This is a subject that has piqued my interest recently, as my wife and I are looking at getting a sailboat sometime in the next year. I am a little overweight for my height (20kg or so), but my wife is recovering from a 10 year bout of DVT which has left her sitting at about 150kg.

She is very active, and is steadily losing weight but is obviously concerned that this extra weight will get in the way of sailing.

I'd love to hear from anybody here who has started sailing while overweight. What sort of difficulties did you experience? Was it as much of a problem as it seems at first?