NaCzarter Team
A licence is paperwork. A sailor is something else
Let me answer straight away, because this question comes up in our marina every season. A licence gives you the right to sail, everything else is given to you by the water. For a charter sailing yacht like an Antila 33 or a Maxus 33.1 RS you need a licence and there is nothing to argue about. For a houseboat you do not, and plenty of people are out there today who two years earlier had no idea which side to approach a quay from. Are they sailors? Depends what they do with it over the next five seasons.
It used to take years to get in
When I started, you did not walk into sailing off the street. You came in through a club or through the scouts. First you were the one scrubbing the deck and carrying jerrycans. Then someone took you along for a week because they were a crew member short. Then a second season, a third, another course, another exam. Two or three years would pass before anyone handed you the helm for longer than an hour.
You repaired the boat yourself. Wood, filler, varnish, a spring spent in the shed and hands you could not get clean until May. Nobody called it team building. Either the boat was ready for the season or nobody went anywhere. Through the canals you sometimes got towed on lines from the bank, because there was one engine for the whole marina and it happened not to be on your boat. It was not a romantic adventure, it was an ordinary Tuesday.
But the most important thing was something else. You were in a community that kept an eye on you. Someone watched your hands while you moored and told you flatly that you had done it wrong. If you messed up, the whole marina knew. If someone's mooring line parted in the night, half the port got out of bed. We wrote separately about what these lakes looked like back then in the piece on Masuria a hundred years ago, and about the feel of those seasons in memories of the old days.
Today you get in over a weekend
Now it works like this: a short course, an exam, a licence. Or none of that at all, because you take a houseboat and off you go. You pay and you are on the water. No queue, no club, no three years of carrying jerrycans.
Old hands shake their heads at this, and honestly, they have a fair point. Something really has ended. The marina as a place where you spend the entire winter is gone, and so is working on hulls together. There is no longer a situation where you simply cannot cast off without other people, because today you collect the boat ready at the pontoon. That will not come back and there is no sense pretending otherwise.
Except that the same opening let people onto the water who previously stood no chance. Because there was no club in their town, because nobody introduced them. That old community, for all its ethos, could be closed, and it knew how to let you feel you did not belong. Every year at Port Royal I see families spending their first night ever afloat, and some of them come back the following season and the one after. Telling them that this is not real sailing would simply be dishonest.
The school of character has not vanished. It just stopped being compulsory
That, in my view, is the heart of the matter. You once could not pass through sailing without that schooling, because it was built into the way in. Today you can skip it. You can cast off, spend a week afloat, hand the boat back and never learn a thing. Only the lake asks nothing in advance. It tests exactly what it tested thirty years ago.
Can you come alongside mooring piles in a crosswind without ploughing into your neighbour. Will you pick up the mooring line with a boat hook from the stern and walk it calmly forward to the bow, instead of wrestling with it five people at once. Did you turn back when it started to blow, instead of heading out onto Śniardwy in the afternoon because "we had a plan". Did you leave the berth clean behind you. Kisajno, Mamry and Śniardwy do not check your licence. They check whether you think.
The houseboat, by the way, is an honest teacher here. Flat bottom, no sails and a very high sensitivity to crosswind during harbour manoeuvres. You learn to think ahead faster than you would expect. We described what and how in our guide on what to sail without a licence in Masuria.
Then, now, and what has not budged
| Then | Now | What has stayed the same |
|---|---|---|
| Entry through a club, the scouts and season after season on someone else's boat | A short course with an exam, or a houseboat with no licence at all | You will remember your first solo manoeuvre for years either way |
| Winter in the shed, filler, varnish, a shared refit | The boat ready, collected at the pontoon | You hand the boat back in the state you would want to receive it |
| An older mate taught you on deck | You teach yourself, or pay an instructor | A crosswind at the mooring piles tests everyone equally |
| Towing on lines, one engine for the whole marina | An engine on every boat, plus the Guzianka lock and the bridge in Giżycko | The plan bends around opening hours, not the other way round |
| A community with a club membership card | Strangers from the next pontoon | Someone will always take your line when you come in alone |
The ethos stayed, just without the membership card
Look at what really has not changed. You come alongside the piles single-handed with a child on deck, and there is always someone who gets up from dinner and takes your line. When a squall comes through, people warn each other without checking who holds which licence. Rubbish and black water go ashore in the port, because this is a protected area and everyone knows it. In the evening the marina goes quiet and nobody needs that explained. You do not go ashore on the island reserves, however tempting the bay next door looks. And you do not fire up a grill on deck, only where the port has a place for it.
That is the whole ethos. It has not disappeared. There is just no membership card issued for it any more. Today everyone decides for themselves whether they want to belong to the people who do things that way. Some newcomers take it on from their very first trip, faster than many an old salt.
Where to start if you are starting now
The simplest route: start with the water, not the exam. Take a houseboat for a week, do some manoeuvring, spend nights in port, watch how your neighbours moor. In season, charters usually run Saturday to Saturday, so a week is the natural unit for a first go. Then get your licence, once you know this is for you. The reverse order works too, but then the paper comes before the skill and the first strong wind can be an unpleasant lesson. Which licence covers what, we set out in the piece on what licence you need for a yacht in Masuria.
One last thing. There is no age at which it is too late. We have had people who first took the helm well past sixty and are still sailing today. The licence comes from an examination board. The rest comes from the water, slowly, season after season. It takes time, and it is good that it does.
Frequently asked questions
Do you need a licence in Masuria? For a charter sailing yacht yes, because these are boats like the Antila 33 or the Maxus 33.1 RS. For a houseboat such as a Stillo 30 or Stillo 31 no, you can go without any qualifications after a briefing when you take the boat over.
Is going out without a licence "real sailing"? A houseboat has no sails and does not beat to windward, so strictly speaking it is not sailing. But it teaches responsibility, reading the weather and harbour manoeuvres just the same. Plenty of sailors started exactly this way.
How should you start learning? With one week afloat alongside someone experienced, or with a houseboat where the manoeuvres are down to you. The course comes after that. Then the theory has something to hold on to.
Is a licence worth getting if you can go without? Yes, if you want to sail under canvas and make your own decisions about a trip. A licence opens up the sailing fleet and puts your knowledge of the rules in order. If what you mainly want is a quiet week with the family, a houseboat is entirely enough.
Does the old sailing community still exist? In clubs and at regattas, yes. In a charter marina it looks different, more improvised, but a hand with the lines and a warning about the wind work just as they always did.
Cover photo: Skimel — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
