How do you get SWMBO to set foot on board?

FullCircle

FullCircle

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Serious questions and has many facets.

Did your SWMBO never set foot on board, or did she used to come but has kinda stopped over the years?
Did she have a horrendous experience and walk off, or did your boat just not have enough charming featuures, such as toilets?
Did she have a say in what boat?
Did you buy a proper cruising boat and then find she still wouldn't come aboard?

How do you manage to squeeze the budget from an unwilling partner?
 
Mine came over from the USA on a Tuesday in January never having sailed before ever. By the following Saturday she was scraping 10 years of antifoul from the bottom of a W33 in the rain and the Martini Ad image of boating had vanished. 23 years on and until the last boat was sold in December she was still on board every weekend, every cruise and helping with all the winter work. We are retiring to the USA.... to live on a boat although I think she is wanting to opt out of the antifoul jobs as we are going for a 49ft trawler yacht, with a displacement of nearly 25 tons, so it may be time to rope in grandkid labour in exchange for hols on board! Did I mention she never got seasick in nearly 45,000 miles and could cook in conditions I couldn't eat in.

Is this unusual, I thought all nautical SWMBOs were like this? :)
 
Simples. Choose the right partner. SWMBO did her first offshore race at sixteen days old. She won that and has been winning them ever since. Won Nationals in two different classes and has sailed professionally. My problem is trying to skipper her... well it is my boat.
 
FullCircle said:
Serious questions and has many facets.

Did your SWMBO never set foot on board, or did she used to come but has kinda stopped over the years?
Did she have a horrendous experience and walk off, or did your boat just not have enough charming featuures, such as toilets?
Did she have a say in what boat?
Did you buy a proper cruising boat and then find she still wouldn't come aboard?

How do you manage to squeeze the budget from an unwilling partner?
Click to expand...

Our club has a 'ladies section'. My missis is a diver, and has been on boats with me for years, so no problem there, but I know a lot of the other ladies in the club love going off sailing when the men are not there - gives them a lot more confidence, they say.

Last year we did a trip up to Portishead, only a few hours from Cardiff, but this is the Bristol channel. My missis and another girl took our boat, and I sailed with her husband on his boat. They were delighted to complete the passage 'on their own'.

The only downside is that they took our boat out for one cruise, four swmbos, and flew a pink Skull and crossbones, which they photographed and put on our club forum. Pink!

Generally, I think the ladies section is an excellent idea to encourage more women to sail, and all in our club agree. Pink flags, notwithstanding.
 
Did your SWMBO never set foot on board, or did she used to come but has kinda stopped over the years?
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Came on right from the start. We had been looking for holiday place in France but got fed up with the travel involved just in looking, let alone getting value out of actual use. She said "You have always wanted a boat, haven't you?" So she was in from the start (although had never sailed, at all, before)


Did she have a horrendous experience and walk off, or did your boat just not have enough charming featuures, such as toilets?
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Has had horrendous experiences that have prompted "Are we going to die?" type questions. (To which the reply, to my shame, was "Not if you shut up and do as you are told")


Did she have a say in what boat?
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Yup. We went out shopping on her spec. Initially: wheelhouse, motor sailor, high solid gunwales, a Fisher, in fact. But every time we found a boat that met her spec. she said "I am not going out in that: it's a tug!" When the exasperated broker finally sent us to see Witchfinder, a Sigma 362, he and I both were dumbfounded when she said "Now that has a bit of style, lets get that one..."

Did you buy a proper cruising boat and then find she still wouldn't come aboard?
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Well, we think its a proper cruising boat, and are both quite disappointed to be selling it.
 
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My SWMBO is onboard before me!, she comes down after work folds the awning down, fills the fridge with beer and food, then rings me and tells me to look across the marina where I work, I then see her waving from our boat. I am out of the door at 4pm on the dot and walk round to the boat to find she has my shorts and a new shirt and the book I am currently reading all waiting for me, 10 mins after finishing work we are out on the fjord in a secluded little lagoon for a picnic and read in the sun!
 
When we were courting (in the 60's) I took her out on my 14' cat which was basically the same as a modern Hobie cat; so she knew what she was letting herself in for. It went like a train, but the mast beam was placed exactly where the two bow waves met so there was a constant stream of cold water blasting back across our decks into our faces. We sold it after we got married & when the kids came & we had a little more income, we got a little Heron. It was so much fun (and a so much drier) that we tried chartering a small cruiser. The following year we bought our own.

Yes there have been bad experiences, but we learned from them. With the family aboard the focus is on fun & relaxation. Pleasant anchorages & exploring ashore. Easy living & no targets to meet. As long as it stays fun she keeps coming although she is finding the harbour ladders & dinghy transfers harder as we both get older. The extended family come with us too & take their share of the galley work etc.
 
I had only just bought the boat when SWMBO and I got together. It was a question of love me, love my boat. She did, and does!

She enjoys the sailing, except when its cold and/or scary, of course, and also helps with all the winter maintenance.

Only problem is, at 4'10" and 7 stone she's very little help dragging the dinghy up the beach......
 
Swmbo said that if she came down to the boat it would be with a drill - and after all I did name it after her, that is her mother's name for her - Little Madam
 
I am reminded of an old ad in a personal column I once heard about.

Wanted, warm hearted female for friendship and romance. Must have own boat. Please reply to po box xxxx. With photo (of boat).
 
She's not my SWMBO, but I have a female friend who has joined me on KS a few times. No prior sailing experience, but picking it up really fast and apparently loving every minute. She even came and helped out with antifouling before ever setting foot on board.

My mum is much more keen on sailing than my Dad, and a better helm under sail to boot.

Where does this idea that the ladies don't like sailing come from?

Pete
 
FullCircle said:
How do you get SWMBO to set foot on board?
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No encouragement needed, she had a sense of adventure.

FullCircle said:
Did she have a horrendous experience and walk off
Click to expand...
A few horrendous experiences, some involving ships and me failing to explain their lack of threat, she also goes into a semi comatose state on any offshore passage over 5 hours so I try to plan around that. Sometimes I singlehand somewhere nice like St Malo or Concarneau and she flys in.

She even survived me leaping out of the bunk at 4am in Lulworth cove shouting "we're on the rocks".

FullCircle said:
or did your boat just not have enough charming featuures, such as toilets?
Click to expand...
I think she would mutiny without the hot air heating and the decent onboard showering arrangement. Lack of sufficient a/c inverter watts to power tonges and a hair dryer certainly causes her distress in the coifferage department. I also had to buy extra utensils to prevent the galley slave from deserting.

Beyond that female first mates require lots of shore excursions, dining out one day in three, beach days, solo shore exploration time, colourful day blankets, coordinated cushions, scented candles, a convenient in-cockpit wine glass resting place and lots of sun.

They also have an unstated desire to learn what is happening nautically speaking.
 
jonjo5 said:
I think she would mutiny without the hot air heating and the decent onboard showering arrangement.
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So would I, but then I like to be clean and warm, I also eat fresh food with little need for tin openers. The boat is clean inside with warm soft furnishing and does not smell of diesel. Even if I sailed alone I wouldn't have it any other way, it is not meant to be some sort of endurance test.
 
SHWMBOs and sailing

A few years ago there was an article about just this by Lin Pardey. The essence of it was to take things slowly and don't push her/him any further than they are comfortable with.

I introduced "the boss" on a Drascombe Lugger in Milford Haven. We graduated to a Hurley 22 and have just upgraded that with plans to head to the Med in 2012 - assuming we can fleece some olympian for the rent on the house.

The mantra I have always found works when trying to reach a compromise runs along the lines of "If we aren't both having fun it isn't worth doing."

As in everything, you have to compromise a bit.

Big scares are inevitable of course. We had one early on with the Hurley when a forecast 4-5 for a Lyme Bay crossing turned into a 6 gusting 7. We checked into Torquay Marina, had a stiff drink in some execrable pub and then I got her on the helm across to Brixham the next day. It was still blustery but it restored her confidence a treat.

I hope this helps.
 
Mine just isn't up for sailing in the UK. Managed to coax her into 2 weeks on a Bav 49 in the Med in Aug. I think that was just about acceptable. Not sure my Pioneer in the UK is ever going to do it. On the other hand I don't do much to the garden so I guess we are quits. I guess we are happy with different things and are happy having some time apart. Still trying to find the right regular crew however.

Yoda
 
When SWMBO and I met 28 years ago she had already done a little bit of sailing in Poole, and we began to club race together in my Enterprise on a northern exposed reservoir. We got cold, we got wet, and we coped and enjoyed it..I thought. We did a very windy and rough weeks sailing/racing at Largs in a Wayfarer in 1985..and we did a Flotilla in 87, all of which she either coped with, or in the case of the Flotilla Hol, really enjoyed.

So I thought.."I've cracked it here" in a sailing sense, but I couldn't have been more wrong. We had quite a few years with no boat, and that gap and getting a wee bit older made her very cautious and really quite frightened, so even though I try and tell her that in the winds I sail in, the Dehler will not fall over/capsize, she is now petrified at more than 5 deg of heel or if the wind gusts to 3 or more.

Now I'm not exactly gung ho myself, and I only bought a cruiser because I thought we can picnic and generally pootle about rather than race (though I'd quite like to race in a low key sort of way), but it doesn't make much difference. I think I have lost my sailing partner, which seriously affects the use I get out of the boat.

I also notice over the years that in the bumps and bashes you get in boats, she bruises far more easily and worse than I do, which might be another problem. Has anyone else noticed this in their ladies/women.

Tim
 
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