Sailing School

At First Reef Sailing, the official sailing school of SailTime Boston, we strive to deliver high-quality sailing courses and experiences in a professional, modern setting in both instruction and equipment. Our goal is to bring sailors with no prior experience up to a live-aboard or bareboat charter level of skills while fostering a sense of community and providing avenues for experience-building and continuing education.

We are Paul Sullivan and Forrest Hardy, two lifelong sailors and career sailing instructors. Over our combined two decades of teaching sailing we have found that most sailing schools hire great sailors first and good instructors second.  Our goal is to create a sailing school where the staff are excellent instructors and teachers, not just excellent sailors.


First Reef Sailing provides sail training at all levels from Basic Keelboat requiring no prior experience at all up to Coastal Passage-Making. All sailing courses will be official certification courses taught under the American Sailing organization.  We will also be offering “mile-building passages” as well as land-based clinics to provide a source of continuing education for experienced sailors. Our goal is to create a community of great sailors and great people!