesbyTina.com or just e-mail her at:Schomesbytina@gmail.com

Justin Moore

Justin was fantastic. He made us feel comfortable about everything we were doing. We are very excited about the opportunity we now have to charter a boat.

Jihn Boles, Monterey, Ca.

Forest Roberts

"I appreciated the extra time Forest spent to explain how and why things work. He also made sure I was comfortable executing all maneuvers. An excellent instructor who made learning to sail a pleasure." Mike Brossmer

Keith Dahlin

Keith was very attentive and allowed us to experiment with our level of comfort. We were allowed to retry skills until we were confident that we had it down He was very informative, not only oin the course material, but also on sailing experiences he had that helped us to understand what we were trying to accomplish,

Amy A.

Barry Porter

Barry provided a strong systematic approach to sailing. In a gentle, repetitive nature, he re-inforced the many principles of sailing.Dr. Don Williams

I didn't think you could do any better than Ken or Cal, who Erin and I had as instructors for our first two courses. But you did. We had a great time with Barry as our instructor for the Intermediate class. Barry's knowledge/experience of sailing and attitude towards sailing made it a very easy and comfortable learning situation for us. His method of teaching and specific point of view helped both of us to understand things much more quickly.

Bryan Meyers

The quality of instruction I received from Pacific Yachting & Sailing was excellent. In particular I felt fortunate to have had Bryan Myers as an instructor, he really knows a great deal about sailing. Also, I got the feeling he had a genuine interest in making me a better sailor. I would not hesitate to recommend Pacific Yachting & Sailing to a friend.

Paul Sable

Paul refined my technique and allowed me to experiment once I got the Basics down. He is very personable and kept an open air of communication between us. It was easy to learn from him; he kept his patience, stressed the importance of certain things and still made it fun.

Dave Aquino

I really enjoyed our first two sailing lessons with David. We felt safe and confident and look forward to our next classes. Clare Jones

Frank Brauch

"Frank was patient with grumpy & frustrated students (me included) and found new ways to explain the difficult concepts. He didn't give up on explaining things to me, ever even when I gave up on myself.Very Knowledgeable and personal." Ingrid Pollock

Captain Frank first learned to sail keelboats in 1988 taking an ASA program similar to that taught at Pacific Yachting. He spent many years Chartering on San Francisco Bay. Obtaining his USCG Captain's license in 2000, he became a full-time sailing instructor at PYS in 2001. Over the past eight years he has helped hundreds of people to become qualified, competent and confident skippers. In the off-season he has made numerous trips up and down the coast of Baha, sailed to Hawaii aboard a Swan 53, single-handed his 30' sloop, Solitude, to the Channel Islands and made the 1000 mile passage from Tonga to New Zealand.

Ken Gunville

This is just a quick note to let you know how much fun we had this past weekend taking the Basic Sailing and Seamanship course. Ken was our instructor. His obvious knowledge/experience of sailing and his attitude was great. I have done some sailing in the past, but my friend Erin has done very little. We both learned a lot from Ken and had a great time doing it. Erin and I definitely want to continue into the next course, but I'm not sure of my work schedule for the next couple of weekends. I also wanted to thank you for working us in at the last minute. I didn't give you much notice, so hopefully I can plan ahead a little better next time.

Again, I want to thank you and Ken for a great time and learning experience. I'll be talking with you again soon.

Jan Clifton (and Erin Ronan)

Jeff Stewman

The course was great. Jeff is really a good instructor....patient, a good teacher, easy to get along with, kind and very competent. He also allowed us to really learn by doing. I don't think there are many like him around. He's really an asset to your business. But, so are you. You are all very welcoming and efficient.

Maureen Britton

Paul Noddings

"Paul has over 20 years of sailing experience including a transatlantic crossing, circumnavigating South Africa, sailing in most of the Caribbean islands and serving as a Navy Sub Lieutenant Officer. Paul has work on multi million dollar mega-yachts to small sailing boats."

Randy Sparks

Hello, Marc -
I wanted to take a few minutes to thank you and the staff of Pacific Yachting and Sailing, Inc. for the great team building sailing "adventure" the Thales Navigation Operations Team (and our guests) experienced on July 26.
I was with the team that had Captain Randy as our leader, and he was great - both knowledgeable and entertaining. My team's racing victory was testament to his skills. The feedback I received regarding the other two captains was also very positive and all of us had a very good time! For many of us, it was our first time on a sailboat in the ocean, so this was an excellent learning experience as well.
I will recommend Pacific Yachting and Sailing to our corporate HQ in Santa Clara for consideration for future team building activities, and if you would like to use me as a reference, please do so.
Also, please give my personal thank you to Captain Randy.
Best regards,
Shelley Fowler
Office Administrator
Thales Navigation - San Dimas, CA
909-394-7043

Andrew Gromeeko

Just wanted to send a quick note of kudos to your sailing school. Our four non-powerboat challenged wannabe sailors headed out with Capt. Andrew for the 2-day basic sailing course, and learned much more about the art than expected. Capt. Andrew was very knowledgable, and took a sincere interest in our learning, he's an asset to your school. The "not just a cocktail trip around the harbor" feel and layout of the lessons is well conceived. Thanks again for a good weekend on the water.

Craig Kazan

John Ribera

Sherwin Harris

Rusty Kingon

Sheila Hubbard Hendricks

Marc Kraft- President/Owner