Ditch the Engine

T

Thirdman

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Let us be 100% Sailors. A one percent failure from your engine is a 100% failure if you don't have the skills to make port. Let us be 100% Sailors. Any T/D/H can sail for a thousand miles, but stuff it up in the last 50 yards to the dock and end on the rocks. Let us be 100% Sailors. Most people would bristle at being called a "Motorsailor", but remember, a 1% failure in your engine means you are actually relying on that engine 100%. Let us be 100% sailors.
To learn more go to http://www.oarclub.org. I'd be interested in some feedback once you have had a look at this site.

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Are you serious or have you been drinking too much? Hope the hangover is not too bad (er on the other hand... maybe not).

John

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Each to his own view point.
Whilst I can and sometimes do sail on and off my mooring, I would not like to sail in and out of locked Marinas nor would I like to be berthed in one whilst others were trying to do so.

Having my diesel allows me to indulge in the sailing I like most so I will keep mine, thanks all the same.

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Let's live in the real world and learn how to use our boats properly under power and sail and when it is appropriate to do which one. Let's also learn how to look after our engines so that the chance of failure at an inopportune moment is minimised

<hr width=100% size=1>JJ
 
Re: Ditch the writing career

hm, not very good, i'm afraid.

It contains acreages of often impenetrable text. It reads bouncily enough, but dives off at tangents too "chattily". You could use that text as a basis of what you want to say, but it needs a lot of work. Cut it up into smaller chunks for publishing, even on the internet.

There are glaring grammatical and spelling errors. These need attention, particularly as your subject matter is (inter alia) to be more attentive and thoughtful when on the water. Especially awful examples of are "dependant" instead of "dependent", and "idylly" instead of "idly". Some syntax is plain sloppy, as in "...you could be asleep, or dead even, ..." . Read the excellent book "Between You and I" which may help your grammar, and to show the sort of arrangement that can make a reference book more readable.

You should "ditch" the section on powerboating: anyone who has been on a powerboat - even for only a short amount of time - will know than you aren't qualified to make such silly remarks. Again, the poor English spoils the text: split infinitives are basic stuff "...to frankly disregard..."

It would be courteous to put in a path from your site to this, if you want people to go from this site to yours.
 
Re: Ditch the writing career

TCM,
Theirs no kall to be so rood. Welcome Thirdman and we look forward to a demo on a inside berth at East Cowes at mid tide on a spring tide with a bit of wind


<hr width=100% size=1>I Have The Body Of A God... Buddha
 
I actually did take the engine out of my previous boat. I do have an engine (very under powered, by today's standards) now, but I have to say that whilst there are some boats, kept on some moorings, that really do not need an engine, there are many more that do need one.

I am tremedously impressed by two engine-less cruisers that I know - Mike Burn's "Sheila" and Jamie Clay's "Firefly". Both are, as it happens, Albert Strange yawls, owned and sailed for many years by experts, and are often found on the Deben.

But there are very many boats that really need an engine for those last few cables. I am lucky in that I don't need an engine to get on and off my mooring, but I do need one to get to the yard to lay up - too many moorings, in a very twisty channel!

It is very nice to have one when working through the moorings at Waldringfield, where the moorings are laid close together and the wind often flukes under the cliffs. Once last season, when weaving my way through there, in a fluky light air, with a foul bottom, I was compelled to stick her on the mud (flood tide!) for half an hour, as she was too slow to respond to her helm and would otherwise have fouled a moored boat. (OK, the bottom should not have been foul...) I could
have started the engine but that would be against the principles of the thing. People may have wondered what I was doing, but putting the nose on the putty rather than hitting something is just old fashioned seamanship.

My current approach is to really, really try not to use the engine. If we flop about in a calm, I dig out the ghoster, whereas a couple of years ago I would have started the engine, and I have gone back to paying scrupulous attention to the tides,as I did in my first, engine-less, boats.

As a general principle, I am coming round to trying to sail better, as an alternative to sailing further, which is not practical for me at the moment. Doing without the engine is definitely a part of this.


<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?
 
Re: Ditch the writing career

I'm sure everyone who uses an engine will be delighted to learn they are a 'noisy bastard cousin'!

<hr width=100% size=1>Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabris, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.
 
I enjoy sailing but I also enjoy the destination. Therefore if there is insufficient wind to enable me to get to where I want to be - by a reasonable time - I have absolutely no compunction in turning on the engine.

When you promise a day on the beach to the kids they are not too inclined to appreciate the finer points of ghosting.

When I was younger and alone, I always sailed onto my own mooring.

John

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Re: Ditch the writing career

<<<'noisy bastard cousin'>>>

Didn't see that bit but thats me for sure. However, I think most who have called me that put an ffff word before the cousin bit.

Say you want some revolutions
We better get power on right away
Well you get down your sails
And out on the sea

Singing power to the people
Power to the people
Power to the people
Power to the people, right on

(Lennon, abused)

John

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Re: Ditch the writing career

I missed that! I found the site incredibly hard to read, what with each page being a single large graphic (rather than text, which I can increase in size to something more readable).

Rick

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Funny how times change, without us really noticing. Small engineless boats were not uncommon at one time in marinas, a scull or sometimes a sweep was used to manoevre them in and out. A larger yacht arriving home with the engine out would be routine, a call to the marina office would have someone out in the launch to tow them back into the berth. And sometimes they went out that way, too.

These days the marina launch - or the guy at beck and call - is an optional extra. The engine out all too often means a job for the lifeboat.


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A 1% chance of engine failure gives a 99% chance that I can still get home on time if the wind drops away! A 99% chance that I won't get grief for coming home hours later than I said I would be home is good enough for me. I won't be taking the engine out just yet!


Chris

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Re:Back to the future

never works.

Sure you can sail instead of motoring or get the sweep out and have a paddle but it's a luxury. Nothing has liberated leisure sailing for the common man as much as the diesel. It's meant that moorings can be more densly packed, laid in places an old time sailor man wouldn't have considered or accessed by locks. Motive power means that schedules can be kept to in the face of foul tide or no wind, which suites the way sailing is done today. The idea of an un-engined boat on a half tide mooring, a missed tide and a long wait for access, wouldn't really suit many modern sailors. Power has meant that the less gifted boat handler can get away with less crunch's and the less physical sailor can avoid unnecessary exertion.

For a number of years I kept an engineless boat on a half tide mooring at Hardway and if "Peppermint" is going far the 12ft sweep goes with her. (Really as an auxilary rudder) I know of what you speak but going back is only attractive in theory. The environment we sail in in the south of UK is not really an environment for those of us with real lives to start oar hugging.

That being said sculling or rowing your dinghy gets you away from all that twostoke smelling struggle with the outboard.



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You have got to be joking?
I can just imagine the chaos in every marina and port in the land with everyone trying to arrive/leave under sail only!
"Yes sir your finger berth is the one right at the end of that dead end, under the sea wall, please becareful of the reverse backdraft caused by the wall that will have you charging into the berth at breakneck speed, Oh and please mind that £250K yacht on your way in"
Have you got good insurance?

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You might like to look at <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.alberta-ck318.freeserve.co.uk/smacklist/stormypetrel750.jpg>this boat.</A> She has been sailing the East Coast for over 100 years and has never had an engine.

Mick

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I never knew that!

Probably because I only see her in OGA races where we are all equally engine-less, so to speak!

Well done, all concerned with her!

<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?
 
Half with you. Sail everywhere ? Well I was pleasantly surprised what could be done under sail when I did my YM practical in a really handy boat. And French sailors do a lot more of this than we ever seem to try. So yes, I would like to go that way though few modern boats are handy enough in my experience,and marinas are most certainly not designed for it.

But swap an engine for a sweep? Do you eat lentils and ride a pushbike by any chance? Compost your own sewage? Knit your own oilies? Removing the engine and going for an oar is a bit like making love standing up in a hammock! Why make life difficult?



<hr width=100% size=1>this post is a personal opinion, and you should not base your actions on it.
 
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