50 things that changed sailing

[john_morris_uk]

I cannot understand how GPS is not number 1. IMO all other things mentioned sort of refine something that can already be done another way, all be it maybe not as cheaply or efficiently.

GPS provides an accurate fix of your position in all weathers. Its unbelievable...

GRP for hulls should be number one - or dacron sails or synthetic ropes and lines.

If you don't believe me, try going back to a wooden boat with natural fibre lines and cotton canvas!!

 

[prv]

GRP for hulls should be number one - or dacron sails or synthetic ropes and lines.

If you don't believe me, try going back to a wooden boat with natural fibre lines and cotton canvas!!

I think you can judge the relative importance in that list by the number of people still using such things.

There are (in relative terms) still a fair number of wooden boats around, and new ones are still built.

Natural fibre sails are much rarer, but according to my gaff rig book they're still a viable option (especially flax) and can still be obtained if preferred.

Nobody (except possibly museums) uses natural-fibre rope.

Pete

 

[john_morris_uk]

I think you can judge the relative importance in that list by the number of people still using such things.

There are (in relative terms) still a fair number of wooden boats around, and new ones are still built.

Natural fibre sails are much rarer, but according to my gaff rig book they're still a viable option (especially flax) and can still be obtained if preferred.

Nobody (except possibly museums) uses natural-fibre rope.

Pete

But that's the point: The question was 'which things have changed yachting' - and people are just citing the things they enjoy using. They need to use a little more imagination and try doing without some of the basic things we take for granted.

Re-read Arthur Ransome books for a few reminders of how things were once. The seamnlike way was remembering to take up the slack on halyards as they dried and loosened with the dew etc. Canvas that rotted and didn't hold its shape, hulls that leaked and were not easily repaired. You can manage to sail very easily without a GPS, but we take some advances of the last fifty years for granted.

 

[electrosys]

Well - I didn't even know there was an 'original list' - but top of the list must surely be:

Railways, followed by roads, motorways and private cars. Prior to these, yachting was an exclusive activity for the-ever-so-rich brigade.

Railways gave access to the coast for the masses, sea-side holidays, contact with the sea for the first time, and an awareness that life could be different from that they had been used to.

Next I would say ... Books.
How many people were introduced to the idea of sailing via a book ? I'd say an awful lot.

Then I'd say, more leisure time, more disposable income, converted lifeboats, Mirror dinghies, and so on ....

I'd say GPS and Epoxy/GRP etc., Dacron sails and rope, aluminium spars and suchlike come well down the list of things which have changed sailing, at least in a profound way.

 

[SHUG]

It has to be GPS at No1. with its cousin the Chartplotter at No2
Anybody who sailed in the earlier era would know the joys of a three, two point or running fixes on a dark and stormy night when the Walker log gets fouled up and the compass light fails.
Loved it at the time but.......

 

[electrosys]

But that's the point: The question was 'which things have chnged yachting' ...

Well actually it wasn't .. it was "50 things that changed sailing" - and I don't know where the bounds to this question are set ...

So we could even include hinged rudders and Harrison's Marine Chronometer - inventions such as those changed the face of sailing for ever.

 

[PuffTheMagicDragon]

I would say that Practical Boat Owner, in its original concept, was a trailblazer. Prior to that publication it was quite the norm to find 'essential' articles in Yachting magazines describing the problems of anchoring in some remote atoll, smack in the middle of the Pacific. Yeah, Right! Precisely where I had wanted to go in the late fifties but didn't because I was not aware of the intricacies that were involved.

PBO showed us, back then, how ordinary people could get afloat - CHEAPLY. It encouraged recycling and making-do with whatever was available at the time. It even encouraged us in the direction of doing it ourselves, with our own hands. The accent was on PRACTICAL. Nowadays we are regularly regaled with 'boat tests' and reviews of gear that are sometimes mere regurgitations of ideas that worked well in the past or else with 'useful' and 'must-have' gadgets that a proper seafarer could make with his hands behind his back.

Back then people grew up into bigger boats, sensibly, one step at a time. Nowadays it seems that many just buy a boat by the metre to match their other status symbols. They drive their boats and reverse them into their berth...

Was that a rant? I don't care...I am over sixty-five.

 

[prv]

It has to be GPS at No1. with its cousin the Chartplotter at No2

I'm with you on the GPS - but not the plotter, not by a long way. I have one ready and available in a rack in the cabin, just waiting to be brought out and placed on its mount in the cockpit. The fact that I so rarely do so proves just how insignificant its impact is.

Pete

 

[fishermantwo]

Communications, not just the cheap radios but as PuffTheMagicDragon mentioned PBO and similar publications. Plywood and various waterproof glues and epoxies.

 

[pyrojames]

I think you can judge the relative importance in that list by the number of people still using such things.

There are (in relative terms) still a fair number of wooden boats around, and new ones are still built.

Natural fibre sails are much rarer, but according to my gaff rig book they're still a viable option (especially flax) and can still be obtained if preferred.

Nobody (except possibly museums) uses natural-fibre rope.

Pete

Err, I do! But only as a fender round the dinghy!

 

[DanTribe]

Huge increase in amount of wash, making Sunday raft-ups difficult.