Do you dread seeing a boat with a particular national ensign come towards you?

KellysEye said:
>Having spent a long time in various anchorages I have come to dread seeing the French ensign on a boat coming towards us.
I don't know why but the French will either anchor too close, not put enough scope down or not dig their anchor in.

Exactly our experience every time a French boat anchored in front of us it dragged down on us. They also steal dinghies and outboards in the two weeks before they return to France, one French yacht was caught off Guadeloupe with ten of them on board. I remember tying up a dinghy in a marina in Guadeloupe to talk to Patrice of Mechanique Pleasance about a new generator who said ''don't bother locking the dinghy to the dock it's too early for the French to steal it''.
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Who was it who said that "the British equip their yachts to go sailing, but the French go sailing to equip their yachts"?
 
Tony Cross said:
Who was it who said that "the British equip their yachts to go sailing, but the French go sailing to equip their yachts"?
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NOT guilty ...
I think we being unfair to French sailor , we know many who will go out of there way to help you out , only last year a guy we only just met , took away my windlass in a car he had just hired and brought it back a few days later wouldnt take any money from us other then for the repair which he give us a recived for the amount he paid 50 euros , some of the best sailor we met have been french , and quite a lot of the French sailors we met and have become friends with have invited us to go and stay with them in France , getting email in the winter asking us to join them at there home ,
Again we found when we approach a French boat to chat , I most of the time are ask to come aboard , the same goes for the Italian , British boat seen more reseve and chat to us while we in the dinghy same goes for the Germany and Spanish one of the most socialable are the yanks , they do like to talk .
As far as anyone anchoring close to us we had more problem with Germany and British yacht then any other nationality and that include the Italian , the lest problem we had is in Crostia the most is Ionian , Greece , so far here In Turkey all been well althought we still have two months to go so any thing can happen .
I think most of us who criticise the France and Italain haven't taken the time to get to know them maybe one reason is the language barrier .
if you make the effort you may just be surprise after all there no different then the Brits , we all cruising folks , some good some bad and at times we all make mistakes and cock it up .
 
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>Who was it who said that "the British equip their yachts to go sailing, but the French go sailing to equip their yachts"?

It's true. There is a French sailing book with an ISBN number and a chapter on how to steal things. There was Brit boat in the Chagos archipelago, his wife had gone ashore in the dinghy so the boat looked empty. The skipper was on board below, heard a noise at the back of the boat and went to investigate, it was French guy trying to steal his wind vane. When challenged he said ''sorry wrong boat''.
 
"Who was it who said that "the British equip their yachts to go sailing, but the French go sailing to equip their yachts"?

Likewise, Lock up your gear the (please enter country of your personal prejudice)
 
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Time for my favourite poem I think (which, strangely, I read in a newspaper in Australia). It's called "Heaven and Hell"

Heaven is....
An English policeman,
A German engineer,
A French cook,
An Italian lover,
And everything organised by the Swiss.

Hell is....
A German policeman,
A French engineer,
An English cook,
A Swiss lover,
And everything organised by the Italians.
 
Don't care about the ensign but the italians will always anchor too close, the germans will strip off exposing 80 year old flab and bits over breakfast, eastern Europeans with big chips, bully their way around, French expose pleasant curves but SMBO dissapproves.

But if a boat with a forum burgee pulls in we change our ensign and hide below talking Afrikaans till they've gone! :)
 
>Some Brits / Germans / Italians / etc steal stuff as well.

I have no proof of that and I've never seen a German boat but there may be a few and I've only seen four Italian boats in the Caribbean. The most boats are American, followed by Brit, French and Scandos. Do you have any proof Brits / Germans / Italians / etc ? steal, if so where when and what?

And I can assure the French do steal as a Frenchman in Martinique told me, as I mentioned in a previous post, I can also assure they have sailing book which has a chapter on how to steal things. One thing I didn't mention is as well as stealing dinghies and outboards they stole a racing boat from the BVI's repainted and renamed it in the French side of St Martin and sailed it back to France. All of this happens in two to four weeks before hurricane season starts in July.
 
Most French sailors in my experience are competent and good company, especially if you start the conversation in French.

However, there are as many French scrotes as British. The difference is that we lock ours up. The French teach them sailing in the Iles Glenan in the forlorn hope of reforming them. Hence the sifnificant number of French sailing thieves.
 
In 18 years of sailing the French coast we have never had anything stolen. On the other hand, we have been given things by French yachtsmen: wine, fish, a sailing novel, port guides, meals, an unwanted piece of garlic sausage ....
 
>In 18 years of sailing the French coast we have never had anything stolen. On the other hand, we have been given things by French yachtsmen: wine, fish, a sailing novel, port guides, meals, an unwanted piece of garlic sausage ....

That doesn't surprise me thieving close to home is not a good idea. The Caribbean is a different matter.
 
Belligerent Germans, "it is best for me" Itallians and aloof Swedes I was expecting. But the French cast universally as waterborne Jacques Mesrines is a new one on me. I humbly withdraw my "hackneyed national stereotypes" comment in the face of such novelty.
 
laika said:
After that and Braquo I
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laika!
Glad you liked Braquo, have you seen "Tunnel" ? (not sure of the English title), where they find a corpse split in two pieces in the Tunnel, exactly over the border road stripe, one half over the British side, one half over the French side (no spoiler it's the first few seconds of the series), then all the investigation is made by the two polices, more or less obliged to work together


regards
 
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