Last week, DCist was treated to a sailing lesson by DC Sail, the city’s nonprofit community sailing center, operated by the National Maritime Heritage Foundation.

It was a calm day when we set sail on a 19-foot, five-person sailboat from Gangplank Marina on the Southwest Waterfront. Across the Washington Channel, bicyclists and joggers circled Hains Point. To the right of the marina, while the 14th Street Bridge buzzed with rush hour travelers, we took in a view of the Washington Monument; to the left, the channel continues into the Potomac, eventually heading under the Frederick Douglass Bridge and into the Anacostia River. Across the docks sits former Presidential yacht U.S.S. Sequoia. It’s parked so close to the sailing school boats, in fact, that our instructor Oliver Whitney joked that the DC Sail motto is “Don’t hit the Sequoia.”

With our instructors Oliver and Sarah Meharg doing all of the work, we managed to avoid a Sequoia collision, and headed into the not-so-windy waters. Zigzagging across the Washington Channel proved to be fun, relaxing, and doable—even by these two novices. While the wind wasn’t roaring enough for us to venture past Hains Point, sailors can go as far as Anacostia and the Nationals Stadium, though the masts are too high to maneuver under the 14th Street Bridge. Keep the wind levels in mind when sailing—while getting stuck likely isn’t death-defying, who wants to paddle back when the wind could do the work for you instead?