While the world is large, the community of sailors who roam her waters is smaller than you might imagine. More times than we can count, we have pulled up to random anchorage, poked our heads out the companionway, and seen a familiar boat dropping anchor just a few feet away, halfway across the world from where we last saw them. The story of Captain Ryan Noble joining Cruisers Academy started with one of these serendipitous moments. We often joke that we manifested him joining our team, by constantly talking about our dream Captain.
This story actually starts in 2020, when Cruisers Academy wasn't even a real business on paper yet. The first sailboat to join the Cruisers Academy fleet was a perfectly maintained 1980 Catalina 22' owned by none other than Captain Noble. Upon first talking to him about 'SV Blue Bird,' we discovered he was set to embark on one of the most valuable training experiences any Cruising Instructor could get. Having sailed for a decade on Lake Tahoe, him and his wife were ready to hit the big blue. They refit their 'new to them' Blue Water Cruising Boat, 'SV Wabi Sabi,' a beautiful 1977 Alajuela 38' with a full keel, double-ender hull, and 8' tiller (uncommon yet fun for the size of their boat) and set off from Florida. Over the next five years, they sailed the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, the ABCs (Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao), Colombia, through the Panama Canal, and from Central America to Mexico. While this is the exact training that we need any of our Captains to gain before becoming an instructor for us, it's impossible for us to provide it for them because of the amount of time, money and dedication it takes for a person to really experience life aboard first hand and become a seasoned cruiser.
But let's bring it back to 2020 when SV Bluebird was sitting on a trailer right down the road from our house in Lake Tahoe. When we first drove over to see her we were immediately impressed at how well she had been cared for. The boat was sentimental to Ryan, who had spent every summer for the last decade sailing her with his brother, wife, and friends on Lake Tahoe. From the day we towed her away, she began to serve up good memories on Lake Tahoe, teaching hundreds of people to sail. Meanwhile, Ryan continued his real-world training at sea.
Ryan's first experiences cruising weren't all easy, but he loved it.
“We didn’t have an autopilot or a wind vane at that point, we were mostly hand steering, but then, since we had a tiller, we figured out sheet-to-tiller steering…and rigged it. It was literally a bungee cord and a 10-ft piece of line. And the boat sailed herself. It was amazing.”
One of his most unique skill sets came from his background in industrial rope access which naturally made him a celebrity in every anchorage. An old colleague introduced him to industrial rope access, knowing his love for rock climbing might make it the perfect job for him: “You can make money working on ropes,” Ryan was told, and he was in. Across the world, Ryan inspected bridges, fixed wind turbine blades, serviced the space needle, and even trained the riggers of Cirque du Soleil!
"When it comes to sailing, rigging is all the same. The physics, the load ratings, and inspecting things. Many people are afraid of heights and don't want to go up their mast…and I love that stuff,” Ryan said. Since joining Cruisers Academy, Ryan has jumped in our presentations to help demystify rigging for our audience, which has gotten an incredible response that we hadn't quite expected. We look forward to continuing to utilize Ryan's knowledge as a commercial rigger to better educate our students on this topic that can often feel intimidating.
Like a true cruiser at heart, most of these experiences started simply from lending a helping hand which ultimately came back to help him when he needed it most. “People are so helpful. And if you don’t know something, your next-door neighbor probably does.”
There are few trades Ryan hasn’t explored that make him a great cruiser and even better instructor: he’s worked as a cook, skier, rigger, trained EMT and, for fun, dabbles in sports that demand an expert understanding of the wind like paragliding, skydiving, and kiteboarding. His whole life he has chosen jobs that require being in tune with nature and weather in high risk environments. As the ultimate outdoorsman and educator, Ryan has fallen in love with a number of hobbies that make his courses that much more exciting for those looking to try out things like free diving, spearfishing, and trolling. For any students interested specifically in level-ing up their fishing game, Noble is the Captain for you.
For Ryan, “You have to have all of it when you’re on a boat—you're the doctor, the diesel mechanic, the sailor…” And he’s right. While our goal with Cruisers Academy is to prepare people who want to go cruising on their own to be ready for as many situations as possible, the only training that truly prepares students is doing it themselves. Living your life by the weather, getting caught in a lightning storm, having your engine break down in the middle of nowhere, and making mistakes that teach lessons, are situations that can't be taught in a classroom. Much of cruising is a mentality, how do you get along with yourself? Your crew? Your boat? Nature? Each of these relationships is dynamic and can only, truly, be learned and earned with every nautical mile sailed. Ryan, having had these experiences for years firsthand, makes him one of the best instructors to learn from.
But back to the story of how Captain Noble joined Cruisers Academy. Fast forward to June 2024, our fifth summer of running Cruisers Academy on Lake Tahoe. We were buying and selling boats (as per usual) and Brady got a message from Ryan about the Catalina 27' we had for sale. They decided to take a break from cruising and were back in Tahoe looking for a boat to enjoy for the upcoming summer. In full circle, Ryan and his wife, Ali, re-entered the Tahoe sailing world via one of the boats that had become a part of the Cruisers Academy fleet. We grabbed some beers to catch up, and one thing quickly led to another as he explained he had gotten his USCG Captain's License and was interested in working on Lake Tahoe. Brady and I quickly agreed that he had been the Captain we had been looking for: someone with tons of cruising experience, a strong understanding of weather, sailboats, fixing things, going with the flow, and most importantly a good human who is enjoyable to be around. We had been manifesting him for awhile in all of our conversations about who would be the next great fit, without knowing he was someone we already had a history with!
After our first summer working together in Tahoe, it was clear that his background in teaching, students' admiration of him, vast array of knowledge, and his pure love for sailing, made it a no-brainer for us to have him join our Offshore Cruising team. After wrapping up the season in Tahoe, Brady and he took off for San Carlos Mexico, where Lintika AND Noble's personal cruising boat, Wabi Sabi, had been hiding out on the hard for hurricane season. In their few weeks of boat work together, Brady has affectionately nicknamed him our "Swiss Army Knife", as everyday we learn about a new skill set that just happens to be exactly what we need at the time. Our refrigeration system wasn't cooling, and it just so happens Noble has rebuilt his own from scratch, and all the tools and knowledge for the repair, including the refrigerant gas! Next, Lintika's alternator wasn't working so he was able to troubleshoot the issue. He also did a full professional rig inspection on Lintika, just before popping back over to his boat to continue his full own set of repairs and maintenance, and then returning to cook dinner for the boa work crew on Lintika... all the while smiling and joking. Some people are just wired to be McGyvers, and Noble is most definitely one of them.
Noble shares about the Cruising Courses, “I took the US sailing course, and it’s great... You learn a lot, and I do get that style but for what we are going for, with Cruisers Academy, you have to have fun, embrace the weather, and begin thinking like a true Cruiser. I would have loved it if there was a school like Cruisers Academy back when I got started!” Come see why Captain Noble and Cruisers Academy are the perfect fit!
Learn more about Captain Noble's Cruising Courses for the 2025 Season:
Feb. 26-March 8, 2025
This unique trip will offer cruising at its finest through the islands of Baja, as well as a multi-day/night passage from Baja to Mazatlán on mainland Mexico. Conditions are likely to provide a downwind cruise on this 300 nautical mile sail. This adventure is ideal for those who want to experience the highs of cruising but also want to lose site of land and learn about best practices for night watch and offshore sailing.
March 12-18, 2025
This trip is perfect for those interested in practicing coastal navigation and exploring chill cultural hotspots on mainland Mexico. This sail will likely be downwind and offer a great experience to fine tune your overnight passage making skills. Possible stops include the UNESCO world heritage site of Isla Isabell and/or the mainland anchorage of San Blas before arriving in the fun and funky cruisers hot spot of La Cruz, a great hoping off spot for exploring!
We'll be opening bunks for each leg, and accepting only 3-4 students for each passage to keep the Mexico sailing course personal. This will be a dynamic learning environment, with the opportunity to put to work any sailing experience you may already have with lots of room to include new lessons and first-hand experience of living the sailor lifestyle.
Topics covered in these sailing courses will include…
Weather forecasting
Passage planning
Essential offshore safety
Boat systems management
How to keep watch at night and during the day
'Best Practices' aboard
International sailing logistics
Anchoring
Provisioning & cooking underway
Crew dynamics and responsibilities
Highs and lows of living aboard
Lots of time at the helm and working the lines
Learn more about these trips here, or if you are ready to apply, fill out the application here!
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