How to get your wife to come

[Guest]

Bill,
My wife and I are similar but how many all male crewed boats do you see in the Solent and not all charter!!!!We are the lucky ones...There are plenty whose wives will sit on the boat but not sail...

Pete

 

[Guest]

It's a long time since I read your book Bill, but if my memory serves me correctly you were obliged to fit a bath in your first boat in order for your wife to agree to come.

 

[billmacfarlane]

Yep I've seen lots of them and I know how lucky I am. On the other hand at my club most of the cruising boats are sailed by couples who are the same as us.

 

[Guest]

Right! And also in the second boat. A price worth paying, and there are small baths.

You can get a 4' 6" one in France. You see, this has made me an expert in small baths.

William Cooper

 

[Guest]

Bill MacF, you are making the same point that I am. I see far too many cases of couples where what you call the old role model system still operates. Far too many. Laurel and I have been sailing together for almost 60 years. We have sailed over 100,000 miles together, and she is quite capable of berthing our 80 footer, and she does it most of the time because she got arthritis and it is better that I heave the ropes about which requires more strength.

That is the way family cruising should be. We are saying the same thing. Do not suppose that all old people are stereotypical. There have been many more like us that we have met ocean-cruising.

William Cooper

 

[Guest]

I will patially accept that rebuke, but only partially because much depends on what is meant by superiority. I gave up thinking of people in terms of superiority years ago.

Some are better at something than others may be. We are not equal in ability, nor in experience, nor are we equal in our capacity to profit from experience. The fad for equality is a chimera.

I am afraid I sometimes commit two errors on this board. One, I condense arguments (in the logic mode) because brevity demands simplicity and that can lead to ambiguities if you approach a subject from a different cultural background, as we seem to do.

Two. I have a tendency to tease. Perhaps I shouldn't. If it offends, I'm sorry.

William Cooper

 

[billmacfarlane]

Apologies Bill , I thought from the original thread you were one of the stereotypical old bores that wear Pringle sweaters and rant on about women in the corners of golf club bars and yacht clubs. Glad we agree on family sailing. Hope I'm lucky enough have 55 years sailing with my wife . I'm afraid I agree with your agent about the unfortunate title,

 

[Guest]

I would estimate that fewer than 25% of the wives at my club go sailing. If you were to talk to them, as I have at club functions, you would get a mix of reasons. Most commonly, however, they would tell you of the trip(s) where the husband did the macho bit and sailed off in a F6, of the cold and primitive facilities on board, of the fear of heeling, and of husbands playing Capn Bligh and expecting a physically weaker wife to do all the anchor pulling and rope handling whilst they steered the boat.

Sure there are exceptions, but these four are the commonest reasons.

But then you may want to spend a long weekend with the lads, have a good thrash to windward, dont bother shaving or washing, and spend all night breaking wind in the forward cabin after 6 pints and a chicken madras. Some of our club members do just that.

 

[Guest]

Bo*****s

Where do you sail? Many women like to cook - and they prefer it to many aspects of sailing - just as men let the testosterone rip and boast about being heeled over 30 degrees in an F8.

Bill wasn't being sexist - the REALITY is that many men EXPECT their wives to do the cooking and cleaning below decks (na dentertain the disgruntlesd children et. etc.). I've seen countless couples over the past two years alone where the wives hate the boats because they mean all of the unpleasnt jobs they're used to doing only in poorer conditions with poorer equipment (like sinks which don't even hold a dinner plate on there bottoms).

Maybe you do accomplish more than 50% of the cooking and dishwashing etc. on your boat, but you are probably in the minority.

IF more men considered such creature comforts as a private head, a bit of elegance here and there, consideration of who does what, then maybe there would be a few less stories of wives finding something else to do on the weekends. That would give those guys MORE sailing time, too.

 

[brian_neale]

I have to ask if it is right to make wives come along for the ride - unless they want to? I know men whose wives love sailing as much as they do. My wife is happy to potter up the river on a quiet summer's evening, as long as "you do not put those sail things up!" She has sailed with me on charters in the past, chooses not to do so any more, but encourages me to sail, because I come home tired but happy and infinitely more relaxed than after a business trip or another week in the office. Maybe it's just a very expensive allotment or an alternative to golf. On the other hand, she did not expect me to accompany her to the painting course that she is at today and next week. Who said that equality is not the same as identical treatment in this forum recently?

 

[Guest]

test reply

 

[Guest]

>Can Scuttlebutters please drag themselves from past times when men were men and the women doubted it , and into the 21st century. Then maybe we can stop talking all this sexist crap and talk about what we really enjoy doing. SAILING.

Bloody well said, Bill. It does get a bit tedious at times, chaps...

 

[Guest]

I don\'t have a wife

Can you hire them?