Barefoot on board?

[john_morris_uk]

I think you have made yout point.
Repetition will only annoy.
Cheers,
Chris

Who is your remark addressed to please?

 

[simon barefoot]

Spent 2 seasons lobster potting barefoot. Makes you a damn sight more aware of what is on, near, under and around your feet. Yes, occaisonally you hurt yourself, but at least I knew when there was a stray rope coiling around my ankles...
Now I'm old and achy, and only go barefoot when its warm, afloat or ashore

 

[benjenbav]

I used to like the idea of going barefoot on deck but unlike my floors at home the blimmin deck moves around a bit and I kept stubbing my toes on sticky out bits so I stopped.

By the bye, another situation where I didn't used to wear shoes but I now do is in connection with swimming pools in the med. I took the cover off ours at the start of the summer one year and left it to dry on a wall. A couple of days later I started to fold it up only to find that it was full of scorpions. That was the day I discovered that I could, indeed, dance.

 

[mixmaster]

Cruising in the Carib the usual form was to go barefoot on board and have flip flops to go ashore. I even kept mine permanently in the dinghy. Everyone visiting someone else's boat would generally leave their flip flops in their dinghy or on deck as soon as they boarded.
Around the UK, barefoot for summer cruising but usually to cold and wouldn't do it racing or beating into 25 knots of wind.

 

[SimbaDog]

I always wear shoes when sailing, often removed when relaxing below or in the cockpit

 

[Thaumaturge]

I don't know where you and a few others have got hold of the idea of 'nanny state' organisation on boats who ask for footwear comes from.

Do you allow people not to be hooked/harnessed on after dark when offshore? Do you allow people to forget to switch the nav lights on? Do you ask people to go easy with the toilet paper and to pump lots (or perhaps not to put any paper down the heads at all?) I ams sure that there are lots of things you say to people who come sailing with you.

In the same way, I don't think its a question of nanny state when I say I prefer people to wear shoes when at sea. I am quite happy to walk round the boat bare foot when we are at anchor - but when we start passage making, then I think some sort of footwear is safer. Some common sense (that isn't that common) should be applied, but I am yet to be convinced that bare foot is sensible very often when at sea.

John, my post was not a personal swipe at you, in fact I think the Voltaire quotation in the signature sums up my attitude to your viewpoint.

My point was made simply to highlight the feeling that we in the so-called civilised world are eroding the importance of taking personal responsibility for our actions.

 

[john_morris_uk]

John, my post was not a personal swipe at you, in fact I think the Voltaire quotation in the signature sums up my attitude to your viewpoint.

My point was made simply to highlight the feeling that we in the so-called civilised world are eroding the importance of taking personal responsibility for our actions.

No problem - I was getting anxious that I was somehow being associated with 'nanny state'. That is rather far from my true personal viewpoint!