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Master Sailor Methods — Paul Exner


 

PHOTO: SV Solstice sailing in the thick of a Monsoon Trough, skippered by Paul Exner in the Caribbean Sea.

Skill and experience isn’t enough.

If you’re not growing as a sailor it’s either because: 1) you’re not challenging yourself outside familiar waters; or, 2) the methods you use are poorly contrived.

When you go anywhere by sail — you rely upon your skill and experience to keep you afloat — and you use your instincts to help you navigate troubled waters.

SAILING is a “practice” that’s honed by maturity; the same is true for any professional discipline like business, medicine, law, or entrepreneurship.

To truly master SAILING — you must practice while surrounded by diverse conditions and use methods to ensure success.


Master Level Sailing in Hawaii

Hawaii offers the sailor a full-spectrum of sailing conditions every week of the year. When you sail Hawaii with Paul Exner you practice applied-SAILING as a management system that considers all aspects of your seamanship experience: from technical artistry to hands-on decision-making — you develop methods to derive complete solutions to naturally occurring seamanship scenarios.

Paul Exner helps you sharpen your decision-making ability. When you sail offshore-passages between the Hawaiian Islands with Paul you align everything you know, sense, and think about skipper-level awareness, judgement, and action.

Practice sailing in Hawaii — apply methods that help you manage dynamic conditions:

  • Plan advanced routes based on weather analysis that guides you to sail challenging interisland passages.

  • Interpret the influence that volcanic mountains have on Trade Winds.

  • Experience what it’s like to sail in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where weather-fronts and tropical conditions create a labyrinth of wind around high-and-low pressure systems interrupted by snow-capped volcanoes.

  • Make landfall at anchorages of solitude surrounded by coral reefs and lava rock — often under the darkness of night.

  • Sail a sophisticated oceanographic world where deep water abruptly meets island shores.

 

Master Level Sailing by Paul Exner — Autonomous Full-Stack Sailor®️

Paul Exner believes Master Sailors are good at everything (Full-Stack) — they possess methods to put everything together while operating a sailboat at sea. This notion literally helps you go anywhere by sail.

Awareness, cognition, application … First, Master Sailors become aware of their situation at sea, then cognizant of the situation’s impact to the vessel and crew — next, by drawing upon the entirety of their experience they analyze various options — finally, the Master Sailor takes appropriate safe-action guided by SAILING fundamentals and using proven seamanship methods.

Action — is rarely simple and never requires one step. Instead, Master Sailors judge multiple options and take action to connect a sequence of steps that consider inter-related factors.

The disciplines of Autonomous Full-Stack®️ — Master Sailors: navigate; pilot; helm; operate their vessel; keep a log; anchor; trim a sail; understand technology, mechanical and electric systems; rig a mast and sails; apply marlinspike seamanship; repair sails and everything aboard their boat; follow legal regulations; provision; manage heavy weather; motor-sail; manage crew and vessel; haul-out & store their vessel — Master Sailors also have a working knowledge of yacht design & construction methods.


 
 

Sail Cognitively®️

Obtain SAILING awareness — observe a multitude of stimulus and information coming at you — analyze what’s happening around you to proficiently make safe and sound decisions affecting your crew and vessel at sea.

Take your sailing ability to the cognitive level — you’re ready!

Under spinnaker at night, keeping watch single-handedly in mid-Pacific Ocean while the off-watch crew sleeps — Ryan Bradfield sails for speed to make distance ahead of a Tropical Cyclone forming astern of us days before Hurricane Season begins in the Eastern Pacific.

 

Sail Autonomously®️

Advance yourself and use a master-level approach to SAILING called: Autonomous Full-Stack®️. Learn to confidently plan and make passages; learn to prepare yourself and your vessel to sail with realistic expectations, relevant skills, proven methods, and literally go anywhere by sail.

Seize the opportunity — sail autonomously.

 

Master Sailor Methods — Paul Exner

SOLD OUT … Feb. 19-26, 2022

CLICK HERE — to talk w/ Paul about other sailing opportunities

DEPART and RETURN … Kona, Hawaii (KOA)

Autonomous Full-Stack … Paul Exner aboard his SV Solstice. Paul built this boat from a bare hull (Cape George 31). The deck and cabin-house are his design. Paul began the Solstice Project in 1991.

 

 
 
Later Event: March 19
Hawaii Ocean Sailing Expedition