Hiya

I still think spending a day with someone from Bisham Abbey or similar will make the experience much less daunting for SWMBO. They'll normally take you out on your own boat and the practice will simply be doing it under supervision. Once you've done it a couple of times you'll understand what you are doing, right and wrong. It will be fun rather than scary.

Beyond this, the only practice we did was rope throwing. Not that it shows!