MIddle Aged Dread ?

[max_power]

I have noticed in recent years, that many sailor's tend to become more conservative with regard to sailing. i.e not going so far , more concerned about weather forecasts etc. etc.

Is this something we should guard against or is it just the natural way of things ?

In theory, we have less to lose because we have been around longer than the younger set, and probably need a bit more adventure in life to keep the interest and challenge going. Then you have Sir Alec Rose and Francis Chichester flying the senior citizens flag - or are they the exception to the rule ?

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[TheBoatman]

Its got to be the natural way of things, when your young green water over the decks is an adventure, you have no idea how much abuse a particular fitting will stand you just believe that it will last, but as you get older you do in fact get wiser because by that time you've had fittings break under load your level of discomfort as seriously decreased, you've had more time to hear the horror stories.
Just relax and be a TOG it's fun watching the youngsters rushing about like blue arsed flies and thinking "I was like that once, thank GOD I'm not now"

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[johnsomerhausen]

Re: Old Aged Dread ?

Indeed,we old fogies tend to be more conservative than we were umpteen years ago. mostly because we aren't as agile as we were then, so "reef early and reef deep", look at the sky and get weeathe forecasts. That doesn't mean we don't go as far or further than we did before, simply because we now have more time. A lady I know crossed single-handed from Newfoundland to Ireland at age 79 in her 30 ft boat and I 've gone single-handed to Europe and back to the US via the Caribbean at age 72 in my 29 ft boat. Just came back from Bermuda where I'd left my boat last Nvember (had to abort another cruise to the Caribbean because of engine trouble and a leak).
joohn

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[Evadne]

When I first got my boat I was told an old fisherman's caution, that it is better to be in here, wishing you were out there than to be out there, wishing you were in here. Despite such good advice I found that it was only really personal experience that made me take this on board. It isn't until you have seriously frightened yourself, been there, done it and got the T-shirt that you see the difference between adventure and recklessness. My wife tells me she wants to enjoy herself whenever we go out, not get cold and wet and sick and frightened (i.e. like she did on last year's summer holiday...maybe I'm not as cautious as I think I am).

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[Twister_Ken]

Re: Old Aged Dread ?

>because of engine trouble and a leak<

You, or the boat?

~;-)

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.writeforweb.com/twister1>Let's Twist Again</A>

 

[tome]

Go along with this. I used to enjoy a hard night beat to windward in a Biscay gale with a strong crew, and was largely oblivious to any danger. Nowadays I sail with my inexperienced wife and have tried hard not to push things too far too fast.

We've gradually increased our exposure to more challenging conditions and she's now quite confident in fresh weather, although she doesn't enjoy steering downwind in anything too lively. She helmed the boat defiantly when we had 58 knots across the deck last year (and shredded our genoa), and thoroughly enjoyed an earlier lively trip down the Alderney race. If conditions are rough I have to admit I still worry about her discomfort but am gradually learning that she has confidence in both boat and skipper.

I'm much more careful about checking the rig and replacing gear than I ever was, probably a combination of age and responsibility for my wife's safety. I still enjoy a good bash occasionally with a strong crew!

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[Andrew_Bray]

They say that the more experienced you are, the more you realise just how much you got away with when you were younger. The more you know, the more you realise there is to be cautious about. The trouble starts when you get so cautious that you lose your self-confidence and once that happens then you're an accident waiting to happen.

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[Evadne]

<<They say that the more experienced you are, the more you realise just how much you got away with when you were younger.>>
Exactly my point, but more succinctly put. Just don't let it stop you enjoying yourself: after all if it were perfectly safe, it wouldn't be worth doing. The sea is undiscriminating and unforgiving: a lucky idiot is treated exactly the same as a prudent greybeard if he/she gets away with it. I'm just not altogether sure if I'm a lucky greybeard or a prudent idiot.

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[Gunfleet]

There is a well known phenomenon in driving where young men have a tendancy to accelerate towards danger. Women and middle aged men are more likely to ease off.

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[johnsomerhausen]

Re: Old Aged Dread ?

Unfortunately, the boat.....The skipper's troubles usually can be treated with a very old remedy called "contempt"....
john

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[TheBoatman]

I'm a TOG and I freely admit it but I do intend to try and grow old disgracefully.


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[Peppermint]

Re: Not an age thing

In the 60's you had The Who with an "hope I die before I get old" attitude. In the 90's you had Robbie Williams turning that on it's head. People in general are getting less adventurous. What was a great adventure, crossing the Channel or even the Atlantic is for many now a sanitised and organized holiday. Our leading adventurers are mapped, televised, interviewed and ring their mums while risking life and limb. They are repeatedly snatch from the jaws of death to further laden our bookshelves.

If you want an adventure take the electrics, liferaft, and engine battery of your boat. Miss the forecast and sail a 60 - 100 mile passage.

I'd reckon more of the oldies than the young'uns would arrive where they wanted to be.



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[tcm]

Re: selective memory?

I am afraid that i disagree.

You are selctively choosing from popular culture which included plenty of "Mum's favourites"" singers in the 60's as it did in the 90's. But back then you listened the dangerous songs, not any more. Although your musical taste matches mine, I distinclytly remeber a time that one's aims - women, career, occupation, hobby, sport or all of these occupied one's whole waking efforts, and that time was early in adult life, not later. Most records an barriers are broken down by this age group, with nothing to lose and everything to gain. This is the human condition. The reason that we feel such "recklessness" is no longer prevalent or acceptable is the same as it ever was - we don't mix with them, because we aren't them. We've had kids or decided not to have kids, and are no longer the primary generation - indeed, as far as survival of the species is concerned, the place would be more dynamic if most of the over forties were dead, not cured, not brought back to life, not helped to have kids with IVF, not cushioned from failure.

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[Peppermint]

Re:

I have been exposed to the modern yoof culture and it is very different to my early years. The risks involved in teenage kicks are on the whole less physical and more artificial. Chemicals and electronics are in spontanious sports and hazards are out. Sure they'll play sport provided all of the equipment and organization is done by someone else. I'm told that the average age for leaving home is 28 yrs. for boys. At my last school reunion only one person had hung on that long. Certainly my friends who's sprogs went to uni found it most disconcerting when the little darlings returned like homing limpets.

As to ambition I'd say that older folks have more ambition today than they did when I was a kid. The grey's have embraced world travel and new technologies, many are well organized and well funded and you only have to look at say the BT Global Challenge to see how many over 50's are giving it a go. People retiring today are often better educated and fitter than those they leave at work where as in the 1950's you retired knackered from a lifetime of grind this is rarely the case today.

Sure younger people are the driving force in society but their effect today is less radical than in previous generations.

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[aod]

I once came back across the North sea from Amsterdam in a freezing January gale. Got off the boat at Tichmarsh marina cold, wet, bedraggled and exhausted and walked down the pontoon where I met an old boy.

"Been far", he said.

"Yep", said I and proudly announced that we had just sailed from Amsterdam.

"hmm", said the old boy "I used to do things like that until I got some sense".

Funnily enough now I'm older with two around Britains, the AZAB, two handed to Iceland and 6 Fastnets later I'm the old boy walking down the pontoon nice and dry, warm and content and when I see yachts parking with the crew looking like death on legs, wet, solemn and haggard I have to smile and bite my tongue.

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[tcm]

Re: C.O.G\'s

Again, I pretty much agree with you. But Iam wary of doing so very fully - hasn't EVERY older generation historically argued that the younger generation are a bunch of pampered, useless and unambitious layabouts? When I was young we had to etc etc...whereas these days etc etc. Isn't this the natural order of things as we rush headlong towards Cantankerous Old Gittishness? Vastly more expensive housing in real terms, wider mass communication (TV etc) which narrows the differences in outlook between 50-60 year olds and 20-30 year olds too, and of course the increase in wealth/comfort has meant that staying in parent's house is no longer the painful existence it may have been 30 -40 years ago. Sure, with all this it's easier, in the same way as this older generation didn't live through a war as the previous one did, and that one have two wars as the one before, and so on. But if this older genrations' sole contriibution is to spend as much loot abroad on foreign holidays or on buying foreign boats and then clearing off, and worst of all living a long time parked up on a nice expensive house so nobody gets there hands on any hereditary loot until their fifties - then hardly surprising that younger age group are as they are.

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[Peppermint]

Re: In someways

the housing cost argument is sound, that and the fact that we do make it comfortable for our kids because we can afford it. I just feel that in the 50's a generation came along that where markedly different to their parents. It was easy for subsequent generations to plough their own furrow but they kind of took the oldies with them. It's not strange to see a 60 yr old guy in a logo'd sweat shirt, cargo pants and trainers these days. Todays youths have found it harder to get out alone and creat their own world. It started when they were young and subjected to more supervision, because of parents fear of crime, and more time with adults than any other generation. I think thats why they retreat into cyberspace or gaming.

The real tragedy is, and I've seen a couple of kids round here do it, when they come back home with a shiney degree that they were promised was the key to the world and it isn't.



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[MADFISH]

You see my theory is that you can now have refridgeration on board thus there is no need to go hell for leather to get to your destination as you have a supply of cold beer on board.

I still regard myself as young and stupid. I guess I wont be the former for much longer.....

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[tcm]

Re: Degrees

Fully agree. Yes, the generation gap is these days much smaller. Our kids borrow (some of) our clothes and music - unimaginable thirty years ago.

Educationwise they are still in secondary school. I find it very strange that schools teach essentially the same curriculum of around a hundrd years ago - easier on the latin these days, more history of course, more touchy-feely geography, more conversational french, but Physics teaches Newtonian methods to a-level at least - no mention of relativity.

But however these subjects are taught, they shy away from nailing hard facts - and miss whole hoardes of valuable areas of general learning. Subject matter such as interpersonal relationships/body language, general running of a business so that graduates in subjects other than in accounting know what an invoice or vat actually is. Few seem to have any idea of, oh, alcohol or other such things - which may seem the domain of parents - but then if they go all the way to holding blimmin prayers every morning - which is a very personal and (in the UK) a fairly avoidable and rarified issue - why not spend the time teaching them to drive, instead of waiting until the day they are 17 to have a go, or (a bit under) 18 to abuse alcohol?

Sadly, being a favourite amongst the teachers means that the one job you are likely to be cut out for is - teaching. More than once I have had to explain tio some teachers that, sorry - but we don't actually want him to be like you....

There are indeed some very cheesed off graduates out there, and weak degrees in weak subjects from weak universities seem to act to the detriment of a CV - they show that the holder has yet to find something, anything that they are Really Good At, and getting a 2.2 in media studies may even show that not only couldn't they even hack an English course, but that they weren't much cop at the duffer's alternative, and failed to realise as much for three years. The arts subjecdt continue to rise in poularity, naturally, as they are nice and cheap to run and are heavily sold cos they are "easy", numerous, and attract the same funding as a science based degree that needs labs etc.

The idea that 50% of population getting a degree might happen one day, but it very much devalues a degree if the target is attempted in a few years - all that happens is that young people are taken out of the employment market for three years, which seems to be the only obvious (government) advantage. More recently, the "anti-ageism" iniaitive is yet another way of mendaciously avoiding the truth that the giovernment would find it easier to run the country with highish taxes and inaccessible welfare. I plan to make a fairly hefty bet on this government losing the next election. Forgive the long rant

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[claymore]

Time for A Song

C G7 C
When you're scoring with a chick in a disco bar,
F C
Take her home in your hairy little car,
E Am F
Then you find you went to school with her ma and pa,
C G7
You're the oldest swinger in town.

When you won't look in the mirror in the light of day,
Swear you've dyed it when your hair turns grey,
When you zip up your trousers and your belly's in the way,
You're the oldest swinger in town.

Here you come and there you go,
White wheels, spots, and a stereo,
But the engine is jacked and the driver is too,
You're the oldest swinger in town.

The barber takes a little less time each week,
The kids don't understand a word you speak,
When you walk into a disco and they offer you a seat,
You're the oldest swinger in town.

You prefer a pint of shandy to Bacardi and Coke,
The sounds are too loud, there's too much smoke,
You'd like another dance, but you're afraid you'll get a stroke,
You're the oldest swinger in town.

Here you come with your chest all bare,
A little gold ingot and a lot of gold hair,
Like the disco king meets Yogi Bear,
You're the oldest swinger in town.

When you're feeling as stiff as a skinhead's boot,
Rub on Vick's where you used to splash Brut,
And the latest punk fashion is your wedding suit,
You're the oldest swinger in town.

When you have to go shopping for your sex appeal,
Travolta's shades and nine inch heels,
They say a man is just as old as the woman he feels,
You're the oldest swinger in town.

Here you come with your lips closed tight,
You never smile, you know it wouldn't look right,
Cause your dentures glow in ultraviolet light,
You're the oldest swinger in town.

And you look so mean,
Cause your pants is too tight,
You're the oldest swinger in town.

And it takes you all night,
To do what you used to do all night,
You're the oldest swinger in town.



<hr width=100% size=1>regards
Claymore
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