Sailing Forefathers (Yottie Types)

LONG_KEELER

LONG_KEELER

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Do you think our sailing forefathers had more bottle than us ?

i.e. no engines , gizmo's , weather reports etc

Or foolhardy ? Did being in a war influence things ?

Or are we naturally restrained because of today's pressures ?
 
LONG_KEELER said:
Do you think our sailing forefathers had more bottle than us ?

i.e. no engines , gizmo's , weather reports etc

Or foolhardy ? Did being in a war influence things ?

Or are we naturally restrained because of today's pressures ?
Click to expand...

I don't know if they had more bottle but they weren't having fear constantly instilled into them by a "safety industry" trying to convince them them that what they saw as innocent and harmless pleasures were dangerous activities.
 
Probably just no choice. They wanted to do the journey, so they did it, and generally they took every precuation that was available.
Maybe a case of not missing what you never had. Perhaps in fifty years time yachties will look back at today and roll their eyes at how primitive our equipment and understanding was.
 
Robwhelton said:
Perhaps in fifty years time yachties will look back at today and roll their eyes at how primitive our equipment and understanding was.
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more likely they'll envy how lucky we were...being allowed to anchor, travel without lodging some electronic passage plan and not having yearly taxes to pay to use seas and waterways and for owning a boat. plus there will be the compulsory sailing licence and electronic tagging of all vessels and crew linked to a big brother satelitte system in the sky.
 
I was looking at some old photos of my dad's taken in about 1947 or 48, I'd guess, when he regularly crewed on racing yachts. Looking at one particular pic of a race in the North Sea, he mentioned that they had to take a somewhat roundabout route "to avoid the minefields - well, most of them, anyway". Eeek!
 
Its Much The Same Today As Yesterday

No I don't think they had more bottle than "us" and that today's sailors have the same variance in "bottle" as those in the past.

Today we see retired couples from comfortable back grounds selling up and sailing off. Some even head off into the blue yonder with 30' to 35' basic boats. However, even with Plotters, AIS and Radar it still takes a fair amount of "the right stuff" to make ocean passages; as have those families who choose to sail with and raise children on blue water cruises.

I would go as far as to say that those from an enlightened, comforatble and successful background have in fact more "bottle" because they choose to give that up for a harder life. As RobWhelton states perhaps the past was
a case of not missing what you never had
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.

The more leisurely sailors who cruise more local waters still have to deal with the same challenges, albeit with better equipment. I would think that more to the point the "gizmos" make it easier for more to go to sea. As such the natural fear of the unknown is somewhat reduced. Most of us fear lee shores, collisions, grounding, fire and sinking but we have "gizmos" to minimise the probability of these risks from happening but that doesn't diminish the "bottle" needed to go to sea.

In my opinion no, the past and present have probably the same balance of sailors who practice measured caution to brazen recklessness as well as the ability to deal or not deal with hardship and unexpectedness.
 
My great grandfather had a fleet of full rigged ships .... cargo, mostly coal from South Wales I think .... three of them were wrecked over the years, two of them at St.Ives ... I believe you can still see the remains of one of them at Porthminster, low water springs. Twas a tough old world sailing without engines and instruments .... personally I never sail anywhere near St.Ives ... just in case!
 
We don't need to go very far back:

When I was a student yachts would regularly sail on and off their moorings in Torbay and Brixham Harbours. Most small yachts had petrol engines, that were notoriously unreliable. The latest safety device was a safety harness and yachting press were debating what to call the new fangled rails around the stern - 'pushpit' or 'stern pulpit'.

The only electronic nav aids on my first yacht (1974) were an echosounder and hand held radio direction finder. We also used Consol, a positioning system that could be picked up on a domestic receiver. You counted dots and dashes to obtain a position line that was plotted on a specially overprinted small scale chart of the UK. Most yachts still used a burgee at the masthead for wind direction and seamanship to decide when to reef - although the B&G instruments were on the market, for those with very deep pockets.

VHF radios were the preserve of the larger commercial vessels as were the electronic positioning systems - Decca and Loran. The first yach VHF was the Seafarer, with a crystal fitted for each channel installed. (Hence the regulation for a minimum of three channels fitted to a marine VHF). Out of sight of land yacht navigation was by dead reaconing (we took the accuracy of our compass and log very seriosly then) with RDF and Consol. Further off shore there was only DR and astro. I carried a sextant for coastal nav to obtain distance off lights and other objects with charted heights.Sextant angle plus compass bearing gave a fix from one shore mark. Even when the yacht Decca came on the market with lat and long display I still carried my sextant as the reliability of the position fix varied greatly.

When preparing for my yachtmaster exam I told an instructor how I had approached the Norwegian coast in fog by taking running fixes from the only RDF station in range then crossing the position line with a depth contour when the sounder lost the bottom. Instructor criticised this as not being accurate enough, but had no better answer when asked how she would have done it.

I would not like to do without my GPS now, though often don't bother with it in clear weather on the coast, but do think it has taken a lot of the skill and satisfaction out of navigation.
 
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First time I sailed to the Scillies, back in the mists of time, I had a chart and a pencil and I wasn't too sure about which end of the pencil to use! 22 footer ... wouldn't do it now ... in fact I wouldn't sail from Gosport to Gilkicker in a 22 footer now!
 
Reading srm's post I am starting to wonder if I had more bottle in 1970 than me in 2009!

My father started sailing in 1919; I once asked him what they did without leecloths and other inventions of the offshore racing fraternity - he replied, "We usually needed all hands to tack!"
 
LONG_KEELER said:
Do you think our sailing forefathers had more bottle than us ?
QUOTE]

As a group, yes.

If we had get by with small wooden boats, hand lead, patent log, basic charts and our wits, there would be very few people cruising even to Brittany. Those that did would be the same tough, resourceful and clever types that did it in the past. The rest of us would be day sailing and dreaming.

I am re-reading Tilman just now....he was the boy.
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frankthompson said:
My great grandfather had a fleet of full rigged ships .... cargo, mostly coal from South Wales I think .... three of them were wrecked over the years, two of them at St.Ives ... I believe you can still see the remains of one of them at Porthminster, low water springs. Twas a tough old world sailing without engines and instruments .... personally I never sail anywhere near St.Ives ... just in case!
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Interesting to read that. You should write a book about your grandfather's company (maybe somebody already has?)
 
Nobody's written a book yet. The company was called The Hain Steamship Company ... they sold out to P & O in the twenties but ran as an independent company thereafter, running tramp steamers around the world, names all beginning with 'Tre' ... being Cornish.

Actually, now I come to think of it ... the 3 full rigged ships I referred to above belonged to my great grandfather on my father's side .... The Hain Steamship Company belonged to my maternal great grandfather Edward Hain.
 
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I am reminded by an old quote attributed to the great Des Sleightholme, which I can't recall accurately but have paraphrased below:

"If we had been sailing before the war, we would have been in wooden boats, with no engine, no electronics, a primus stove, and a paid hand."

"If I had been sailing before the war, I would have been a paid hand."
 
frankthompson said:
Nobody's written a book yet. The company was called The Hain Steamship Company ... they sold out to P & O in the twenties but ran as an independent company thereafter, running tramp steamers around the world, names all beginning with 'Tre' ... being Cornish.

Actually, now I come to think of it ... the 3 full rigged ships I referred to above belonged to my great grandfather on my father's side .... The Hain Steamship Company belonged to my maternal great grandfather Edward Hain.
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But there is a book about one episode; "1,700 miles in open boats - the voyages of the Trevessa's Lifeboats" - written by her Master , Captain Cecil Foster, describing the survival of most of the crew of the Hain ship "Trevessa" which sank in the Indian Ocean between Australia and Mauritius. It was reprinted in The Mariners' Library - I've got a copy - a very good book in which Captain Foster speaks well of his employers.

However, not everyone did; I knew a man who told me that one of the requirements for a career with Hains as an officer was to be able to box, which says something about the Jolly Jacks who shipped with them...
 
My great grandfather.

My great grandfather had a number of fishing smacks running out of Fleetwood covering the west coast and Ireland.

I just can’t begin to imagine how you would trawl under sail!
 
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