Proliferation of incompetents.

Motorway rules

Aha, a disciple!

All people travelling faster than self: raving lunatic, mad, never seen anything like it

All people travelling slower than me: half-asleep pensioner, probably, should use mirror. Yes, dummy, the mirror! Tsk!

All people in middle lane with empty slow lane: possibly hootable or flashable - they should have their licence inspected. The driving licence doesn't teach for motorway driving, you know...

All people found undertaking due to overpopulated third lane : should be fined if I am in 3rd lane too (else if self in middle lane doing quite well, BUT only becos my lane is traveling faster, albeit empty, which is allowed in the highway code, sort-of )


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Wicked, first time one of my posts has ever run to five pages.

And if one bought a battered old boat and through the application of sense and hardwork, increased its value without decreasing one's own wealth ?

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Re: Makes almost no difference

If you increased the value without denting your own wealth then either you are already fab. rich OR have spent sod all. Note also you only actualy realise the increased value when you sell - at which point you have more money- and register more sense too - as result of tipping the damn thing - so again it makes no difference. Boats make no difference to the wealth/sense index: you lose/gain equal amounts of sense and money. Fab thread tho.

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You can increase your money. Not sure you can increase your sense.

Donald

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Re: increase sense

i start by ignoring the wife and my mother

<hr width=100% size=1><font color=red>if guinness is good for you. i must be very very good</font color=red>
 
Re: Fail Safe

ooooooh no YOU should pay close attention to them


<hr width=100% size=1><font color=red>if guinness is good for you. i must be very very good</font color=red>
 
Re: Fail Safe

I'll add them to my (ever growing) list.

Donald

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If one increases one's knowledge, this surely means an increase in sense.

One example would be Yacht Master training
(Has anybody found that tongue-in-cheek emoticon yet?)

<hr width=100% size=1>People who think they know it all are very annoying to those of us that do.
 
Re: Makes almost no difference

tcm's theory of boating is about as easy to work out as that tv prog on string theory. tcm - you arent a physicist by any chance, are you?



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PS "socialist premise that having more money than sense is a bad thing " That is very definitely not a socialist premise. How could it be, given the number of socialist councils who manifestly have more money than sense.
 
I don't think jealouy at people starting in less modest boats than we may have done has anything to do with it. I am totally bewildered why people have such large first boats when they haven't a clue how they will get on and whether they will be able to handle it. It seems the system of learning with something where one is close to the elements and progressing to larger vessels as experience is gained is no longer regarded as sensible. Unfortunately it appears wealth has overtaken common sense.

We recently had a 40' charter boat berth next to us with just a young couple onboard. They didn't even know how to tie it up properly in the berth. When questioned why they had hired such a large boat, we were advised the criteria of selection was having an electric anchor windlass and this was the smallest boat they could get meeting that requirement!

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Re: New Labour

Your Mr Brown sounds about as convincing as a butcher saying he will convert everyone to vegetarianism.

Socialist governments rely on the comparatively poor and marginalised to keep them in power so they will always make sure there are comparatively poor and marginalised people. The poor people will still go on voting for the socialists regardless, thinking that will make them wealthy. That is the ultimate proof that those with money have much more good sense than those without it - same applies to wealthy boat owners, much more good sense.

Poor people also are suckers for the argument that the rich want to exploit them, which is far from the truth in my experience. In fact quite the opposite - for example, I am sure all the friendly and wealthy expensive big boat dealers would much prefer everyone to be in a position to afford to buy their expensive boats, should they want one, than just a comparatively few of their wealthy friends being able to.

John

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Maybe some partial explanation comes from the proliferation of sailing schools since some of us started. If the only sailing newcomers have done is on a school boat at 35' -40' boat anything else may seem very small.

There is no doubt there is more money available for leisure these days. I bought my first plywood 'cruiser' for less than I had just sold my dinghy for! Thinking about it now it was very character forming, leaky decks, cranky antique seagull, rotten sails - what wouldn't I have given back then for a 20' never mind a 40' plastic fantastic!


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It\'s not true (to all who posted before me)

If you own a boat (fully paid for) you are poorer, so you are more sensible than the rich batsard who has the bigger better boat than yours, but because he/she has a bigger/better he's/she's probably poorer than you, so he's/she's more sensible than you....but the man/lady who is more sensible than you and is also richer than you dosen't own a boat!!!

So in conclusion size dosen't matter, men have been saying that for years... Women know better /forums/images/icons/smile.gif i.e. all boat owners are useless wakners /forums/images/icons/wink.gif

<hr width=100% size=1>David
 
disgareeing a bit with oldhand and robin

I understand the points being made, but don't agree.

a) apropos of nothing much, i am not at all sure that many boats really are bought as a status symbol, are they? A detemined show-off would by a flash car with 50-100k -not a nicely kitted out AWB? The only "showing of" opportunity would be if they happened across a les flashy boat. A debatable issue, of course. £160k is aboutthe upper limit of show-offiness carwise - but starts buying truly ocean-capable boats - with even less opportunuity for shoiwng off and even greater chance of meeting more (and bigger) boats. The biggest show-offs at a boat show are the salespeople, by a mile. They seem to be jolly smug that they are not selling photocopiers any more.

b) I am not at all sure that commonsense dictates that boat ownership starts with a small boat. I would say that one should start with (chartering) manageable boats and appropriatet tuition. If the couple mentioned by oldhand can't tie up a big boat, they won't be able to tie up a small one either. Training or experience is more important. Reducing the size of their boat wouldn't make them instantly "more capable".

c) More seriously, the idea of smaller boats being more manageable and so on is incorrect and possibly dangerous. The majority of accidents at sea are on not too-large boats - they are with smaller boats where the extra cost of training would be prohibitive. We wouldn't all be safer if a magic wand decreased the size of our boats by ten ffeet or 50% for example. Larger cruising boats feel (and are) inherently safer -agreed, they can be more of "a handful" in a marina but even this is debateable: their windage increases with the square of the waterline but their resistant to wingae increases in protion to the CUBE of the overal length - thus a large boat reponds more accurately to steering and engine inputs. The fact is that we all notice the tiniest mistake made by a big boat, simply because the boat is big. Fatal accidents on smaller boats are reported in the news the next day - nobody though to stop or quiz or even remonstrate with those people on a small boat (perhaps as oldhand did with the bigger boat) because it "seemed okay. I don't think it is.

The most dangerous thing that a large boat does in inexperienced hands is to come near your boat in a marina. However, even under these circumstances it is extremely advantageous that they have "more money than sense" so they will unquestioningly pay for the damage. By contrast, those with more sense than money are les likely to cause damage - but if they do have ann accident, they are more likely to awkwardly insist on both parties reporting the matter to insurers, start questioning why you had insufficient fenders, saw them approach yet took no action, and so on.







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Re: disgareeing a bit with oldhand and robin

Hmmm! Whatever, it was interesting watching Carl Foggerty on his brand new Jeanneau 53' looking on helplessly as the vendors docked her after the first outing.

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Re: disgareeing a bit with oldhand and robin

To the original question I'd say, 'no, they're not increasing. There's a few of them, and I expect there always will be'.

I disagree with your last point though tcm, as it depends if they own up / are caught. I've gone down to my boat a couple of times to find there's obviously been a bit of argy-bargy going on (including once finding a big dent where someone must have smacked me pretty hard on the stern - it cost me more than a few quid to get sorted as it damaged the GRP below the gelcoat), but the buggers have run off without leaving contact details or an apology.

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