Haslett — Students in the MSU Sailing Center got off to a chaotic start Sunday afternoon.

Whizzing past each other inside a section of Lake Lansing marked off by buoys, each two-person boat was headed in a different direction at a different speed.

"We have some fun obstacles today — our classmates," MSU graduate Kelly Hoover shouted over the flapping of her sails.

Winds were coming from the south at 10 to 12 mph, the blue-gray sky making the water dark and murky as the boats rippled through.

"We got irons!" Dimondale resident Ken Tyler, 37, yelled — a term that means the boat is at a standstill and can only move backwards — as his boat tipped far enough on its side to make him go from sitting on the edge to standing upright.

But within about ten minutes, even the most struggling sailors gained control, and no one capsized or crashed.

"We can see their confidence and skill increase, even within the same day," lead instructor and center director Ken Warshaw said as he drove a motorboat from sailboat to sailboat, giving students tips.

The center is run by MSU Intramural Sports and Recreation Services and focuses on education and recreation, rather than yacht club racing, Warshaw said. The beginner class — which runs in three-hour classes twice a week for four weeks — is designed for people who have no previous sailing experience. After the beginner class, participants can become members of the center and get further instruction.

"When the class is finished, students should be confident enough to rig a sailboat and sail on a protected, inland lake in moderate conditions," Warshaw said.

The class consists of lectures in which instructors teach knots, nautical terms and the techniques of rigging a boat, or adjusting its sails, before taking to the water. From the first day of class, students are sailing with a partner in their own sailboat.

"There are a lot of instinctive things to do on a boat that are really the wrong thing," Warshaw said.

Students are told when in trouble to remember: "When in doubt, let it out," which means to let the sail go wherever the wind pushes it when the boat starts to tip, instead of instinctively pulling the rope on the mainsail tighter.

Psychology and pre-med senior Ashley Leonard and mechanical engineering senior John Carter named their sailboat Charlene. Both students are taking the course as a one-credit kinesiology class at MSU.

Leonard said she is still getting the hang of jibing.

Jibing is turning a boat so that the stern goes into the wind, making the mainsail swing to the other side of the boat, and is the more difficult of the two ways a boat can turn. During jibes, sailors have to duck or they may get hit with the pole that's at the bottom of the mainsail, called a boom.

"It's all about style," Carter said of jibing.

Warshaw said the center's instructors focus on engaging all students.

"It's very easy to alienate people in this sport," he said. "It's not about weeding out the superstars; it's about including everyone."

At the end of the month, students spend their last class playing a game of tag by throwing tennis balls at each others' mainsails. The ball has to fall into the boat after it hits the sail for the boat to become "it," Warshaw said.

MSU graduate Kelly Dean took the beginner class last summer with her 12-year-old son and now has a center membership. Dean said the class was very effective because students are sailing on the first day with instructors close at hand.

"You would think at the end of class we're all going to get into the boats — no, we're in the first day," she said. "You're immersed in sailing."