Can you sail with the family and remain seamanlike.

[Peppermint]

It's becoming common place to hear "Mayday" calls that on might not actually have any real threat to life. Quite a common link seems to be that when HMCG ask how many people are onboard it's two adults and a few kids.

It appears that the ante is raised when the family is involved.

I don't do family sailing to any great extent, but I can imagine that when the current wife and the fruit of your loins notice it's gone wrong the pressure to call for help mounts up prety quick. Is that right?

 

[Salty]

Yes, that's right. A nasty scenario is amplified to the nth degree when the bearers of your DNA are on board. While it was perfectly possible to go sailing with a young family, I can't say I particularly enjoyed it, nor did the kids and so the boat went and will stay gone until the kids are a bit older, want to go sailing and are of some practical use. The clincher was a particularly nasty beat back across the channel at night in a rising gale that was not forecast, with the engine conked out for some reason I couldn't fix. The only argument I had with SWMBO was whether to alert the coastguard/lifeboat that we were nearing port - my strongly held view was 'no', since while damned uncomfortable we weren't in danger, and if the harbour entry was too dangerous, we'd just have to stand off until conditions eased. SWMBO had a different view, but then she'd been below decks for half the crossing tending scared and vomiting children! My view prevailed, and we got into harbour okay. After that we decided amicably that sailing was best enjoyed with the company of other consenting adults, rather than press-ganged children so now we get our kicks on other peoples' boats, thanks!

 

[Bergman]

I sail almost exclusively with family and to date (touching wood, crossing fingers etc.) I've never been in that situation.

Whether it would make me call for help earlier I'm not sure. I favour devout cowardice as a prime survival technique so perhaps not.

It certainly does affect the way you sail in terms of stopovers and passage lengths, particularly with very young children, and it does drive you to taking precautions such as life jackets and harnesses which with a different crew would perhaps not be bothered about.

As for be more or less "seamanlike" I don't think it makes any difference. Seamanlike means making due allowance for condition of sea, boat and crew - so thats what you do.

 

[Hazymoonshine]

Interestingly, we have just changed down to accommodate sailing with the children. After many years sailing Sigma 38s and bareboat chartering round the world, a 2 year old and a 3 month old now mean we have a little Virgo Voyager tucked up at Fareham. For us an adventure is now a gentle pootle down to Gosport, or a trip over to Port Solent. On more adventurous outings we even head across to Wootton Creek or Seaview to drop the Hook.

For a couple of years we also had a little four seat aeroplane, and used to pop across to France or the Channel Islands, but that started to get very fraught. There is no doubt having the family on board changes your risk profile, and for me it took all the fun out of flying. Instead I now fly with a couple of friends, and much more adventurous stuff.

Learning from this, our sailing is intended to be Swallows and Amazons, rarely more than 2 hours going anywhere, and lots of toys to play with onboard. I am also acutely aware that children can pick up on tension remarkably quickly - so on some occasions we have arrived at the boat and stayed on the mooring for a couple of hours with out sailing, before heading home. At least we have been on the boat, everyone is happy and keen to return to the boat next time.

Seems to be working so far, but any advice/thoughts welcome!

H

 

[claymore]

Thats a nice question. I think the answer is that you should be all the more seamanlike. We introduced our offspring to sailing as a medium for the development of her self. At 32 she works in Equador, Bolivia and Nicaragua and copes daily with all manner of problems and issues that I've never had to face in my working life. She thinks that it was the self-sufficiency and resoucefulness she occasionally needed that she picked up from her years of racing dinghies and sailing with her Ageing P's that helps her do the job she does.
this response could go on forever about the need to introduce children to risk and adventure gradually but I don't feel in thesis mood tonight as I have 2 to mark.
Emphatically yes is the short answer

 

[Guest]

I often sail with just me and two small children aboard. One definitely has to be a lot more cautious, and I find it saps my energy quite quickly - apart from all the sailing I have to make sure they're fed etc. What helps me a lot is getting them to do as much of the work as possible, which keeps them interested too.

Ultimately if things are going pear-shaped I know I can drop them into bunks with lee cloths and concentrate on sailing the boat, and twice I've had to do this. But I personally would not sail with them in an area where there could be serious challenges, lee shores etc. - I've concentrated on areas where there are plenty of refuges within easy reach - this is necessary anyway because it implies also lots of places to explore. Obviously, there are liveaboard children who are crossing oceans, but I personally would not feel happy taking them out into the middle of the North Sea yet, even if there were another adult (or more) on board. Maybe in 3 or 4 years time

 

[Peppermint]

Re: Seamanlike is a bad word.

Self-reliant might be better.

 

[pugwash]

Seems to me (father of four, grandfather of four more) that you have got it exactly right. I wonder how things will change when they're teenagers?

 

[oldharry]

.. yes of course you can. It goes wrong when an unseamanlike decision is made about how much/ how far you can go with the kids aboard and the skipper bites off more than he can chew, or more realistically he takes on a passage or weather that is more than the the kids can handle.

Having said that, I can remeber getting caught out in the Irish Sea with my two at age around 8 and 10: Self and SWMBO thoroughly cold, worried and fed up by rapidly deteriorating conditions: two youngsters below decks whooping it up - the best ride they had had since we took them to Alton Towers!

 

[iangrant]

I think you have to be more seamanlike sailing with the family. Certainly more forward planning is required, especially when the children are very young, consider it like single handed sailing and you'll probably be OK. Mooring up and nappy changes tend to happen at the same time..

We started with a very small boat, one daughter in her car seat in the cockpit.

Option 1: Now, my 11 year old daughter has done her sea survival course, can helms a decent course can make sandwiches in a force 6 when the grown up crew I took cross channel thew up all the way. Easy..

Option 2: Wife and 10 year old daughter don't like rough weather leaning over and prefer the getting there and the shopping than passage making itself. Difficult

Different sailing trips for options 1 and 2 are required..to ensure the "do a Mayday dear" doesn't arise!

Ian

 

[aitchw]

Having cocked up introducing my son to dinghy sailing when he was 10 by putting him in a situation he was not ready for I have only been able to start to rectify that by buying a small cruiser (16') and taking extreme care about when, where and how we sail together as a family.

I am much more cautious and sail taking the lowest risk options always. We do not drive the boat hard ever and would run for shelter at the first sign of a bad turn in the weather. I also involve them in any decisions I think will affect their sense of security when afloat.

So the answer for me is that I can only sail with the family if I act in the most seamanlike way and that means avoiding at all costs the need for a distress call.

 

[milltech]

I'm interested in the word "remain". Since I clearly fall into the unseamanlike Hilaire Belloc school of seamanship it's not likely to degenerate further. On the other hand I do develop a twitch when family are on board, and what errors and mistakes I have made have always been with family as a witness.

 

[Benbow]

I think that regardless of who you are sailing with, if your crew are frightened you are doing something very wrong. That is not quite the same as cold or sick.

It is the skipper's job to ooze confidence, anticipate conditions and prepare the crew. If you say, 'it will be bloody lumpy round that headland , should be great fun, and then it will be much flatter the other side', then your crew are prepared for a few greenies coming aboard, they are impressed that you anticipated it and know it is temporary.

Of course we all get it wrong sometimes, but I have to say I tend to push it slightly harder with the family because I know their capabilities. Certainly having a crew on board tyhat I really KNOW can go on the foredeck and fight with the spinny if necessary boosts my confidence.

On bigger boats, I have sailed 100's of times with groups of totally inexperienced kids, I have seen them sick, cold, annoyed (and occasionally happy!) but I have never seen any of them scared. That is because everyone on board knows what they are doing and it is obvious to the kids that everything is under control. I have experienced sudden and total steering failure with full sail up in a narrow piece of water with a tanker heading towards us, but the kids hardly even noticed. The occasional totally pointless activity works wonders - we can't be sinking if the skipper is wearing a silly hat and singing a song about pixies.

 

[graham]

Having the children aboard certainly raises my level of caution re weather etc.More to do with not wanting to frighten them or put them off coming sailing than any real safety issue.One stategy we use is if the weather is doubtfull for a return trip my wife sometimes brings the kids home by public transport.I can relax and enjoy the exhillaration of fresh weather sailing without the worry of kids not enjoying themselves or worse still one of them falling and banging a head /breaking an arm or something.

As to Mayday situations ,never having been in that situation but I imagine it would perhaps cause you to call for help earlier than otherwise,which is probably a good thing anyway.A lifeboat coxswain once summed it up to me by saying"He would rather go out on 100 shouts that were cancelled before they got on scene than go on one shout where they arrived 5 minutes too late.