Chartering - should most experienced person always be skipper?

Re: CHARTERING - who\'s skipper?

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And there we have it. From losing a fender to a spinnaker wrap to discovering a tanker coming up your transom someONE has to say who does what and p.d.q. The decision(s) must be immediate, there's no time for debate, even if the decision proves to be wrong - that's what post mortems in the pub afterwards are for, but no on-the-spot committee meetings thank you.

In my experience many peeps are very glad that the responsibility is firmly on someone else's shoulders - it would spoil their holiday! What, get the forecast, passage plan, early night, earlier reveille, unblock the heads, whip a lanyard, replace a fuse, let alone all that delegating - phew, it could inhibit some serious quaffing of ale!

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Chuggin - can use use the {/quote} to close a quote ... rather than {/unquote} ... !!

I don't disagree with your statement - someone has to decide what needs doing and PDQ - but why does that person have to be skipper? We've already had one other poster who tookover from Skipper during a crisis - this just indicates that the person "in charge" at anyone time is not fixed and is the person best suited to resolve the issue. In familiar crewing situations where each crew member is trusted and confident the role of skipper diminishes to the point of nothing.

I also agree with your comment that many people are happy to grant someone else the responsibility for the vessel and ultimately their life.

I'll pose you a question ... How many of you Skippers that crew on another boat with another Skipper in charge will not step in when a something happens and you don't believe your Skipper has made the right decision?

My reason for asking - If you then override your Skippers decision you have relieved him of the "ultimate responsibility" you claim he has.
 
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Not really having had any emergencies in the big boat I can only give you an example from the dinghy racing with my dad in a laser2k ....
almost at the bottom of the first run, in first place the gybe goes wrong and the boat goes over, I manage to step over the side onto the board, dad sees this and starts getting the kite down, as this is going on I'm pulling the boat back upright and dad is scooped in - he goes straight to the tiller (he helms for the racing in the 2k) and I pop the kite back again only dropping 1 place - so we don't need a skipper - just knowledge that the otherone knows what needs to be done - and this comes from 30 years of sailing together.

[/ QUOTE ] I am not going to argue about dinghy sailing - not my thing at all. Maybe, you do work as a team in a performance sailing dinghy - although most people wouldn't survive like that at all. After all, who decides when the kite is going up, coming down, when you gybe, which tack to take, where on the start line you will be... ?

However I will stand by all my remarks for sailing on yachts with a crew - even a familiar crew in familiar waters. The skipper might not have to 'take charge' for anything on some days of sailing.

Although even now, I do wonder how you decide when to put the fenders out, how you are going to come alongside/pick up the buoy etc? Someone must say - 'About time we got the strings and balloons out, starboard side to please' - or whatever you say when you are coming into harbour.
 
It is a fair question - and I suppose our situation has come about through dinghy racing where the decisions are split - certainly sailing with Dad neither of us are "in charge" as I will call course changes up wind (as a crew) whilst he concentrates on keeping the boat driving and downwind (the kite goes up if I'm sat in-board) he then makes the course choices as I'm concentrating on the kite - calling up and down as the pressure changes.

The big boat is sailed in pretty much the same way - although without the pressure of racing - we both know what needs to be done so it gets done. We don't need one person telling the other(s) where to put the fenders or lines - there isn't much variation on that theme so it happens the same way each time. Picking up moorings is the same - one of us goes forward with the boathook and the other brings it up to the mooring - quick conflab on which side the other is aiming to come in on and possibly a discussion if it is considered wrong by the other party - the helm is in charge for that manouver though.
The only problem is when it comes to deciding how many rashers of bacon we're going to have for breakfast ... /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
 
tome the skipper

hm er well yes, i'd know who was in charge too. You own the boat and you decided he can call the shots and if they're the wrongshots you can step in.

Of course, knowing what a pleasant chap you are, I am sure you'd be extremely reluctant to step in - otherwise it would undermine him massively etc.

Nevertheless, I don't think owner-skippers can absolve themselves of the ultimate overarching responsibility quite as easily as saying "you're skipper" - unless they give up the right to ever "step in".

Of course, it's fine to have someone else in overall charge of where to go and what to do, orgainse things and all those otherwise traditional skipperish things. This happens all the time in other walks of life too, chain of command etc.

But if -in extremis- you can step in and take over then you are ultimately the skipper and the other guy is first mate. Very very experienced first mate, joined at the hip and all that.

But if something bad did happen for example - it would be ultimately your fault for not stepping in earlier. Especially since it's your boat. Especially as if ultimately you *could* naysay him. And especially especially since as skipper - you gave him full control. Imho.

As owner, the situation would be diferent imho only if you had hired the guy on a commercial basis as "skipper". Or appointed him as massively more qualified person, again as "skipper".

Or, under the current circumstancs of him not being paid then their oughta be some sort of piece of paper - a fairly clear note to the effect in the ships log for example, each time you set out. But that means you cannot ever step in. Because you are not the skipper, as you are now, imho.

Under those circumstances, if the owner even intimated that they *could* step in if things got dangerous at sea and take actions with which the appointed skipper disagrees then the appointee would/should resign on the spot, insist on a log entry and leave boat at earliest opportunity, and this happens a fair bit.

At other times, a crew member might feel strongly that he should "step in" and take different actions from those decided upon by the skipper, and that mutinous behaviour is not on either, so that crewmember should be disembarked at earliest opportunity too.

Imho, as non-skipper, your choices are to join/leave the boat whilst in port, and that's it. Not "step in".

As owner and non-skipper, your choices are extended to firing the skipper, though probably on a once-only basis. If you only needed to step in once a year or so ago, you're actually the skipper but shirking the responsibility.

Lookat it aothr way: if being skipper could be handed over - then couldn't lotsof owner skippers get out of the rescue helicopter and say "ah but my wife/ 15 year old son was actually skipper that day so har har you can't blame me."

Sorry, this has all gotten far too serious. But good stuff anyway...
 
Re: tome the skipper

Husband and wife or two friends who have sailed together for years is a bit different but on a boat with crew of different abilities etc one person has to be in charge.

3 Skippers will usually have 4 different opinions on some subjects. in a crisis of some sort one person needs to be able to take charge effectively and be recognised as Skipper by the rest of the crew.

A MOB emergency at night for example would not be a good time for a committee meeting on the relative merits of different methods of recovery /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
 
Re: Who or what Skipper?

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A MOB emergency at night for example would not be a good time for a committee meeting on the relative merits of different methods of recovery /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif [unquote]

That point has been made to Fireball, both in and out of this forum, but what initially appeared to be an interesting widening of this discussion keeps coming back to his limited experience and an inability to extrapolate beyond dinghy sailing, family sailing or sailing with a friendly bunch of capable lads, always crisis-free apparently (mind you, never going out after dark helps.)

The original post (wot's that?) started with "Charter" as the first word, and that in itself implies a strange boat. Before a recent charter I spent two afternoons going through every item of the inventory and making a task list for the two Watchleaders, neither of whom could get away before the actual outing. No-one else had that knowledge of where things were or what needed to be checked - and no-one else had signed a security deposit of . . . £5k. You bet I was the Skipper, there wasn't much competition!

But surely the die is cast before you even step on board? A race-orientated boat will have a Crew Boss who puts the group together, but usually it's the Owner and by default he becomes Skipper: collecting details of shore contacts, next-of-kin, passport numbers, medical history, allergies, dietary preferences, even whether they swim or smoke - these are all grist to the administrative mill that increasing bureaucracy demands.

I'm ressured to find support for the traditional style of management where the main man is still referred to, and more importantly treated as, the Skipper. But I've hardly ever sailed with anyone more experienced than myself; at one time that was 45-plus weekends a year, racing and cruising with a database of 80 crew (yes, they did come back for more!). I've sailed with people better than me: better helms, sail-trimmers, foredeck gorillas or tacticians, they all made my role enjoyable - but they just couldn't match the number of miles and the weekly experiences that I had under the belt.

Not extrapolating outside my own experience maybe?
Guilty as charged!
 
Re: Who or what Skipper?

At least I don't need a tender to carry my ego .... /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
 
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That point has been made to Fireball, both in and out of this forum, but what initially appeared to be an interesting widening of this discussion keeps coming back to his limited experience and an inability to extrapolate beyond dinghy sailing, family sailing or sailing with a friendly bunch of capable lads, always crisis-free apparently (mind you, never going out after dark helps.)

By CHuggin around

[/ QUOTE ] Sort of sums up some of my doubts about your 'skipperless sailing'.

Try running a yacht with a group of friends who have never sailed together before and you will soon be in trouble. Actually the greater the experience of those who take part in the ensuing 'Irish Parliament', the bigger the problem.

Now try sailing in some challenging waters and at night, or do an ocean passage with no skipper....

There are few absolutes in life, but I still know where my money is on crew organisation and appointing a skipper is. Anyway you are trying to do me out of a job. Part of my income is from assessing people's skills at 'taking charge' of a sailing or power boat as well as assessing their individual skill levels. And this isn't a facile remark. If I didn't believe it was the right way to organise a yacht, I wouldn't be examining people for their Coastal or YM Offshore tickets.
 
hear hear - and the ego thing

Agree with chuggin and jmorris.

Incidentally,i don't at all believe that being skipper is an ego trip - it should be quite the reverse. Others will happily take charge of navigation, helm, comms and all the boaty stuff. But a decent skipper might easily be the best at the less popular stuff - like fixing the bog or as chuggin suggests, doing the boring paperwork.
 
I think you're taking our skipperless sailing too far ...
I have already said that this is limited to SWMBO and my Dad - both of whom are trusted.
I have already stated that when crew of unknown experience come on board - or someone I'm not used to sailing with then I, or SWMBO and I (or Dad and I) become Skipper .. together or just me if neither SWMBO or Dad are aboard.

There is no disagreement that many do need a skipper to take control - what I'm suggesting is that perhaps some take this too literally and have the status of skipper when no skipper is really needed, but to get to this stage you really do need to know the other "skipper" well.

I would have no problem extending our style of management to longer passages with the same crew - after all, if either of us become incapacitated who is going to take charge?

All these snide remarks about committee meetings during a crunch time - they do not happen - we just get on with it - the role of skipper is assumed for that event, afterwhich we're back to normal - next crunchtime could see a different skipper - it depends who has the better overview of the situation at the time.

SWMBO and I are both doing the RYA courses and aim to do them at the same time - so you're still in with a job!
 
Re: CHARTERING - who\'s skipper?

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I'll pose you a question ... How many of you Skippers that crew on another boat with another Skipper in charge will not step in when a something happens and you don't believe your Skipper has made the right decision?

My reason for asking - If you then override your Skippers decision you have relieved him of the "ultimate responsibility" you claim he has.

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It would take something very serious and life threatening for me to usurp another skipper's authority. I've been in situations on other people's boat where they've called for a berthing manoeuver I totally disagree with and I believe runs the risk of damaging the boat. But if I'm crew on someone else's boat it's simply not my place to say this.
 
Re: hear hear - and the ego thing

I'd go for the hyphen myself.

I'm probably being unfair to Amaya's shore skipper, because the crew weren't rat-arsed, as such, on the Cherbourg trip; they were completely annihilated.
 
Re: CHARTERING - who\'s skipper?

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But if I'm crew on someone else's boat it's simply not my place to say this.

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I think you should voice an opinion (at the right time of course) - why let someone cause damage to a boat if it can be reasonably avoided? I don't think that calls into question the skippering issue - I'd prefer it if someone told me I was gonna prang my boat rather than let me get on with it.

The very fact that you would - in the right situation - overrule the designated skipper indicates to me that you take ultimate responsibility for your own life and therefore whilst you accept the designated skipper as such, when push comes to shuv the final word in your suvival is yours and yours alone - no matter what the skipper says.

I think what has been established in this (long winded) thread is that the crew need to operate as a team and in most cases the team need a leader. For a small minority of us (lucky ones!) there is no need to establish a formal skipper role as the teamwork has become instinctive, this appears to be limited to close family/friends sailing (as expected!).
At the end of the day the ultimate responsibility for your life is yours and yours alone - living in the free world we can quite happily turn down an order to "Jump" if we feel it is the wrong decision!

Happy Skippering!! /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
 
Re: hear hear - and the ego thing

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He needs training up a bit, imho

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Yes, he's done the practical but not yet the shore-based!
 
Re: CHARTERING - who\'s skipper?

I would evaluate the skipper as a person as well as sailor - and if it all added up then I would get aboard as crew, confident that if I had a really brilliant idea (hah!) then it would be considered by the skipper and acted upon if it was obviously safer/better.

I would not usurp that skippers authority and i think i have been tested in this regard.

Being skipper doesn't mean you are the bestest saily person onboard. I'd still be skipper if that examiner johnmorris came on board my boat - but I would jolly well learn loads of stuff! In fact, i have nearly never had any boaty person on board and not learned some boaty stuff from them.

As crew, there are other ways in which you can remain as crew - and yet still not have to merely sit tiight and bite your lip as cockup follows awful cockup . You can, for example, offer a complete solution to a skipper, as a question. So in the past i have offered "shall we take a long line forward here so we can spring off?" and so forth or if on helm i would "shall i stay a bit further offshore with the shoals around here?" or maybe "as you come in and i am waiting to go ashore with line would it be useful if i held up a number of fingers to show how many metres off the pontoon you are?" or whatever.

So if as crew you have other ideas which the skipper has obviously not considered you can offer them and it need not usurp him. In fact, it had better not. Any half -decent crew should/would do the same.

The skipper doesn't decide everything about the boat whilst everyone else sits waiting for commands saying "well i wouldn't fipping do THAT".

The decent crew offers his ideas early and concisely : - if all he does is sit and wait for an instrcution he is not much more use than a sulky yet skillful novice.

Even with just two people on a boat there will be one skipper,and one realy quite handy person that should be totally onside with the skipper, trying to make the skipper look good, not ready to pinch his position.

But more importantly, the decent skipper asks for agreement for his chosen course of action - or alternatives.

So, before (say)a difficult berthing he gets people together and says someting like "right i think what we'll do here is..so you do this and you do that..izzat okay or does anyone have better ideas?" So that would get flaming to tellus his fab berthing idea and avoid kersmackig the boat.

Likewise, a safety briefing whould establish not what to do in every possible eventuality but at least show/tell what equipment is available and where it is. And of course, unlike the fireball model - it shows that the skipper is not going to be waiting for a managed plan and direction for same to somehow magically "emerge" - the skipper has thought about it all, and more than just a bit.
 
I think part of the disagreement here is coming from people talking about different situations, and I'd agree that in a group of people little known to each other coming together on a strange boat someone clearly needs to be in charge. But I'd also agree with Fireball that in the context of family sailing the idea of one person being in absolute charge and everyone else doing what they're told feels rather uncomfortable. The way we (my wife and I, and two (small) children) sail Allegro sits much closer to Fireball's "committee" method, and thus the way family life runs on the boat is really very much the same as the way family life runs at home.

Of course I've been known to shout "Reverse!" when I'm at the bow and Lisa's still heading for the pontoon 2' away. But then she's been known to shout "Roundabout!" when I was driving rather too late one night and wasn't perhaps quite as awake at the wheel as I should have been. But I don't think that meant she was "skippering" the car any more than it meant I was "skippering" the boat - we'd simply seen something that the other hadn't and drew it to their attention...

But its tricky, because in a crisis one person does tend to take charge, and on the boat that does tend to be me, and I can think of a couple of occasions (child overboard, suspected fire...) when I have done so in a way, so perhaps I am skipper after all... But what would feel uncomfortable to me, and I suspect to Fireball, is the idea that because I'm skipper we necessarily do what I say - or that what I say is necessarily right. When we had smoke coming out of the aft locker, for example, it was I who said "You get the children into the dinghy, I'll go and have a look", but Lisa who gently reminded me to take the fire extinguisher with me!

Cheers
Patrick
 
Re: CHARTERING - who\'s skipper?

Fireball , please just accept that at some time you MUST have a skipper in charge. You may go out in a small boat with just family and never have any problems but without ever realising it most are just fitting naturally into a particular role whether it be fender dolly or navigator.

For most of us there are times when one person must lead.

WRT Dinghies. We started learning to sail on a Wayfarer and it was quickly pointed out to me that my other half was the better helm, I had more strength for crewing and more weight for ballast thats better in the middle than the stern. We raced with me doing crewing and calling tactics and SWMBO helming and getting the best speed out of the boat including criticising my genoa setting! After a while we got into some tight spots either on the start line or going round marks and we changed so that I still call tactics before the start or rounding the mark but SWMBO tries to impliment the strategy and makes the instant decisions that become necessary at the start or mark. We find it worked OK.

Discussions like this are good and I have learnt a lot by listening to others on here that are more experienced than me. I just hate re-inventing the wheel or learning the hard way.
 
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