I began as a child and after fifty or so years of racing, cruising, offshore stuff, running aground, bouncing off ledges, spinning out, and getting knocked flat, it's still a simple routine. Several years later I taught a retired couple from the mid-west who had never before been on a boat of any kind. They moved to Maine, sailed an Ariel 26 for a year, moved up to a Pilot 35, and uneventfully sailed to St. kitts. It's one of heroic events, dangerous encounters, and personal survival where all is overcome through vast knowledge and experience, physical endurance, command presence, super seamanship, huge sums of money and all the goodies of the computer age. Methinks that they protest too much.
Sailing is simple.
It requires minimum intelligence. There is no magic here - only very basic physics that can be mastered, given some time, by nearly anyone. Children learn almost instantly. Proficiency in sailing, navigation, and seamanship takes a few years of solid effort - but competence doesn't take forever. Sailing is however an ongoing learning experience where people progress at different rates in an ever changing environment, and where the old duffers like me are still learning at a phenomenal rate.