Concerto
Well-known member
Glad to hear you have escaped the delights of the Solent.
I live to live life to the full, so what is relatively normal for me may sound like excessive to others. Am I nuts? Well may be.
Over the past 5 decades I have probably gained a lot of experience that many more cautious sailors will never experience. Whilst racing as far back as the late 1960's through to the late 1980's there were many occassions where things went badly wrong, things that most people dread happening. My experience includes loosing a mast due to a manufacturing fault, breaking a rudder, mast in the water, briefly standing on the keel to ensure the boat did not go upside down after a spinnaker gybe went wrong due to a new crew member not doing as instructed, shinning up the mast to retrieve 2 lost halyards whilst under spinnaker, standing on the pulpit to trip a spinnaker after a wipe out to trip and the guy as it had jambed in the end of the spinnaker pole, planing a yacht in 1970 and again in 1971 not just briefly but for hours on end. Not once with any of these events did we require ouside assistance to get the boat home. I doubt if many cruising sailors have done more than one of that list. Just because I am prepared to sail in higher winds is that I have great confidence in my boat, confidence in my abilities and great respect for what the elements can throw at me.
Sailing with a crew that is inexperienced has more dangers than sailing singlehanded. You are more aware of what is happening with the crew than sailing the boat and concentrating on things close to the boat. I have taken out beginners to see what sailing is like, but I will only do that in gentle conditions and for only 3 to 4 hours. Even people who have a little experience, I would never take them on longer trips until I know their capabilities and check they are not going to get seasick before going on longer trips.
Coming from a racing background, seeing badly sailed yachts goes against the grain. You can enjoy a lazy sail with well set sails. It takes little to get thing a sail correctly set. To me it is a sense of pride in sailing to the best of my ability. Watch this video to see what a lazy sail in almost no wind is like.
My Round Britain trip should have been 5 months long, but due to some upgrades to the boat having some significant complications, this had been reduced to just over 4 months. It has meant a few places I wanted to visit had to be left out and a few missed due to wrong weather conditions. This has meant I have pushed harder to complete this journey as a series of day sails. I still have not reached close to the longest distance I have sailed singlehanded in a day. The only fixed points of the trip were to round the northern most point of the UK, meet with my daughter and grandson in North Wales, and be in the Solent in time for the Boat Show. Well in year where winds have been higher than usual and not from the regular directions, I have completed the requirements I set. In a different year the weather may have been more placid, but I sailed with the weather that was thrown at me. I went to places some cautious local sailors are reluctant to go. In all my years sailing I have never sailed further north than Lowestoft or above Lands End. Until I entered the Solent every harbour was new to me. So do not decry my achievement because I do not show much respect to some sailors who are more cautious and allow gross errors in setting sails in relatively sheltered waters.
