Is sailing too easy now?

[absit_omen]

Probably because lifejackets are less intrusive and more sexy now. I saw an entire family wearing them on a beautiful day in high summer - they were in the Mulberry Bush Pub in Conway Marina. I guess they wanted to tell the proles that they actually had access to a boat of some sort!

Seriously though, a lifejacket does have limitations which all may not appreciate. No use in countering hypothermia - as happened to those two poor people who died in the Menai Stait in July.

 

[aitchw]

Re: Is sailing too easy now? re aitchw

Even without including dinghies. You are taking your sample from boats that are used for passage making. There are thousands of boats used for coastal and inshore sailing that never cross a sealane and never have to be left to autopilot.

 

[Peppermint]

Re: Clearly it is.

When you see the poncy, mamby pamby, flower giving, softies that call themselves sailors these days. Sailing around in things with more space and amenities than yer average care home. With their colour coordinated leisure suites, glossy wives and shiney children.

God it'd make Nelson weep.

 

[LadyInBed]

Is sailing too easy now? No

Not when you still see as many people as ever making cock-ups coming alongside, having trouble tying a bowline in a shore line or calling for assistance when they could get themselves out of some perceived trouble.

 

[trouville]

Some modern boats make sailing stress free!
Ive always sailed old wooden boats as there so comfortable and pleasent to be in,and provide plenty to do when in port,while plastic boat owners become un fit eating and drinking in the cockpit a wooden boat owner will be enjoying the pleasurs of maintaining.

However when half way to Corsica (or where ever) the wind really gets going and the sea steeper with spray flying i begin to wonder if all my fastenings are sound if the bit of rot in the stem has got worse?and what im doing aboard a chiness puzzle where a sprung plank would cause great stress!

Then i would dearly love to be sailing my old alpa 11.50 with her solid strong plastic hull, or an IF increadably strong and seaworthy, but not a bavaria with foam filled rudder and keel screwed on?

So a modern plastic boat one properly built though would be my choise, but in harbour or day sailing a wooden boat!