A sailing school can help prepare you for traveling the open waters.

Chris Cranner's earliest memories are of sailing with his family on Long Island Sound. Since then he's sailed everything from sunfish to schooners. He's taught hundreds of students to sail, worked as a sailmaker, and raced and cruised extensively from Nantucket to California.

If you're thinking about getting into sailing, a great place to start is sailing school – and there are a lot of good ones out there.

• Set Your Goals: Before you pick a school, set your goals. Do you want to sail around the world? Or maybe you just want to be able to go down to the marina and rent a boat every once in a while. Different schools will help you in different ways.

• How Much Time on the Water? Ask how much time is spent on the water. It's an important question. There has to be some classroom instruction because there's a lot to learn, but you want to get out there. You learn by doing, especially in sailing.

• What Type of Boat? Another question to ask is what kind of boat do they use? You want to make sure the boats are maintained and in great shape so they'll be more responsive. If the boat responds immediately to your actions, you're going to learn more quickly.