Old Cranky Sailors

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flawed_logic

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Sorry to moan but getting tired by some of the older generation sailors!
I've been sailing for a while and to be honest i still make the odd mistake mooring, nothing bad but the odd fend required. Usually helpful boat owners understand the situation and help with a touch of light fending whilst protecting their boats. Recently i had the misfortune to deal with old cranky ones with 27 odd foot boats that whilst no damage what so ever occurred they neither help or nor seem to have any empathy. My most recent situation was being caught out on a fuelling pontoon I had to spin the boat to get along side and the bow (in retrospect i should have reversed down) didn't make it through the wind and i had to gently get SWMBO to push the bow round a bit off a small boat next to the fuel pontoon. Next thing i heard was "What on earth is going on here" as the (i guess early 70's chap) stood by and did nothing. I politely said sorry just fending, next comment "why dont you watch where your going" , to which i said "sorry, but i guess you have never made a mistake" at which point he told me to "sod off".
Yet while i was in Mylor last year i had a chap with no fenders just collide into the side of my boat, smiled and called it "coming along side", to which i though fair enough no damage done.
Dunno dont mean to generalise, but i find the attitude of some of the older chaps quite silly, not all of course but it seems in the last 5 years or so it seems disproportionate
 
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flawed_logic said:
Sorry to moan but getting tired by some of the older generation sailors! I've been sailing for a while...... Dunno dont mean to generalise, but i find the attitude of some of the older chaps quite silly, not all of course but it seems in the last 5 years or so it seems disproportionate
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I came close to empathising, then I wondered how 'f-l' would moan if it was a car - i.e. his polished pride and joy - that was being walloped by some feckless stranger with faint regard for the courtesies or the costs of the damage. If some 'older chap' doesn't want his property thumped by every passing ill-mannered tom-dick-or-harry then he is perfectly entitled to his view. And others should respect it..... including the tired and moaning OP!

I might be tempted to insist on his insurance and contact details.... same as in a road vehicle collision. :rolleyes:

'Old and tired'....
 
flawed_logic said:
didn't make it through the wind and i had to gently get SWMBO to push the bow round a bit off a small boat next to the fuel pontoon. Next thing i heard was......
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He may be grumpy because he's got the rubbish berth next to the fuel pontoon, gets bumped into all the time, and you were the 10th that morning!
 
Have you made the situation worse by piloting a shiny new 40 ft AWB and then compounded it by being under 40??
 
The olds do often seem more intolerant of mistakes and ever ready to "tut tut" - I guess it "wasn't like that when I was young".

The OP might as well get over it as he will no doubt do it one day too ;)
 
Good grief, man! If you let trifling incidents like these get to you, you'll make yourself miserable.

Forget it and move on to the next one. There's bound to be more :D
 
flawed_logic said:
Sorry to moan but getting tired by some of the older generation sailors!
I've been sailing for a while and to be honest i still make the odd mistake mooring, nothing bad but the odd fend required. Usually helpful boat owners understand the situation and help with a touch of light fending whilst protecting their boats. Recently i had the misfortune to deal with old cranky ones with 27 odd foot boats that whilst no damage what so ever occurred they neither help or nor seem to have any empathy. My most recent situation was being caught out on a fuelling pontoon I had to spin the boat to get along side and the bow (in retrospect i should have reversed down) didn't make it through the wind and i had to gently get SWMBO to push the bow round a bit off a small boat next to the fuel pontoon. Next thing i heard was "What on earth is going on here" as the (i guess early 70's chap) stood by and did nothing. I politely said sorry just fending, next comment "why dont you watch where your going" , to which i said "sorry, but i guess you have never made a mistake" at which point he told me to "sod off".
Yet while i was in Mylor last year i had a chap with no fenders just collide into the side of my boat, smiled and called it "coming along side", to which i though fair enough no damage done.
Dunno dont mean to generalise, but i find the attitude of some of the older chaps quite silly, not all of course but it seems in the last 5 years it seems


Everyone makes the odd mistake but reading your post it seems a regular occurrence in your case.
It would be helpful to other sailors if you could post when you're in Cornwall then it would be appreciated, thus alerting us to any possible problems.
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Yes bully the old guy very appropriate!!
I remember being told to F off once by a bully coming alongside when I asked if he would reposition his fenders to a better position.
His bully tactic came to an abrupt halt when my son and his two rugby mates emerged from down below to ask if there was a problem with altering his fenders.
Funny he didn't tell them to F off.
 
Flawed_Logic,

I have found it's not so much age as snobbiness which is the problem.

I once went alongside a Vancouver 27 ( gently, no problem ) at Itchenor visitors' moorings and he did everything possible to put us off, refusing to help just watch as my novice crew struggle to get a line onto his cluttered foredeck.

First it was the old ' we're leaving at dawn ' routine to which the answer was ' fine, off you go, we'll be made onto the buoy ! ' then stood and watched.

In the morning - amazingly he was still there - he tried to tell me what a wonderful long range boat his marine equivalent of a 4X4 for the school run was ' we carry X million gallons of water ' - ' well that should make you even slower then '

He then lectured the harbourmaster on how he wasn't doing the moorings right...

I got the strong impression he was an ex Naval officer, over that just a deeply unpleasant prat.
 
When I was 24 or so I was lucky enough to look even younger. You should try turning up at the Folly or Lymington with a crew of a similar age. Advice just assails you from every direction, and *everyone* is leaving at 6am.

I've been lectured by some right old duffers, most of whom couldn't sail a rubber duck in a bath tub. It used to really annoy me, especially when you then got chatting and discovered they only took up sailing the year before and "wanted to do day skipper this year". Yet because of the age difference they took it upon themselves to offer us advice, despite the fact that they'd just been told (because they'd asked) that 4 of the crew had been sailing all their lives, and 2 of us had yachtmasters.

But now I just smile and nod. Guess I must be growing up...
 
The Boss is definitely a cranky sailor in marina situations when being told how much for the night, fortunately it's only once a month or so :)

We've had more than our fair share of the "off at dawn" story, if next door is seriously obnoxious I set my alarm and give them a gentle call offering assistance!
 
We once had a Berth next to a missery who took great delight in pulling our AWB apart and telling us how unsafe it was for "real sailing" compared to his self designed round-the-world 27ft cruiser. Everything from insufficient sail reefs to too high freeboard and too small Genny. When we came into the Berth, he would delight in telling us how to do it and why not to do it our way. In the end SWMBO would cringe when he was there and we just ended up ingoring him and getting on with it.

With regard to the OP, lack of damage is the key. As he said, its easy to misjudge - we've all done it. But..... if one keeps misjudging, then perhaps some practice is needed to reduce the frequency of errors and thus deal with the root cause of the hassle.
 
on our first stab of Chartering in Corfu last summer we picked the boat up from the marina and whilst checking it over this duffer on the next boat was giving us advice and stuff,as he had "chartered here for 15 years" he got quite cranky with my brother, an RN warrent officer cos he was pulling out the main to see if it worked ok...any way after inviting himself on board to show us our failings he proceded to get very worked up when he found out only myself had done any kind of sailing.. the boat, a bav 49 was way too big for us 5 blokes, what were we thinking and stuff like that..

Anyway next morning on leaving the harbour he promply hit a sand bank and had to be towed off by the marina boat..he never did show where he arranged for us to go that evening.
 
SamanthaTabs said:
The Boss is definitely a cranky sailor in marina situations when being told how much for the night, fortunately it's only once a month or so :)

We've had more than our fair share of the "off at dawn" story, if next door is seriously obnoxious I set my alarm and give them a gentle call offering assistance!
Click to expand...

I do remember once a very long time ago, going alongside a canary yellow westerley in Guernsey to be told that they where off at 5am to catch the tide. We ignored it, but it must have stuck in my memory somehow because we where still out at the local pub at 4:45am and remembered. Thought we where really helping when we organised ourselves to move, arranged his lines to make it easy for them to go, and then woke them up :-) .......
 
Isn't there something about being a sailor as to not require help all the time? Your life may depend on it sometime.

Better 4 or 5 attempts than to be treated like an infant.

As to getting up at dawn - that is a sailor's prerogative and if he woke up to a bad forecast or nil visibility he can change his mind.

There are old sailors and bold sailors but never old, bold sailors. Hope you make the 'old'.
 
flawed_logic said:
Sorry to moan but getting tired by some of the older generation sailors!
I've been sailing for a while and to be honest i still make the odd mistake mooring, nothing bad but the odd fend required. Usually helpful boat owners understand the situation and help with a touch of light fending whilst protecting their boats. Recently i had the misfortune to deal with old cranky ones with 27 odd foot boats that whilst no damage what so ever occurred they neither help or nor seem to have any empathy. My most recent situation was being caught out on a fuelling pontoon I had to spin the boat to get along side and the bow (in retrospect i should have reversed down) didn't make it through the wind and i had to gently get SWMBO to push the bow round a bit off a small boat next to the fuel pontoon. Next thing i heard was "What on earth is going on here" as the (i guess early 70's chap) stood by and did nothing. I politely said sorry just fending, next comment "why dont you watch where your going" , to which i said "sorry, but i guess you have never made a mistake" at which point he told me to "sod off".
Yet while i was in Mylor last year i had a chap with no fenders just collide into the side of my boat, smiled and called it "coming along side", to which i though fair enough no damage done.
Dunno dont mean to generalise, but i find the attitude of some of the older chaps quite silly, not all of course but it seems in the last 5 years or so it seems disproportionate
Click to expand...

Im not clear if you just fended off to prevent a collision,or gave the other boat a clout?If the former then yes it was a cranky reaction,but if the latter it seems entirely reasonable to get a bit upset.
 
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