Specialties
Offshore Sailing School is America's #1 Sailing School, having taught over 160,000 adults and families to sail or sail better for more than 60 years. At all four of our sailing school locations, you will learn to sail from US Sailing-certified instructors. We're based at resorts on Captiva Island and St. Petersburg, Florida, and Scrub Island and Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. We teach 3, 5, 7 & 10-day sailing certification courses from Learn to Sail, Performance Sailing and Racing, to cruising courses where you may stay ashore or live aboard and learn on a 40-50' cruising yacht or catamaran. For sailors seeking intermediate and advanced skills, we offer Coastal Navigation and Passage Making. Our most popular course is our Fast Track to Cruising, where we take you from your couch to the captain's chair in a week, earning 3 certifications so you may charter a boat on your own in the future. We also offer corporate team building and leadership development sailing programs. Our fleet includes Colgate 26 keelboats and 40-50' sailboats and catamarans.
History
Established in 1975.
It was in May 1975 that Steve and Doris first drove 17 miles from the causeway to the tip of Captiva Island in search of a Florida home for their winter programs. It had been a long trip: Port St. Lucie on the East Coast, all the way down to Key West, then up to Marco Island. Asking around at the Marriott in Marco, the Colgates were told that South Seas Plantation (as it was then called) would be a great location for the sailing school. When Steve called the General Manager and launched into his "who we are" spiel, he said, "Come on up, I know who you are, we want you here!"
Meet the Business Owner: Doris C.
Doris is a 2022 inductee to the National Sailing Hall of Fame, and the 2004 recipient of the Leadership in Women's Sailing award from Boat U.S. Magazine. She founded the National Women's Sailing Association; she also a recipient of the Betty Cooke Memorial Achievement Award from Boating Magazine. She is listed in Who's Who of America, Who's Who of American Women, Who's Who of Finance, Who's Who in the South and Southwest, and Who's Who in American Education. She served six years on the board of Sail America and continues to work on its Marketing Committee, is a long-time member of the Boat U.S. advisory council and was on the steering committee for the International Sailing Summit.