at what age do you give up sailing?

You may not realise when the time has come, but those around you may!
One sign is when fellow club members are reluctant to let you sail alone.
It can come at any age due to things like loss of ability to balance properly etc.
...... But NOT a colostomy bag as mentioned above - it is a liberator, giving you another chance to get out and about after your illness.
It's about being a danger to others I think - including those who are paid to pick up the pieces.
 
My son shares a boat with a guy who had to stop being an RYA offshore insttructor at 75 because they couldn't get insurance for him any more. He and his wife used to sail to Ireland and Brittany from the Milford Haven up until last year. He says that maintenance is getting a bind so he might give up in a year or two. Still rides his horse everyday though /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

I'm 63 - working on the basis that anything I want to acheive must be done in the next 7 or 8 years but who knows - keep going until you want to stop. Then buy a mobo /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif
 
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.... Then buy a mobo /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

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wash your mouth out now young man, wash your mouth out !!!!!
 
Its not about age its about health.

Some people are lucky enough to be healthy enough to sail into their seventies. Some people are forced to give up much earlier.

Where you sail will also have an effect. The demands of sailing in the North Sea, Irish Sea and English Channel are very different to the Mediterranean.

Availability of fit young crew can also extend your sailing life.

If you are a fit 70+ sailing in the Med. You should count your blessings.
If you are 50 and health/mobility problems are making the English Channel a struggle then you deserve sympathy.
What you do not need are lucky 70+ year olds from sunnier climes telling you its all a state of mind !
 
My parents will be antifouling this week prior to launching their 62 year old Robert Clark. Oh yes - both Mum and Dad will be 86 this year. Ok they don't race across oceans but they do have a whale of a time pottering around the Kyles of Bute.

Donald
 
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Of course we must consider the concerns of our loved ones.

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I couldn't love anyone who wanted to stop me doing things I enjoy. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
Possibly people don't ever give up sailing but sailing tends to give them up when they can no longer cope.
I reckoned I would give up when I could no longer hoist the main by hand. It was becoming a struggle and then I noticed that some large racing boats have a purchase on the main. Lots more string but it prolongs active life.
There is a way around most of the technical stuff if the spirit is willing!!!!
 
I just assume that I will know when the time is right, which won't be for a few years yet, I hope.

A good friend found that taking his boat out of the harbour (Salcombe) became too much for him an restricted his jaunts to sheltered water. A few years later and he would just row out to her and do a bit of polishing whilst watching the world go by. When he could no longer climb in and out of the tender he sold his boat and gave the money to a cause that was close to his heart.

None of us really know what life has in store for us so I suppose I will keep going as long as I have the inclination, the ability, the funds and the time.
 
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Its not about age its about health.
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What you do not need are lucky 70+ year olds from sunnier climes telling you its all a state of mind !

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As I am 70+ in sunnier climes and you precisely quote my words this is clearly a dig at me. Whilst luck may have played its part (when does it not?), so did planning and some very hard work through a working lifetime that continued to age 68 when my company could no longer obtain insurance for me due to my age - no soft early retirement for me, nor did I want it.

Prefacing my comment of "state of mind" was the proviso of being fit and healthy and the sentiment was made because there are a number of relatively healthy, retired liveaboards in my Italian marina who never go to sea. They sit on their immaculate, sea-worthy craft and they run the engine once a week - and vegetate. "Been there, done that, why bother?" is their mantra; they have lost the will and the "state of mind" to go sailing.
 
I have friends in Copenhagen who are about 10 years younger than us. They use us as a sort of miner's canary. "If you can keep sailing at your age than I'm good for at least another decade".

As time goes on various parts of sailing get irritating or difficult. I loved keeping my boat ona swinging mooring on the Dart. However putting the kit plus dinghy plus outboard in the car, drive to Dittisham pump up dinghy etc. etc. Got very tedious. in addition plodding across the Channel with worries about big ships also loses its appeal.
We sailed to Stockholm with no night passages and now keep the boat there. Effectively no nights, no tides and no waves. We do gentle sailing all summer in beautiful uncrowded conditions - and the weather is better too. There are many place one can have easy sailing when you lose the taste for hard work.
 
I have noticed in my realm of sailing that financial pressures are more likely to make you give up sailing than age or fitness.

Many people in their sixties of this generation had a lousy last 15 or 20 year's which led to very poor incomes and pensions. Effectively unemployable or very low paid part time work. Second mortgages the lot. It really is getting very expensive to keep a boat even if you own it outright.

It's just not the same sailing on other people's boats when you've had your own.

Some downsize to small cruisers or dinghy's but , in a way, are more taxing physically than larger keelboats.

Fortunately, there are plenty of other things you can do to enjoy life.

Like most things - it just depends how life turns out for you.
 
This is something that has been on my mind. The maintenance doesn't get any easier as you age and if the pennies are scarce you can hardly farm out the work. I think I will keep going until I really hate it far more than I love it. I've always thought it to be 80% graft and 20% pleasure but once the graft is done it's very satisfying.
If I lived close to the sea I don't think I could give it up until it became physically impossible then if I thought i would miss it I would find a way of just relaxing afloat somehow.
Even though I'm still very able, I simply went to the boat last night and slept over, just to do a few odd jobs and spend time afloat on my mooring...... it's my 'back yard' and my 'garden shed' you see.
Ever since a kid I've 'played' in boats and the sounds, smells and feeling of being afloat is something very special to me.
I did say to my wife the other day, that if I were terminally ill and if I could still get the boat out and I had a chance of enjoying it, then I may not come back!!?? A better way to go than fighting it in a hospice I reckon.
You'r also only as old as the woman you feel and thank goodness she's a good bit younger than me!
 
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
 
If you had told us that it was from East Coker (No. 2 of the Four Quartets) by T S Eliot I would not have had to look it up.

(Maybe everyone else recognised it straight away, of course ...)
 
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