Does your wife support your sailing

Wansworth said:
The wife is blissfully ignorant of danger and loves it when its rough..... things I try to avoid.On the downside she persists in inventing new knots every time we err tie up, instead of learning how to do some simple knots known to most sailors.Being blissfully ignorant of nautical stuff she doesn't notice my errors .
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What's wrong with three round turns and seven half hitches, eh???
 
Daydream believer said:
When I married my wife 46 years ago I said " marry me marry my boat" & she still recalls that as part of the marriage proposal
My wife is not a sailor & does not enjoy going on the boat having been on board in a few f8's & being scared .
12 years ago we bought our current boat with the intention of sailing down the canals to the med & spending summers there. However, when she found out that the boat was too big to transit she did dayskipper & we set of round the outside. By the time we got to La Rochelle she had had enough of the cold, damp etc etc & said enough is enough & got on a plane home.That left me to turn round & sail home & discover the joys of single handed sailing without the bother of sailing for someone else
To be fair she has always supported everything I do with the boat & enjoys meeting me at various places such as Ostend, St Peter Port etc for 1 or 2 weeks hols. She also loves motoring up the Dutch canals - we once spent 6 weeks there.
She has no objection to me disappearing to sail round UK twice or cruising to Biscay etc for weeks at a time so long as she can play golf

But reading this forum I get the inpression that wifes are often a big barrier to sailors. Many hating or disliking trips. They object to money being spent & skippers have to "hide" the cost. they do not like hubby being away for more than a couple of days ( so they can accompany SWMBO on shopping trips to Tescos)
I have just read one thread where the wife has said to the owner that if she goes near the boat it will be with a drill

Is this a sort of comment common with wives - does everyone's wife sail begrudgingly. is sailing a recipe for divorce. Or are forumites wives agreeable to sailing. & if not how does one cope with the animosity
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I remember about 45 years ago a neighbour saying "Why spend 30 grand on a boat and deny your wife a £300 airticket to join you on arrival at your destination?" Sound advice.
 
My wife enjoys time away from me :) (So she says).

Allthough in fainess - we are both enjoying the boat (when its in the water) and I respect her desire for it to be flat and fun. "A caravan on the water" is what she likes and I help make that happen - plenty of time for me to sail the boat on its ear on my own or with my daughter who's a lot more keen on the sailing side of things - a good combination.
 
I had to get to husband number 3 before I found one who was up to the challenge of offshore cruising. Fifteen years later we are going strong, although he still moans when he is sent out to check strange noises in the night! :-)
 
I decided to marry my wife after a truly miserable week away on the east coast. It was rough, windy, rained constantly, I cocked up a manoeuvre in Brightlingseas marina trying to turn the boat around in tight space with the tide roaring through...

...she loved every minute. I thought if she can put up with it when its this miserable, she can put up with me. She encourages me to go sailing with our kids where I start getting all risk averse, and supports me no end. Refuses to ever miss a passage, the more extreme it is, the better. We've been out in 45 knots plus in Triola (pre kids!!).

YM article sailing with Liz: http://www.albinballad.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/ThomasArticle.pdf

Sailing-holiday-2013-2013-07-17-001.jpg
 
My other half Jane and I spent six and a half years long distance sailing visiting 15 countries havings said we would be away for two years. When we bough the boat, a heavy diplacemnt steel ketch, we went out in ever stronger winds to get used to the befrore we left from Falmouth. We had sailed in gales when chartering so it was nothing new other than a signicantly reduced motion and less heeling because of the displacement which was good news.
 
sailaboutvic said:
I have to count myself lucky, over the years I have met many a solo sailor, I too was one for quite a long time, not so much because my wife didn't like sailing but more that I didn't have one,
I spend quite a while, teaching sailing and speaking the the female on the courses I found out, many men buy a boat not knowing much about sailing, then take their wife or partner out in the weather they can't handle, scaring them shitless, then they wonder why they can't get them back on board.
If you want female company, you have to start by slowly introduce them to sailing, not scare them shitless.
Pick your day, nice sunny weather with fair winds will do the job nicely, more importantly do not shout when all goes wrong.
So after tens of thousands of miles I came to the conclusion as I am getting older I enjoy sailing more if I am sharing it.
Luckily my partner or has I call her my Co skipper, has also been sailing since a very small child, taught sailing, and just love being at sea.
The day we are not looking forward to is the day we have to move back on land.
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very sound advice
 
Yes, and she's done all the courses I have - and the short RYA engine course on her own, too (it seemed prudent). She's helped in the past with engine servicing and even with replacing sanitation hose until 2230 on a Sunday night before a 3h drive home and work the following day. These days (we're now in our mid-sixties) she finds the heeling a bit harder to take, despite having once been convinced about the physics. It's all especially laudable as she would probably have preferred paragliding when we started sailing a dozen years back. Funny isn't it - I'm quite happy with the heeling, but wasn't particularly comfortable with being at height. Perhaps if I got her a paragliding course now she'd end up feeling more comfortable with the sailing - but dare I take the risk? :)
 
Wives and girlfriends

I seem to remember the old naval toast 'Wives and girlfriends, may they never meet.'

Seems like a good idea!
 
Re: Wives and girlfriends

I count myself as very lucky- SWMBO is at least as into sailing as I am and we 'co skipper' the boat. We only have our new boat because she wanted to upgrade. With the previous boat, which was less of a project and had less issues, she would taker her non-boaty friends out without me. She hasn't taken the new one out herself yet but that'll come.

We do have slightly different roles aboard- I tend to do engine repairs etc, whilst she is far better at helming under spinnaker (I get distracted easily). She almost always handles the boat under power because I've got longer legs for jumping onto pontoons.

Couldn't possibly imagine being married to someone who doesn't want to sail.
 
Wife lets me sail and is happy about it.

I can't get her to sail with me let alone fulfill the dream of renting out and cruising for a few years.

I will still keep trying, however.
 
Im really lucky.

We have lived on our yacht for 17 years and cruised to the Caribbean twice as well as other places.

My wife is an Ocean Yachtmaster, a VHF assessor and shorebased theory Instructor.

As well as having worked in a Chandlers, she has been Admin in a sea school and now runs ours. Also been hostie when I skippered a motor boat.

So yeah, she is a bit into it!

(also Manu fan and loves cricket)

Hoo Ha!!!!!!
 
Beware. A divorced friend of mine, a very keen sailor, started a relationship with a non-sailing lady. They moved in together and she went sailing with him regularly. After about 3 years they got married. He only sailed a couple of times over the next 2 years and then sold the boat.
 
We manage to run our business together and sail together, and in harmony but maybe that's because the sailing is the only way we get completely away from work.
Four year old daughter cuddles the boat and tells her she loves her every time we go there and can't seem to get enough so I'll take that as long as it lasts.
However my wife is chasing me up the "qualification" ladder and daughter already tells me how to sail so trouble looming or the chance to sit back in my dotage and let them get on with it?!
 
I follow the sunny weather + short trip theory with my good lady. if I want a sailing blast in windy weather I take a mate who is up to and for it !
 
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When I bought my boat, my girlfriend had visions of lying on the foredeck in a bikini sipping Pimms but that bubble very quickly burst. I am grateful for the fact that she does enjoy it on nice days though and she gets stuck into maintenance tasks without complaint but she's definitely not mad keen. I'm not mad keen on some of her hobbies either though so I can't complain.
 
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