peter radclyffe
N/A
go out to sea in a gale without any electrics, or synthetics
then tell us
Sailing Forefathers (Yottie Types)
- Thread starter LONG_KEELER
- Start date
then tell us
DownWest
Well-Known Member
I think they delt with what was available. I started with no radio, dubious engines and no marinas.
If you have not experienced modern 'advantages' one gets on with what is available. Sailing off moorings was the norm. DR nav also. I managed to sail from Sardinia to St Tropez on DR with an 'on the nose' arrival. Would have loved something more accurate.
Sniffing the bilge and counting consol is not to be recomended
I was impressed with the German guy that Warrem found in the Caneries. Was waiting for a window to cross the Atlantic in a CANOE. He saw him later in the carrabean.
One deals with stuff as one sees it not from a HASI, God rot them.
A
If you have not experienced modern 'advantages' one gets on with what is available. Sailing off moorings was the norm. DR nav also. I managed to sail from Sardinia to St Tropez on DR with an 'on the nose' arrival. Would have loved something more accurate.
Sniffing the bilge and counting consol is not to be recomended
I was impressed with the German guy that Warrem found in the Caneries. Was waiting for a window to cross the Atlantic in a CANOE. He saw him later in the carrabean.
One deals with stuff as one sees it not from a HASI, God rot them.
A
Cloona
Well-Known Member
i think the skill set was/is different - and all the instruments erode those skills -
is it a force 6 because the instrument says so or because of the sea state and the weight of the wind in your sails ...
is it a force 6 because the instrument says so or because of the sea state and the weight of the wind in your sails ...
srm
Well-Known Member
As said, big powerful sail plans plus towing with the tide. Also, the trawl was a beam trawl with a frame to hold the mouth of the net open - unlike modern otter board trawls that use the speed of the vessel keep the net open.
pagoda
Well-Known Member
I think it was more of a "mind-set " difference. More self -reliance- then than now. It has become slowly banished from most of the population by the "elf n safety" mob.
My family sailed a trading smack in the Clyde from about 1822 to about 1855 - 45 ft - gaff rigged cargo + cattle + passengers etc. They started to lose out to steamships, so three brothers hauled the smack ashore - chopped her in two, fitted a new keel & keelson - adding 15ft. The planked her up and fitted a 2nd mast - from a brig which had run aground.
She then ran as a fore & aft-er until they had time to make the yards for 2 square sails. They then sailed her as far afield as Runcorn, Ireland, & Skye for another 35years as a trading schooner. (master & mate only - loaded and unloaded themselves by a barrow and a plank...)
At this point in 1893 or so - they built themselves from scratch a wooden steam coaster (a puffer in Scottish parlance, selling their first cargo to pay for the engine....). They couldn't compete with steam by this point..
The "just get on with it and do it" outlook is still alive in many of todays sailors- and some other outdoor activities, but frowned upon widely.
However as my father points out .."danger is delicious" ;-)
I still have some of my great uncle's pilotage drawings from bays in the Outer Isles- and would certainly check them if I was in the area.
Today, my son would prefer to have accurate mast-head wind instruments, I have to say I look at what I see, how the boat feels and how comfortable I am with the conditions. Numbers by themselves don't do much for me.
regards, Graeme
srm
Well-Known Member
In another thread a while back someone claimed that all TRUE sailors would not leave port without wind instruments and got annoyed with people who said they were not neccessary. Obviously he never read the works of Tilman or Hiscock et al.
There is a whole library full of books written by the pioneers of cruising (coastal and ocean) that will open the eyes of such 'modern' sailors. Its well worth reading some of them now and again just to remind oneself of what is needed and what can be safely ignored when it fails to work. All that is really needed for a safe coastal or offshore passage is a log and compass.
I would agree with the 'mind set' comment. Once out of shouting distance to the shore we were totally alone before VHF. Some people liked it and carried on cruising. It probably limited the number of people cruising as only those who were prepared to look after themselves and develop the neccesary skills would go.
There is a whole library full of books written by the pioneers of cruising (coastal and ocean) that will open the eyes of such 'modern' sailors. Its well worth reading some of them now and again just to remind oneself of what is needed and what can be safely ignored when it fails to work. All that is really needed for a safe coastal or offshore passage is a log and compass.
I would agree with the 'mind set' comment. Once out of shouting distance to the shore we were totally alone before VHF. Some people liked it and carried on cruising. It probably limited the number of people cruising as only those who were prepared to look after themselves and develop the neccesary skills would go.
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pagoda
Well-Known Member
I quite agree...but the essential ingredient is a large dose of common sense...and a willingness to back off and adjust your tactics if things don't look very nice.
And I suppose a half decent idea of what weather is about...
Malabar
Well-Known Member
Colin Smith spoke to us earlier this year about his 1949 transaltlantic crossing in his self-built Nova Espero. Sailing with his brother in virtually an open 20ft boat, Colin & Stanley were quite rightly given a heros' welcome on arrival in Dartmouth. What struck me was that photos showed that the normal sailing rig consisted of a tweed suit and brown brogues. No gortex; no lifejackets; no liferaft. I sense that that generation were far more used to discomfort - cold, wet etc. And not a yachtmaster ticket between them!
pagoda
Well-Known Member
Nobody of my grandfather's generation could swim - despite being at sea from about age 12. My mother told me they accepted the hazard in an equable manner.
If it was their "time" then that was that- one of the hazards of wearing big sea boots...
No drama. Joshua Slocumb has a rather similar understated outlook - as well as one of the best natured boats one could wish for. Not too common an outlook these days.
Graeme
Poignard
Well-Known Member
There does seem to be a rather hysterical attitude to safety these days. Somebody on this forum once called me a "murderer" because I admitted to crossing the Channel without having a liferaft on board.
People used to say: "Where there's muck there's money." Nowadays it's should be: "Where there's fear there's money"
People used to say: "Where there's muck there's money." Nowadays it's should be: "Where there's fear there's money"
jetwake
Well-Known Member
I think the big difference is that we are distanced from death. We even have smaller faamilies now because we accept that we can, by and large, not lose children during childhood.
Even my parents wartime generation rather expected to lose children, and ceratinly relatives, at some untimely point. I suspect nowaday most people do NOT know of a loved one snatched from them early on, and if they do it's unfair and nasty and how can God allow this.
Go back a hundred years or more and we knew that death was simply there, all the time.
So now if I sail I take ultra care and I am cautious because I know I can cheat death to some extent, so I don't tempt fate. I look after my children, possibly limiting their experiences to those where I can not tempt the fates.
If this ability to extend our lives is softer than my forebears, then guilty as charged...but I think they'd have done exactly the same in my shoes.
The further we get from frequent death the more it worries us, I think. Incidentally, I think the same is true of guns...but thats another story!
David
Even my parents wartime generation rather expected to lose children, and ceratinly relatives, at some untimely point. I suspect nowaday most people do NOT know of a loved one snatched from them early on, and if they do it's unfair and nasty and how can God allow this.
Go back a hundred years or more and we knew that death was simply there, all the time.
So now if I sail I take ultra care and I am cautious because I know I can cheat death to some extent, so I don't tempt fate. I look after my children, possibly limiting their experiences to those where I can not tempt the fates.
If this ability to extend our lives is softer than my forebears, then guilty as charged...but I think they'd have done exactly the same in my shoes.
The further we get from frequent death the more it worries us, I think. Incidentally, I think the same is true of guns...but thats another story!
David
Kukri
Well-Known Member
Ho, hum.
I should perhaps start by saying that I sail a pre-War boat; one that I have owned for quite a long time, and one that I have fitted with a few gadgets - echosounder, through hull log, GPS, VHF, electricity, a diesel engine, a liferaft, an inflatable tender and an outboard. I suppose I have brought her up to "state of the art, 1980"
I have taken up sailing her without using the gadgets.
The reason is that owing to family circumstances I am not in a position to go to anywhere that I have not already been, for the time being, anyway.
I do have cotton sails, but I have not gone as far as manila rope or "real" oilskins.
It's rather satisfying.
I should perhaps start by saying that I sail a pre-War boat; one that I have owned for quite a long time, and one that I have fitted with a few gadgets - echosounder, through hull log, GPS, VHF, electricity, a diesel engine, a liferaft, an inflatable tender and an outboard. I suppose I have brought her up to "state of the art, 1980"
I have taken up sailing her without using the gadgets.
The reason is that owing to family circumstances I am not in a position to go to anywhere that I have not already been, for the time being, anyway.
I do have cotton sails, but I have not gone as far as manila rope or "real" oilskins.
It's rather satisfying.
Seanick
Well-Known Member
I do try not to use the gps....every time I go aground I turn the plotter on and I am just in the wrong place!
Foxy
Well-Known Member
IMHO good points about the fear thing. It hurts to say it - and damn them for it! but, from what I've seen, it appears that the average french yachtsman would be out there sailing, with nothing but a rough looking yacht, a partly working engine, in the cold and wet and still dry out on legs on the beach - much like the stories I hear of the UK 20 or 30 years ago. Whereas I'm afraid the image I have of us brits is having lovely shiny boats which sit in marinas for 50 weeks of the year. A bit provocative I know, but I can't help but admire them for it. Perhaps it stems from being based in the solent for a while. Other areas of the Uk are perhaps a little more adventurous. I guess its just a matter of percentages, with so many boats based down there, but.......
Woodlouse
Well-Known Member
Actually otter boards were used when trawling under sail. Beams could be too big and unwieldy for the smaller boats.
There's a good description of trawling under sail during the latter parts of the first world war by Ralph Stock in The Cruise of the Dreamship.
My grandfather always wore a shirt and tie when sailing. I have to say that a lot of style has gone out of yachting since it became available to the masses.
Kukri
Well-Known Member
If anyone has not read them already, Michael Frost's two books "Boadicea CK213" and "Half a Gale" are very good on trawling and oyster dredging under sail including the use of a sailing otter trawl (which is different to a motor vessel otter trawl).
They are actually very good books altogether; he used his own observations and a scientific turn of mind (he was my dentist as a boy!) to come to some rather striking conclusions about wind and sea. and it rather looks as if he may have been quite right, if I understand the article on Lagrangian coherent structures in the Science bit of this week's "Economist".
They are actually very good books altogether; he used his own observations and a scientific turn of mind (he was my dentist as a boy!) to come to some rather striking conclusions about wind and sea. and it rather looks as if he may have been quite right, if I understand the article on Lagrangian coherent structures in the Science bit of this week's "Economist".
glashen
Well-Known Member
I think predicting the future is a fools game, and there are challenges around if you want them. Just don't take too much notice of the safety police, I've been told no sane person would cross the channel without radar. I'm happy with the electronics I have (GPS etc), I might in the future be tempted to more particularly AIS, but in the meantime I shall sail taking the equipment I have into account but no overly relying on it.
VO5
Well-Known Member
I never cease to be amazed that the public do not realise that the safety police are not there for the purpose of acting truly in the interest of the well being of the public. It is quite the opposite. They act contrary to the interests of the public. They encroach upon the public. They treat the public as if the public were children, with neither common sense or any sense at all for that matter. Of course the less the public actively resist such nonsense the more the other side feel emboldened to pass and enact increasingly arcane ideas. But the public, in very large measure is to blame, by resigning themselves to be subservient. And the public...remains mystified as to why these ideas are put forward and by whom. The answer is quite simple. The answer is that there is no interest in acting in the public interest at all. There is an interest in cynically pretending it is the case. The underlying reason being a well disguised objective, This objective includes dumbing down the population to make the population subservient, obedient and ultimately enslaved. This is in the hands of cynical planners who keep pushing the envelope using all sorts of excuses and silly reasons that do not stand up to intelligent scrutiny to bulldoze their way to impose their ideas and to succceed to have them implemented as law. The sooner everybody wakes up the better.
VO5
Well-Known Member
The future has already been decided and meticulously planned in advance of the event, horrifically.
The future is a society with neither love nor freedom nor privacy, is what the future is, I feel saddened to have to tell you.
If you are a thinking person, to consider the future and its implications is the greatest conscious nightmare that can be considered and imagined, really, truly....
D
DogWatch
Guest
rubbish!
Travel forward in time, people will look back and laugh that we went to sea with such primitive equipment. Internal combustion engines, how quaint, our micro nuclear fusion caterpillar drive running on seawater is already out of date.
Imagine taking on fuel to run silly little propellers.. But they must have been braver than us, no?