jordanbasset
Well-Known Member
Am sure that made you feel good
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Is yacht handling
- Thread starter Mr Cassandra
- Start date
Mr Cassandra
Well-Known Member
I can live with the fact you are wrong.?Most schools employ their instructors as freelance. One of the primary aims of an instructor is to uphold the required standards. There is no obligation for an instructor to recommend to the Chief Instructor to issue a course completion certificate. If it become apparent that a candidate is struggling, there is an obligation upon the instructor to communicate and to give the candidate every opportunity to improve.
I joined the ranks of sailing instruction in my retirement from a real job. With regard to cock-ups, I always tell my students that other sailors will not be judgmental. Most of us at one time or another have most likely done something similar. From your OP, it seems as though I was wrong
Theses yachts are usually large and powerful should we allow people to use machinery outside their competency in all walks of life or only in your new profession because the training is not of a high enough standard
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ghostlymoron
Well-Known Member
I was taught stern to mooring by the leader of our Sailing Holidays flotilla in the Ionian. Seemed fairly simple as no currents to worry about. I hadn't learned the technique on my Day Skipper practical in the UK.
Refueler
Well-Known Member
I have seen inexperienced people make cock ups,
Am sure that made you feel good
Even she laughed ..... you weren't there .... she was really confused why she was standing there with rope in hand ...
Irish Rover
Well-Known Member
The most difficult part of Med mooring is keeping my promise to my wife not to tell all the idiots on the quay shouting instructions and making ridiculous hand signals to go fornicate with themselves. Nothing is more annoying or distracting. I usually make a very slow close pass on the spot where I plan to berth and if there's anyone on the neighbouring boats I tell them I'm coming in so as to give them a chance to adjust their fenders if necessary. I really appreciate the guy or girl who says "OK let me know if you want to do something". The next most difficult part for me is pinpointing exactly where to drop the anchor.
jordanbasset
Well-Known Member
I would add to that people making sarcastic comments from the shore, it really doesn't help
Skylark
Well-Known Member
That is a profound question. Most sea based training courses by most countries one way or another feed into the IMO of the UN. Hence standards are set by the UN. Others have mentioned the ICC, this was originally created as being required to navigate the Rhine and Danhube. It has grown and is now issued under ENECE. The ICC assessment includes berthing onto a windward pontoon and off a leeward pontoon.
Suggest that you raise your question to your local MP in the first instance.
westernman
Well-Known Member
It is simple enough when there are no currents and most importantly it is not blowing a F6 or more on the nose - which renders any precision alignment or backing well nigh impossible on boats without bow thrusters.
Indeed when parking stern to in such conditions, I usually restort to calling the marina and ask them to send out their bow thruster (bloke in a dink) to help me.
A cross wind is much easier to handle - then you know which way and by how much the bow is going to get blown off - you set everything up and then wait for the wind to start to blow off the bow so you line up. At the right moment, you wack it into reverse at high revs and then straight into the slot between the other boats. A burst of forward with a bit of rudder to align the stern just before you reach the dock.
Refueler
Well-Known Member
That may work with your boat ... you try that with mine and you will be paying for the damage to the other boats !
Refueler
Well-Known Member
Depending on who they are of course - but most boaters do not object to 'handing' a boat in ... Of course on big boats with windage etc. - this can be difficult .... but small to medium size can be handed in instead of trying to power in etc.
anoccasionalyachtsman
Well-Known Member
That's odd. I've reverse parked in the Med since 1979, so YM article aside I wonder if the harbours you were visiting in '95 had the odd protruding rock and it was safer to get everyone going in forwards?
capnsensible
Well-Known Member
What is a bendy toy?
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
I remember watching a sailing school boat from Whitehaven completely and spectacularly cock up about six successive attempts to come alongside the pontoon at Kirkcudbright. It would be cruel to derive amusement from learners' attempts, but this was the instructor trying to demonstrate how to do it. Ah, the joys of 5 knot tides!
Refueler
Well-Known Member
Its an old nickname for a Beneteau ... yes I'm that old to remember quite a few of the nicknames ..
Refueler
Well-Known Member
The Bendytoy that showed lack of thought I mentioned earlier - that was the 'boss' Skipper.
BobnLesley
Well-Known Member
It works in the other direction too: I don't recall getting too worked-up about going onto Greek quays, though initially we tended to anchor off overnight and practice going onto quays at 11:00 am when there was room to get it wrong; more importantly we'd spent the preceding year or two coming through the western-Med going bow/stern to quays using lazy-lines, so it was just one more step. However, I do recall on our way back west we went into Barcelona to be faced with alongside pontoons - the first we'd seen in about ten years! - and I all but crapped myself!
BobnLesley
Well-Known Member
One of my major irritations when we were in the eastern-Med was that we'd regularly come into a harbour and notice several obviously cruising/livaboard yachts already moored-up with occupants in the cockpits; they would look-up and recognise our yacht as being 'one of the fraternity' and quickly assemble on the quay to assist. Even if we subsequently got it wrong, we'd be jovially reassured that it was 'just one of those things/particularly tricky today/could've happened to anyone'. However, should an equally obvious charter yacht appear ten minutes later and who was more likely to need some help, it was rare to see anyone leaping ashore to assist, until of course it'd actually gone tits-up, at which point the skipper would be getting a whole heap of conflicting advice, intermingled with abuse and all of it at high volume. Don't berate the novices for getting it wrong, try to assist before it turns into snagged chains and abuse. I appreciate that there are those who know it all/can't be told/consider such offers as a slight to their manhood, but for the most part, we found that a polite and early offer of advice and/or assistance was generally accepted in the spirit which it was intended; whereas we never saw anyone ever get bought a beer for hurling abuse at a struggling novice.
That said, getting yourself securely moored in a safe spot at Fiskardo (our favourite was tied bows to the wall immediately below the ferry ramp) early on a Sunday afternoon - is it still first-night port of choice for the charterers? - then settling down in the cockpit with a few cold beers as the afternoon breeze picks-up is hard to beat for entertainment value.
stranded
Well-Known Member
And it is not even as if Med mooring methodology is consistent across the Med. We earned our spurs Sunsailing in Greece, mostly anchoring off, occasional lazy lines. We then spent a while in Croatia, where lazy lines were much more common and the top priority, almost obsession, was getting a lazy line on. So when we first went to Med Spain and the marineros mostly ignored our pleading to hand us the lazy lines we were in complete panic until we realised that there they concentrate on the two stern lines to the quay for you to steer against, doing the lazy lines at leisure, which method we came much to prefer, and in fact prefer it to most alongside berths.
grumpygit
Well-Known Member
You just have to ignore all the shouting idiots from shore or other boats and just get on and do your job of mooring.
The one that really used to annoy me was lining up dead center for the gap and dropping the hook and then someone starts screaming out that I'm over their anchor, what the fluff is their anchor doing there in the first place?? Or you'll not fit in that gap and so on . . .
All the RYA training boats here in the Aegean teach med mooring and quite rightly and methodically so. I've never know anyone do this in the UK, and to be honest I can't thank of anywhere I used to sail in my UK sailing area where I could do this.
Boats are different as fin keeled boats are quite simple and forgiving, some aren't . . . . With my last boat, a long keeler with a large skeg rudder which I let a RYA instructor have control of to med moor, he gave up after umpteen attempts!
AntarcticPilot
Well-Known Member
Out of interest, how would you do a "Med moor" if single handed? I can't imagine how you'd do it, as you need to be at both ends of the boat at once. You need someone on the bow to drop the anchor and let out chain, and then someone on the stern to get the shore lines on. In anything of a current or wind, you need someone on the helm; on a boat that responds poorly in reverse like mine, you need someone on the helm in any situation. I can just about imagine doing it two-up - one on the helm, the other dropping the anchor and then coming to the stern to handle lines - but I can't visualize a way to do it single handed.
If I ever go to the Mediterranean, I think I'd better anchor off!
If I ever go to the Mediterranean, I think I'd better anchor off!