henryf
Well-Known Member
Inspired by the somewhat tainted mobo snobs thread started recently I feel compelled to launch a thread that's been bottled up inside me for sometime now.
Who tends to practice the better seamanship, motor boaters or yachtsmen?
Can I say from the offset that I genuinely ask the question in good faith. I'm just as happy to break bread with the organic matter found in a yacht as I am that found aboard a fellow motor boat. I came 18th in the Uk Firefly championships as a young man, yes folks the 18th best pair in the whole of the Uk. To be fair 19 boats started and 1 sunk but we made the effort and I do know a jib from a main sheet
Throughout my boating career I have always assumed Yachtsmen to be the higher being. Wind, tide and the fact you're locked in for many hours once you commit to casting off the lines all conspire to ensure the unwary are rewarded with a good whooping by mother nature if they get things wrong so the desire to get things right is strong in the raggie brigade.
Of late though I'm starting to wonder if my faith hasn't been misguided. Only last week I was entering Cowes. Starboard side of the channel with a very slow sailing dinghy under power on my right which I was overtaking. Not speeding, channel 69 on the VHF to keep track of the ferries, a few boats leaving on my port side and an exiting yacht that seems to be drifting to port on a collision course for me. I held station expecting the yacht to suddenly wake up, turn to starboard and get back on his side of the channel. But he didn't. He kept tracking diagonally across the Medina Chanel on a course towards a point a little South of the Trinity landing. In the end I had to engage reverse and stop dead as the yacht cut across my bow and nearly clipped the stern of the dinghy to my right. I shouted out that he should stay to the starboard side of the channel but I just received a shrug and he carried on out of Cowes.
In the same area a while ago I was waiting for a space to clear on the pontoon opposite the Folly. I'd been hovering off for 4 or 5 minutes, a boat to a boat and a half's width off moored boats to my starboard, (I was pointing towards Newport). The boat I was waiting for cleared their ropes and started to pull out when I glanced back to see a large yacht on a direct course for our stern. Again I held station until the boat was a length off my stern and bearing down fast. I had to engage engines and make a pretty hasty get away so as not to get hit. At the closest point we were probably on 10 feet away with the yacht maintaining a direct and steady course. Had I not got out of the way they would have hit me. You guessed it, he slid straight into the newly vacated slot. I popped round and gave him a piece of my mind to which he merely shrugged his shoulders and turned away. I probably should have just tied up alongside without shorelines and walked all over his boat but I'm too polite!
Now I'm not so stupid as to think all sailors are like these two pillocks but I genuinely can't recall a similar incident with a motorboat. I think we always assume someone else has right of way and so yield. In the case of my two muppets I made the decision to shave it close before pulling out because I wanted to make a point and see if they really were going to just plough into me and they were!!!
I'm going exclude small speed boats from the equation at this point and to be fair handed also ask you to ignore the antics of sailing dinghies. Let's focus on the bigger stuff.
We don't always get things right but look to learn from any mistakes and certainly aren't afraid to ask for local advice when appropriate.
So what do you think? As motor boaters are we second class citizens of the high seas when compared to our wind driven cousins?
Henry
Who tends to practice the better seamanship, motor boaters or yachtsmen?
Can I say from the offset that I genuinely ask the question in good faith. I'm just as happy to break bread with the organic matter found in a yacht as I am that found aboard a fellow motor boat. I came 18th in the Uk Firefly championships as a young man, yes folks the 18th best pair in the whole of the Uk. To be fair 19 boats started and 1 sunk but we made the effort and I do know a jib from a main sheet
Throughout my boating career I have always assumed Yachtsmen to be the higher being. Wind, tide and the fact you're locked in for many hours once you commit to casting off the lines all conspire to ensure the unwary are rewarded with a good whooping by mother nature if they get things wrong so the desire to get things right is strong in the raggie brigade.
Of late though I'm starting to wonder if my faith hasn't been misguided. Only last week I was entering Cowes. Starboard side of the channel with a very slow sailing dinghy under power on my right which I was overtaking. Not speeding, channel 69 on the VHF to keep track of the ferries, a few boats leaving on my port side and an exiting yacht that seems to be drifting to port on a collision course for me. I held station expecting the yacht to suddenly wake up, turn to starboard and get back on his side of the channel. But he didn't. He kept tracking diagonally across the Medina Chanel on a course towards a point a little South of the Trinity landing. In the end I had to engage reverse and stop dead as the yacht cut across my bow and nearly clipped the stern of the dinghy to my right. I shouted out that he should stay to the starboard side of the channel but I just received a shrug and he carried on out of Cowes.
In the same area a while ago I was waiting for a space to clear on the pontoon opposite the Folly. I'd been hovering off for 4 or 5 minutes, a boat to a boat and a half's width off moored boats to my starboard, (I was pointing towards Newport). The boat I was waiting for cleared their ropes and started to pull out when I glanced back to see a large yacht on a direct course for our stern. Again I held station until the boat was a length off my stern and bearing down fast. I had to engage engines and make a pretty hasty get away so as not to get hit. At the closest point we were probably on 10 feet away with the yacht maintaining a direct and steady course. Had I not got out of the way they would have hit me. You guessed it, he slid straight into the newly vacated slot. I popped round and gave him a piece of my mind to which he merely shrugged his shoulders and turned away. I probably should have just tied up alongside without shorelines and walked all over his boat but I'm too polite!
Now I'm not so stupid as to think all sailors are like these two pillocks but I genuinely can't recall a similar incident with a motorboat. I think we always assume someone else has right of way and so yield. In the case of my two muppets I made the decision to shave it close before pulling out because I wanted to make a point and see if they really were going to just plough into me and they were!!!
I'm going exclude small speed boats from the equation at this point and to be fair handed also ask you to ignore the antics of sailing dinghies. Let's focus on the bigger stuff.
We don't always get things right but look to learn from any mistakes and certainly aren't afraid to ask for local advice when appropriate.
So what do you think? As motor boaters are we second class citizens of the high seas when compared to our wind driven cousins?
Henry
