Do ex dinghy sailors make good cruising yachtsmen?

[crown22]

It's all in title really.

 

[RunAgroundHard]

I think that there are dinghy sailors who can't sail a cruising yachts, and none dinghy sailors who can sail a cruising yacht very well.

Being a "good cruising yachtsmen" doesn't depend on dinghy sailing.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Most dinghy sailing involves racing. You don't need to be a top racer to sail a cruiser. You might need to be a fairly proficient racer to sail any boat well, or rather, the two skills are closely related. You don't need boat on boat tactics after all, but you do need wind and tidal tactics, or you'll sit there going nowhere fast, many times. You can learn those skills on a cruiser, but, due to the presence of the iron Genoa, lots of cruisers never do. We're about to do our 1st club race of the season, a run what you brung pursuit race. We will be treated to the spectacle of half the cruiser fleet sitting out in the tide, never to reach the leeward mark, as the wind forecast is very light. The bit we sail on to do that is marked green on the chart.

 

[Whaup367]

The answer depends on whether your dinghy sailors are club racers who have only ever sailed to race with rescue cover or dinghy cruisers/daysailors that know how to passage plan, reef, understand irpcs, buoyage etc.
I think there's a case to be made that boat handling is better learned in dinghies... but Seamanship is rarely essential for club racing.

 

[Alex_Blackwood]

It's all in title really.

Which side of the coin are you looking at ?

 

[RunAgroundHard]

I think racing as a skill development is overrated. After all 99.99% of racers fail to win their race, ergo, they are not good at what they do.

 

[crown22]

Thanks guys.I suppose that I was thinking of the complete skillset needed to be a cruising yachtsman.By the way the best helmsman on my yacht in Mallorca had done a lot of dinghy sailing.His hands on the wheel were awesome.Lots of tiny moves on the wheel.Freeing me up to take in the big picture.Crews welfare hydration passage planning review etc.

 

[oldbloke]

You don't have to be a good dinghysailorto be a good yachtsman, but all other things being equal a good dinghy sailor is going to be a better yachtsman than a non dinghy sailor because that is a skill and a familiarity with wind, tide, boat handling that the non dinghy sailor doesn't have

 

[Concerto]

Most dinghy races are short distance races and possibly multiple ones in a day. Each leg will be short and things like tide rarely come into play. If sailed in a twisty river like the Medway, then some will learn about back eddie's if the wind is light, but some never learn these finer points of using natural assistance. A good helmsman will always be looking for best performance, but a tactician will watch for wind shifts, tacking angles, tidal benefits/problems, proximity of fellow sailors and hazards. Working together, they make a good team. Having raced cruisers I can honestly say it is not just about a helmsman and tactician, but a fully connected crew who know exactly what to do in setting sails, acting as a team, and knowing how to make sure things do not go wrong. This can extend to ensuring the crew keep focused, especially in light winds. I have seen too many crews bounce around the boat and crack open the beers and wonder why some boats just ghost away. Cruising boats do require a lot more knowledge and stamina than in a dinghy.

So to answer the OP question, a dinghy sailor can make a good cruising sailor once he has learnt the necessary additional skills of running a boat and not expecting a rescue boat to come to your aid when something goes wrong.

 

[RupertW]

Thanks guys.I suppose that I was thinking of the complete skillset needed to be a cruising yachtsman.By the way the best helmsman on my yacht in Mallorca had done a lot of dinghy sailing.His hands on the wheel were awesome.Lots of tiny moves on the wheel.Freeing me up to take in the big picture.Crews welfare hydration passage planning review etc.

That’s what your autohelm is for.

 

[mrming]

A couple of areas I think being a good dinghy sailor helps:

• Being able to quickly feel when the yacht is sailing by the lee, avoiding an accidental gybe - particularly useful in gusty, shifty downwind conditions.
• Being able to helm safely downwind in larger waves, particularly those which may be too much for a given autopilot. Learning this a dinghy is quite forgiving in that you’re unlikely to break anything, but it can be very dangerous in a heavy yacht.

You can learn all this from yacht sailing too, but lots of unintended wipe outs and capsizes at a young age means your reactions are more instinctive imo.

There are of course many other aspects of cruising a yacht effectively upon which dinghy sailing experience has no bearing.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

That’s what your autohelm is for.

This must be another reason we fly past every cruising yacht we meet. Any dinghy sailor who can simply remain right side up can cane the arse out of an auto helm. They have their uses, but making good progress to windward isn't one of them.

 

[scozzy]

I have a pal who crews on my boat now and then,he sails his mirror 16 any/everywhere and loves it.. when he jumps on with me and has the helm he says it's " too easy" and almost gets bored! I have no dinghy sailing background or intentions of making sailing so "difficult" ,we both enjoy the post sail drinks the same

 

[Mark-1]

YES.

As do current dinghy sailors.

 

[mjcp]

Most dinghy sailing involves racing. You don't need to be a top racer to sail a cruiser. You might need to be a fairly proficient racer to sail any boat well, or rather, the two skills are closely related. You don't need boat on boat tactics after all, but you do need wind and tidal tactics, or you'll sit there going nowhere fast, many times. You can learn those skills on a cruiser, but, due to the presence of the iron Genoa, lots of cruisers never do. We're about to do our 1st club race of the season, a run what you brung pursuit race. We will be treated to the spectacle of half the cruiser fleet sitting out in the tide, never to reach the leeward mark, as the wind forecast is very light. The bit we sail on to do that is marked green on the chart.

Seems a bit unfair as your boat is more dingy than yacht

 

[vyv_cox]

Truth is that the 'sailing' is quite a small part of 'cruising'. It's great to be able to get the best possible out of the sails but cruising needs so many additional skills - anchoring, meteorology, safety, maintenance, etc.

 

[crown22]

I think dinghy sailing is a great low cost entry into cruising yachting bringing a lot of valuable skills but ,in some cases ,too narrow a focus and a loss of sight of the big picture.Maybe

 

[The Q]

Dinghy sailors who don't take account of tides, when they are sailing in displacement mode are going to lose badly. Both in a dinghy or a sailing cruiser.
Dinghy sailors who don't take account of sailing with a large lump of lead hanging down below aren't going to sail well. I've seen many a dinghy sailor hiring a Norfolk broads hire yacht, really struggling against the tide because they don't sail the yacht round the tack, but effectively crash tack it.

However if you are a dinghy sailor changing to a yacht, you have a huge advantage over a total newbie, the dinghy sailor can go on to learn navigation, and other big water aspects, while the newbie is still learning to make the yacht move. The dinghy sailor may have many years of feeling the wind, if not the waves so once settled on a course will have a skill that takes years to learn .

 

[wonkywinch]

I was almost a zero to hero ten years ago doing DS, CS then YM all within 2-3 years. Ten years later, I'm still learning to feel the wind and recognise it's my greatest weakness having never sailed on anything smaller than a car ferry prior to a cruising yacht.

 

[finestgreen]

You don't have to be a good dinghysailorto be a good yachtsman, but all other things being equal a good dinghy sailor is going to be a better yachtsman than a non dinghy sailor because that is a skill and a familiarity with wind, tide, boat handling that the non dinghy sailor doesn't have

I think it depends what "other things being equal" really means.

Two people with the same yacht experience but one has dinghy experience? Of course that one is likely to be better.

But if instead you ask "is time spent in a dinghy worth more than the same amount of time on a yacht developing your skills at controlling the boat under sail" it's much tricker to say.