Seaworthy skippers

[Stemar]

So in hoinesty, the boat is more seaworthy tthan I am. But how many people will admit that as opposed to pretend to be all macho?

Me for one.

I've long maintained that, while heroes have their moment of glory, cowards tend to have a lot more moments.

 

[SimonFa]

I consider my boat and myself seaworthy for the area I regularly sail - for instance I'm off to Studland for the night, a trip I've done many times, although I am not complacent about the risks and the areas of danger.

When I go outside these areas I know I'm not as seaworthy so start to take extra precautions, double/ triple checking plans, harbour entrances, tide times, weather etc. The boat I try to maintain at the highest standed anyway (although I'm sure plenty on here would find some evidence of poor seamanship )

 

[johnalison]

My only claim to competence is that I have so far failed to wreck a boat, but most of use boat-owners I have sailed with have been capable, but not always refined. The best fun, though, was our Christmas Day-cruises when we had up to five or six skippers on the one boat, each of them in two minds at least following a well lubricated lunch.

 

[steve yates]

My boats are way tougher & more seaworthy than me, thankfully!

 

[Mark-1]

Good idea for a thread.

My boats are way tougher & more seaworthy than me, thankfully!

Some of mine haven't been. ?

 

[PilotWolf]

Yup, the more dodgy looking the bar, the better the run ashore. Helps if you have an expendable Australian with you should a fight break out. ??

For months we had a charter who was a 7’ Barbados native.

He often used to join us and the engineer had been a body builder or something similar so we didn’t get any trouble usually.

W

 

[Birdseye]

My only claim to competence is that I have so far failed to wreck a boat, but most of use boat-owners I have sailed with have been capable, but not always refined. The best fun, though, was our Christmas Day-cruises when we had up to five or six skippers on the one boat, each of them in two minds at least following a well lubricated lunch.

Dont want to sound like a pious old woman but booze and sailing are very much a high risk and daft combination. Thats not about seaworthyness but something else beginning with an S.

 

[xyachtdave]

Dont want to sound like a pious old woman but....

...you do!

 

[PilotWolf]

Dont want to sound like a pious old woman but booze and sailing are very much a high risk and daft combination. Thats not about seaworthyness but something else beginning with an S.

About as dangerous as having multiple ‘captains’!

W.

 

[Kukri]

When I was in my teens and twenties I was more sea worthy than the boats that I owned, although it was a close run thing at times.

I am now in my sixties and my boat is far more seaworthy than I am.

 

[jbweston]

I don't think I'd be much of skipper if my boat wasn't more seaworthy than me.

 

[Wansworth]

Sailing with a more knowledgeable skipper is like going co pilot in your family car, with a professional driver or in my case a garage owner,never realized it could go round corners so fast!

 

[starfire]

Me for one.

I've long maintained that, while heroes have their moment of glory, cowards tend to have a lot more moments.

Or movements ?

 

[Laminar Flow]

That really is a can of worms you have opened. And its not the engine sails question - any one can see that the margin of safety is greater with both than with just one. Instead its the mental toughness and our willingness to admit to ourselves that we arent simply clones of Ranulph Fiennes able to trek across the arctic having lost all out toes.

I have no great fear problem, at least when at sea though I can do a great job of frightening myself and all around when stuck in harbour. But neither do I have great "endurance", the strength to fight back rather than just give up. I discovered that on two occasions. The first was the one and only time I have been badly sea sick when as the old cliche goes I wanted to die. But I really did. And the sight at night of crossing paths with a tug towing something I couldnt see, only made me wish it would plough into me. The seocond was when I got stuck in waist deep mud messing about with a mooring and had to be rescued because I could fight no more.

To put it another way - I ride a motorbike. I know its dangerous but that doesnt worry me. Having been helicoptered into A&E after a bike crash I know I would much prefer that end to a lingering cancer death when I certainly would not be able to put a brave face on it.

So in hoinesty, the boat is more seaworthy tthan I am. But how many people will admit that as opposed to pretend to be all macho?

No offense, but I'd rather not sail with a skipper with an admitted yearning for the great "beyond".

I have always been rather painfully aware of my responsibility to get "my crew" safely to shore, no matter what.
In that context, I well remember a discussion at a safety meeting before an ocean race, when one participant expounded the view that it was wrong to call for outside help in an emergency. I simply asked him if he was a skipper, because in that case he would be obliged to do everything to try and save his crew, including calling for help. Once accomplished, he was welcome to insist on his age-old prerogative of going down with the ship.

 

[johnalison]

Abou


About as dangerous as having multiple ‘captains’!

W.

Some people were clearly never young!

 

[GHA]

I have always been rather painfully aware of my responsibility to get "my crew" safely to shore, no matter what.

So long as you don't tell them when...........

Not really joking that much, imho a calendar can potentially be one of the most dangerous things on a boat...

 

[Laminar Flow]

So long as you don't tell them when...........

Not really joking that much, imho a calendar can potentially be one of the most dangerous things on a boat...

I agree, and I have had charter crews put me under serious pressure to leave a safe port when bad weather was predicted because they had some deadline.
On one occasion I declined to leave from Menorca to sail to the western side of Mallorca and basically had a full mutiny on my hands. That day, and on our projected route, a 12m fishing boat capsized with the loss of all onboard. My group looked a lot less mutinous viewing the heart-wrenching procession of the bereaved casting flowers off the harbour wall where that boat used to tie up.

 

[ryanroberts]

I will probably never be as seaworthy as my boat and I like it that way

 

[jbweston]

Pilots have a saying - 'Better to be down here wishing you were up there than up there wishing you were down here'.

I'm a kind, gentle, easygoing skipper who loves to keep his crew happy. But when all the consulting is done, I'm going to be the one to decide whether we go to sea or not. If they don't like it they can get another berth, take the ferry, phone the office to say they won't be in tomorrow because a girl they met has them handcuffed to the bed - anything they like, I don't care. If they wanted to be sure of getting somewhere by a particular time they should have walked it.

 

[Kukri]

Being serious, I have one absolute rule, which is that I will stay at sea, rather than try to make a harbour or river entrance that I am not entirely sure about, in anything like heavy weather. Indeed, when in doubt, get offshore.

This is a very old rule indeed; it goes back to RT McMullen. But it is a rule that surprisingly few people really, really, believe in.

“Catch 22“ for entrances is that making a port upwind is at best hard work and at worst risks loss of situational awareness and the possibility of missing stays, whilst running into an unknown or dodgy entrance is an absolute “no”. So if I cannot arrive on a reach I often prefer to carry on to somewhere where I can reach into.