Anyone see the Rescue program yesterday**...?

DeeGee

DeeGee

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In the programme, a yacht was 'assisted' off the Portland Race. The major part of the problem seemed to be that the two (?) sailors did not know which ropes were the main and genoa halyard. Two crew from the lifeboat had to get aboard and drop the sails. One can only ask, how the devil did they get the sails up in the first place. And for the RNLI/CG posters - is this sort of level of incompetence totally rare?

BTW, the poor guy who got hit by the boom offers a rather chilling example of how easy it is to get seriously damaged.

** watched it yesterday, but it may have been recorded from Thursday??
 
When the RNLI chap was giving him a grilling, I distinctly heard the skipper in response to the question "you must know how to lower the sail?" saying;
" Well I have never needed to lower it".
I suspect he bought the boat on a marina kept it there 12 months a year and never looked at the sail except to furl it.
 
I felt sorry for the youngster who nutted the boom!

Idiots in the yacht were just that "idiots" not raggies or mobos

just "Edjits"

cheers Joe
 
I think that's harsh, there's a lot of people that "there but for the grace of god" cos buy a boat, hop on it and start learning the hard way .. yet another example justifying the case for compulsory training/licencing IMHO
 
learn and enjoy,But in the Portland race?

Sorry I disagree he is an idiot

cheers Joe
 
[ QUOTE ]
Don't know if it's still the same owner but, the boat is moored next to me.

[/ QUOTE ]Well, if you are not the berth owner, you could ask for a move.... /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
 
Great program.

Ignorant or stupid?

I'm steppping up from dinghy this year to 36 foot AWB. I've been studying and reading avidly since august about all aspects of sailing. I have an enormous amount to learn still and the I'm sure its something where you never stop learning in fact. So without wishing ot be complacent and in the certainty I'll have many a harsh lesson to learn myself, going into the open seas without proper training; not knowing about the race when its so close to your own sailing ground (you don't need to search very hard to read something about Portland race) and not knowing the basic controls of the yacht... Ignorance at that level doing an activity that can kill is without doubt stupid
 
I'm unconvinced that training would do any good to this kind of person. If he hadn't taken the trouble to find out about his halyards on his own, a Day Skipper course probably wouldn't have helped him. I never touched the halyards when I did mine, and if I had, it wouldn't have been much help when I got Jissel 'cos things are different on 24ft mab from a new 32ft AWB.

If I didn't know in his situation - let's suppose I'm crewing - first time on the boat - and the skipper's ill and can't help out - I think I'd have figured that it's one of the bits of string that goes up the mast and eased them one at a time until I started to get the result I wanted, but that's common sense, something else that a DS won't teach you if you haven't already got a bit.

IMHO, another version of stupidity is not trying to find out what you don't know you don't know about something, but then, I'm the kind of sad git who looks at the instructions before I put together an Ikea flatpack!
 
I am so amazed at the ignorance of this guy I am lost for words. Do people really try to sail without any understanding at all of what they are doing? Maybe they just have no concept of the risks involved.

I tend to agree that a DS course would not solve the problem for people like this.

Incredible.
 
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