Ego in Tatters (sob)

[TheBoatman]

Having sailed and fished for the last 35+ years. I really thought I'd done most things, by no means all, but most. I've owned my own angling boat, skippered proffessional angling boats, Potted, Trawled and even (sorry guys) long lined. I've sailed short trips and long ones. Acted as a delivery skipper to most places on the Southern North Sea. In this time I have sucessfully gained various "tickets" on the way, never lost or damaged a boat or crew. To cut it short I was at peace with myself and my own abilities.

That was until I accepted an offer to sail with a friend on his new Gaff rigged boat.

Now to me a Gaff means something completely different to him, mines a instrument for getting big, nasty fish aboard but his is some kind of boat/rig design.

I was only on board 5 mins when I realised I had never been on such a boat and I hadn't a clue on what to do. There were more pieces of string to pull than I HAD EVER SEEN BEFORE.

I seriously doubt that I could not have skippered that boat anywhere safely.

I sat there and thought, Peter, theres a rather big gapping hole in your experience here?

It blew my ego to bits.

To think there was a boat that I would have had difficulty even in getting to move.
SO, solution, I'm going sailing again with my friend to get him to teach me how to "sail" this type of boat

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[whiskerstay]

Welcome to a larger, and more wonderful world (says he who's just gone Bermudian).

All you really need to know about gaff-rig is how to sing "Hooray, and up she rises..."!



<hr width=100% size=1>"Stop mucking about, darling, and get the bloody mud weight over."

 

[Mirelle]

Fear not

It works the other way, too.

35 years and the last 30 with gaff; what DOES one do with kickers, full length battens, tiller extensions, VMG computers, winches, mainsheet tracks, genoa tracks and rope clutches? I have no idea what half the ropes on a modern boat do!

On a gaffer, a glance up the mast will tell you what each bit of string does, but on a modern boat they all disappear inside an aluminium tube!

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[TheBoatman]

Re: Fear not

<smiling> At least there are two of us?

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[Mirelle]

Statistically....

I am far more likely to make a prat of myself aboard a friend's boat than you are!


This site, maintained by Roger Walker, will help you to cheat a little, and has some general information that I have found nowhere else:

http://www.alberta-ck318.freeserve.co.uk/index.htm


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[kingfisher]

Best of both worlds

I sail a plastic fantastic, but grew up on those:
[image]http://users.pandora.be/declercqw/foto/bigimages/B2-09.jpeg[/image]

*BTW: WHY WON'T THIS WORK????*

Lucky me.

<hr width=100% size=1>Group of people on the pontoon: skipper is the one with the toolbox.
http://sirocco31.tripod.com

 

[Stemar]

Re: Why won\'t this work?

Delete the [Image] & [\Image] parts and the the address works.

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[AndrewB]

Why it doesn\'t work.

The [image] meta-tag provided on these forums will only parse (accept) certain recognised file tails as images. JPG and GIF certainly, but not JPEG.

What on earth are they?

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[qsiv]

Re: Why it doesn\'t work.

Love them - the Belgians evidently make chocolate shaped boats!

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