If you are fed up with La Vagabonde....

Anyone ignoring the centuries of experience avaliable is not only setting off with arms tied behind their back without the knowledge of those who have gone before, they are insulting the great many people who have paid dearly for such knowledge - where do they think the charts come from, google ?
Chay Blyth and Naomi James?

How dare they venture over the horizon with so little knowledge and no PhD in sailing issued by the University of Scuttlebutt.

https://www.ybw.com/features/crazy-voyages-sailors-without-sailing-experience-47922
 
I think the Fair Isle blog is really aimed at friends & family back home who are not sailing experts, the rest of us can tag along if we feel inclined.

What you fail to appropriate in general is the groundswell of new interest in blue water sailing inspired via YouTube, I think it is the only thing saving yachting from complete economic implosion and an alternative future that requires owners of yachts over 20 years old to shell out £5000 in end of life statutory enviro scrappage fees. These new generation YouTubers often start with little knowledge, but make up for it with youthful good health and enthusiasm. Their newly gained experiences are not broadcast at sclerotic yachting has-beens that hang around a ridiculous British backwater like Scuttlebutt. The newgen sailing YouTubers are promoting their life style and offering advice to the next intake of under 40 newbee blue water wanderers with zero experience.

Not sure what you mean by a 'complete economic implosion'. Old boats are not economical by any measure. It may be an unpalatable truth but the reality is, unless you enjoy sailboat restoration as its own reward, it makes more financial sense to collect supermarket trolleys than to invest in resuscitating a decrepit yacht. Not that my comments are, in any way, directed at people who have attempted otherwise.
Health and enthusiasm: yeah, that's what I want from my airline pilot or surgeon, as long as they post on YouTube of course. To hell with all the other sclerotic experience nonsense.
I find Fairies ridiculous but I've never posted on Fairytastic. Why have you posted here?
 
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Chay Blyth and Naomi James?

How dare they venture over the horizon with so little knowledge and no PhD in sailing issued by the University of Scuttlebutt.

https://www.ybw.com/features/crazy-voyages-sailors-without-sailing-experience-47922

That's the Chay Blythe who'd rowed across the Atlantic before trying sailing as an easier way, then ? :)

Google ' A Fighting Chance '.

I rather supect Dame Naomie read up a bit and set off with charts rather than a blank sheet of paper Blackadder style, ' just fill it in as you go if you would, the cartographers would be awfully grateful '
 
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I'm fast learning sailing has more than it's fair share of cranks!

All forums are pretty much the same.

The fun factor here though is old people who have never lived on a yacht or sailed across an ocean telling young people who film themselves living on yachts and sailing across oceans that they are doing it all wrong!

;)
 
All forums are pretty much the same.

The fun factor here though is old people who have never lived on a yacht or sailed across an ocean telling young people who film themselves living on yachts and sailing across oceans that they are doing it all wrong!

;)


A little bit on forums, in our favoured spot at least we have a solid range of experience.

Patronage reaches astounding levels in comments on YouTube itself. I used to think that some of the silly and/or sleazy comments were the fevered work of 14 year old boys but research suggests that many are chronologically adult.

I don't think these punters have rumbled that we can see what video they have actually produced :eek:
 
I rather supect Dame Naomie read up a bit and set off with charts rather than a blank sheet of paper Blackadder style, ' just fill it in as you go if you would, the cartographers would be awfully grateful '

She might have read up a bit but she survived for a very long time making a very basic navigational error. 3 months into her voyage Rob James worked out in a radio communication that her chartwork for distance calculation was not quite up to standard . She had been confused over her latitude and longitude and was measuring her progress off the wrong side of the chart with her dividers.
 
Not sure what you mean by a 'complete economic implosion'. Old boats are not economical by any measure. It may be an unpalatable truth but the reality is, unless you enjoy sailboat restoration as its own reward, it makes more financial sense to collect supermarket trolleys than to invest in resuscitating a decrepit yacht.
The decline in UK based private yacht ownership has been evident for 5 years now and previously discussed on this forum. As you say old yacht restoration is a tightrope proposition to a hoped for successful outcome and it takes youthful optimism to tackle such projects. The next generation of sailors do not get their inspiration from a place such as this stuffed to the gills with over opinionated aging eccentrics who know everything, do little in practice and to man consider television and the internet dubious passing fads as they flip their well read Pardeys book diligently taking notes on how to secure a hanked on working job to the deck or how to calibrate an anchor chain just like Nelson did on HMS Victory.

In the absence of young people buying +20 year old yachts an already wobbly yacht market would collapse except for a few niche areas such as catamarans, racy weekend corporate experience Solent fleets and the likes of JRC yachts selling upmarket blue water designs to cash rich future liveaboard customers about to head off to warmer waters.

Young people are obviously inspired by the new gen YouTube sailors, where else would that inspiration come from? Certainly not Yachting Monthly which now seems absent from news agent shelves.

The latest batch of YouTube videos from multiple channels have covered the US Annapolis boat show which I think is their biggie like the Southampton Boatshow. The top YouTubers have the same level of fame as did Claire Francis in her day. People have queued for hours around the block for a 1 minute photo meet & greet with their YouTube celebrities. Hundreds of people have packed out talks given by SV Delos and RubyRose. Most people in these audiences have little sailing experience, they are the next generation of sailors.

The top 20 sailing YouTubers are doing more to perpetuate sailing in the long term than this place. I don't think the self appointed experts here realize how how marginal and distant their form of "proper" sailing is to global norms.
 
I'm all for youthful enthusiasm - I was skipper of my own little boat from age 8 - but that was based on a lot of reading the works of experienced people like Arthur Ransome, Alec Rose, Chay Blythe, Francis Chichester, Alan Villiers & co.

Anyone ignoring the centuries of experience avaliable is not only setting off with arms tied behind their back without the knowledge of those who have gone before, they are insulting the great many people who have paid dearly for such knowledge - where do they think the charts come from, google ? :rolleyes:
I did take my fathers 16 ft creel boat out with my brother , I was also 8 yrs old and my brother was near 10 , but I don’t remember him calling himself skipper or anything like that !!
 
All forums are pretty much the same.

The fun factor here though is old people who have never lived on a yacht or sailed across an ocean telling young people who film themselves living on yachts and sailing across oceans that they are doing it all wrong!

;)
“ sensible “ words indeed
 
She might have read up a bit but she survived for a very long time making a very basic navigational error. 3 months into her voyage Rob James worked out in a radio communication that her chartwork for distance calculation was not quite up to standard . She had been confused over her latitude and longitude and was measuring her progress off the wrong side of the chart with her dividers.

Next you will be telling us she was trying to reverse !! Watched her returning into Dartmouth , got quite a welcoming ,,,,oh but was not her boat sponsored , shocking !! And RIP Rob , tragic , simplest of accidents
 
And RIP Rob , tragic , simplest of accidents
That tragic episode needs to be retold annually.

In British waters: MOB + casualty along side for more than 10 minutes = deploy the f*ckin liferaft canister, puncture the roof arch and use the life-raft as an intermediate rescue platform.

In the kindest possible way that is what the Rob James coroner concluded in 1982 or 83.
 
The fun factor here though is old people who have never lived on a yacht or sailed across an ocean telling young people who film themselves living on yachts and sailing across oceans that they are doing it all wrong!

;)

The decline in UK based private yacht ownership has been evident for 5 years now and previously discussed on this forum. As you say old yacht restoration is a tightrope proposition to a hoped for successful outcome and it takes youthful optimism to tackle such projects. The next generation of sailors do not get their inspiration from a place such as this stuffed to the gills with over opinionated aging eccentrics who know everything, do little in practice and to man consider television and the internet dubious passing fads as they flip their well read Pardeys book diligently taking notes on how to secure a hanked on working job to the deck or how to calibrate an anchor chain just like Nelson did on HMS Victory.

In the absence of young people buying +20 year old yachts an already wobbly yacht market would collapse except for a few niche areas such as catamarans, racy weekend corporate experience Solent fleets and the likes of JRC yachts selling upmarket blue water designs to cash rich future liveaboard customers about to head off to warmer waters.

Young people are obviously inspired by the new gen YouTube sailors, where else would that inspiration come from? Certainly not Yachting Monthly which now seems absent from news agent shelves.

The latest batch of YouTube videos from multiple channels have covered the US Annapolis boat show which I think is their biggie like the Southampton Boatshow. The top YouTubers have the same level of fame as did Claire Francis in her day. People have queued for hours around the block for a 1 minute photo meet & greet with their YouTube celebrities. Hundreds of people have packed out talks given by SV Delos and RubyRose. Most people in these audiences have little sailing experience, they are the next generation of sailors.

The top 20 sailing YouTubers are doing more to perpetuate sailing in the long term than this place. I don't think the self appointed experts here realize how how marginal and distant their form of "proper" sailing is to global norms.

+1 to both of you.
 
+1 to both of you.



Yep, always a good show when our young bucks take to the barricades. For the older listeners here is a well woke couple learning by doing on their first longer offshore passage.

The more fastidious, bowler hatted, members of the RYS may like to look away:


PS

Their latest vid is - "How to anti foul your boat", think I will save that one for later
 
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And yet they have a "Tips to sail the world " menu on their blog?

I havent looked at it, so don't know if its crap or not. BUT, by the very fact that they are out there doing it, continuously, day after day, while not making them salty old seadogs it surely gives them some kind of right to post such things?

Now if a 60 plus year old brit who has only ever done 2 week charters and sails out of his club at the weekend, until retirement when he can cruise for 4-6 weeks at a time posted such a tips list on their blog, that would be ridiculous!
 
I havent looked at it, so don't know if its crap or not. BUT, by the very fact that they are out there doing it, continuously, day after day, while not making them salty old seadogs it surely gives them some kind of right to post such things?

Now if a 60 plus year old brit who has only ever done 2 week charters and sails out of his club at the weekend, until retirement when he can cruise for 4-6 weeks at a time posted such a tips list on their blog, that would be ridiculous!



To be fair, the Kittiwake team have sailed from the UK to the Med, anyone can suggest how to prepare for the World, the interesting stuff is served up after you have done it.

Your second paragraph reads like another troll - to add to several others in this thread. ;-)
 
Kitty wake we’re at their best when going down from England throo France and Spain etc ,visiting lots of ports on their way giving some very good information , still not bad for those of us interested in the med
 
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