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 GroveGot questions, not sure where to start?
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Register Here for Adult ClassesAdult Sailing Lessons · A US Sailing Accredited School in Miami
Find your place on the water. Exceptional instruction, real community, and a lifelong passion for sailing.
Most people come to us to learn to sail. What they find is something they did not 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 will arrive to learn something. You will stay because you have found your place in a community of sailors that has anchored Coconut Grove for eighty years and will for decades more.
US Sailing Certification Courses in Miami
Wherever you want your sailing to go, local waters, longer passages, eventually a boat of your own, the US Sailing certification pathway is how you build toward it.
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 record charter companies and sailing schools around the world recognize.
You do not need any experience to begin. You do not need to own a boat. You only need to start. Basic Keelboat teaches you to sail. Basic Cruising and Bareboat Cruising build the seamanship and judgment a cruising boat asks of the person running it. Coastal and Celestial Navigation teach you to find your way without depending on a screen. How far along the pathway you go is up to you, and there is no schedule but your own.
01
Where every sailor begins.
The national gold standard in sailing instruction, taught aboard our 23-foot Ensign keelboats. In a single immersive weekend, you will go from the dock to the helm, rigging the boat, reading the wind, and sailing it yourself.
02
Turn what you have 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.
Remaining 2026 dates
03
From sailing a boat to running one.
Three days aboard a cruising keelboat, where the boat becomes a system you are 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.
04
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.
05
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.
06
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.
Member Boat Use at Coconut Grove Sailing Club
Our classes are open to everyone. What comes after them belongs to the club, so membership is required, and it is what turns a certification into somewhere to sail from. It is how sailors who learned here keep sailing, how people find their way back to a sport they loved years ago, and how most of them end up with a fleet, a race committee, and a Wednesday night crowd that knows their name.
Members who earn their certification have the option to join our Member Boat Usage Program. Depending on the program they join, members get standing access to the club fleet, Sunfish, Lasers, Flying Scots, Ensigns, and our cruising boats, sailing and caring for the boats without the worry of marina, insurance, and maintenance costs. That is the single biggest advantage, and it is the continuity other sailing schools cannot offer.
Our keelboat program runs on five Ensigns, a 23-foot keelboat that is stable, sturdy, and forgiving, and the same boat you learned on. We teach on all five, and four are available to the membership. Once an instructor has checked you out, you can reserve one for a morning or an afternoon and take it out for a casual sail on Biscayne Bay. It is the club's most popular boat usage program, and the natural gateway into cruising.
Keelboat contact: Ed Benitez, Keelboat Instructor and Lead Coordinator | adultsailing@cgsc.org | 305.962.3216
For sailors drawn to racing, no club on Biscayne Bay hosts more competitive regattas than Coconut Grove Sailing Club. New members are encouraged to serve on our race committees, one of the best ways to meet members across every fleet and see the sport from a completely different perspective.
New to Miami, or here for a season? Our regattas run year round across the Flying Scot, Laser/ILCA, Sunfish, and keelboat fleets, and the calendar is published well ahead, see upcoming regattas and race dates. Write to adultsailing@cgsc.org and we will tell you what is coming up, which fleets are looking for crew, and how to enter.
The Flying Scot Program
The best thing we do is free and 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 is almost always a place aboard for you. Arrive by 4:00 PM and we will pair you with a boat and a skipper.
Just learned to sail? There is 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 will see what we mean when we call this a community. Come twice and you will be a part of it.
Learn on the boat the fleet sails.
Hands-on instruction aboard the 19-foot Flying Scot, up to three students to an instructor. Steering, tacking, sail trim, and the theory behind it, on the same boat that is 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 have caught the racing bug on a Wednesday.
Sailing and Windsurfing Clinics in Miami
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 will 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.
US Sailing Certified Instructors in Miami
Every adult course and clinic at the Instructional Center is taught by a US Sailing certified instructor, sailors who race, cruise, and teach on Biscayne Bay year round. These are the people you will be sailing with.
Pierre Berthier
Adult Sailing Chairperson
Ed Benitez
Keelboat Instructor and Lead Coordinator
Andy Hacket
Keelboat
Rose Mathers
Keelboat
Marika de Nie
Keelboat and Sunfish
Manu Francia
Keelboat and Sunfish
Liam Thomson
Keelboat
Mike Stephens
Cruising and Navigation
Orlando Gonzalez
Laser / ILCA
Norlem Garcia
Windsurfing and Wing Foil
Not sure where you fit on the pathway? Tell us where you have been and where you would like to go, and we will point you to the right course.
Rosa Lamela — adultsailing@cgsc.org | 305.747.2600
