Adult sailing lessons and US Sailing certification courses on Biscayne Bay — for complete beginners through experienced sailors, at Coconut Grove Sailing Club in Miami.
Biscayne Bay · Coconut GroveAdult Sailing · A US Sailing Accredited School
Exceptional instruction. Real Community. A lifelong passion for sailing.
Most people come to us to learn to sail. What they find is something they didn't know they were looking for.
As a US Sailing Accredited School, the CGSC Instructional Center holds every course to the highest national standards for safety, instruction, and seamanship. Our instructors are US Sailing certified, and they teach with the patience and care of people who remember their own first day at the helm.
But the skills are only part of the story. The Coconut Grove Sailing Club has always been a place where a love of the water brings people together, across every age and demographic. You'll arrive to learn something. You'll stay because you've found your place in a community of sailors that has anchored Coconut Grove for eighty years and will for decades more.
Register Here for Adult Classes →Registration is handled on Clubspot — opens in a new tab.
The US Sailing Certification Pathway
Whether you're planning to cruise overseas or sail in local waters, the US Sailing Certification pathway will get you there.
These are the courses at the heart of our adult program — a proven, step-by-step progression developed by US Sailing, the National Governing Body for the sport. Each level builds on the one before it, and each certification you earn is recorded in your Official Logbook: the credential charter companies and sailing schools around the world recognize when you're ready to take the helm.
You don't need any experience to begin. You don't need to own a boat. You only need to start.
Start with Basic Keelboat and learn to sail. Move on to Basic Cruising and Bareboat Cruising, and you'll be ready to charter a boat with friends in the Caribbean. Add Coastal and Celestial Navigation, and there's very little water left you can't cross.
Where every sailor begins.
The national gold standard in sailing instruction, taught aboard our 23' Ensign keelboats. In a single immersive weekend, you'll go from the dock to the helm — rigging the boat, reading the wind, and sailing it yourself.
Turn what you've learned into a credential.
Your Basic Keelboat course builds the skills; certification confirms them. Two to four private lessons prepare you for the exam — a written test plus an on-the-water skills assessment. Certification is what unlocks the rest of the pathway, and what a charter company will ask to see.
From sailing a boat to running one.
Three days aboard a cruising keelboat, where the boat becomes a system you're responsible for: engines, electrical, weather, safety gear, and the judgment to use them. This is the course where a day sailor starts becoming a skipper.
The certification that hands you the keys.
Four days of comprehensive on-the-water and on-land learning covering everything a skipper needs to take a boat away from the dock for days at a time: passage planning, provisioning, anchoring overnight, emergency procedures, advanced sail trim. This is the certification most charter companies look for.
Find your way when the screen goes dark.
Coastal Navigation teaches you to find your position and plot your course the way sailors have for centuries — paper charts, bearings, dead reckoning, tides and currents. It is the difference between following a boat's navigation and understanding it.
The oldest skill in sailing, and still the most reliable.
A sextant, an accurate clock, and the sun, moon, planets and stars — enough to fix your position anywhere on earth, with no shoreline in sight and no power on board. Few sailors ever learn it. Those who do never forget the first time it works.
The Flying Scot Program
The Best Thing We Do Is Free & Open to Everyone
From the day the clocks change in March until they turn back in November, our Flying Scot fleet goes out on Biscayne Bay every Wednesday afternoon and welcomes sailors from all over the community to join them.
The Flying Scot is a 19-foot one-design centerboard dinghy with a mainsail, jib, and spinnaker. Stable enough for a first-timer, quick enough to race hard, roomy enough for four adults. Between our club fleet and the Scots owned by members, there's almost always a place aboard for you. Arrive by 4:00 PM and we'll pair you with a boat and a skipper.
Just learned to sail? There's no better way to build real time on the water. Been at it forty years? Casual racing keeps your boat handling honest. Come once and you'll see what we mean when we call this a community. Come twice and you'll be a part of it.
Learn on the boat the fleet sails.
Hands-on instruction aboard the 19' Flying Scot, up to three students to an instructor. Steering, tacking, sail trim, and the theory behind it — on the same boat that's out on the bay every Wednesday night.
Level up your skills. Keep the company.
Short races, real coaching, and a post-sail debrief on the CGSC veranda. Casual enough to enjoy, serious enough to make you faster — and the natural next step once you've caught the racing bug on a Wednesday.
More Ways to Get on the Water
Every clinic has the same goal: sharpen your boat handling and tactical decision-making in a supportive group setting, with an eye toward getting race-course ready. Whatever you sail, you'll come away a more capable sailor. Most of these build on skills you already have — and every one of them will make you a better sailor on any boat you step onto.
Flying Scots — See the Flying Scot Program above.
Not sure where you fit on the pathway? Tell us where you've been and where you'd like to go, and we'll point you to the right course.
Rosa Lamela — adultsailing@cgsc.org | 305.747.2600
