Seaworthy skippers

[Stemar]

“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”.

I've no argument with that after a long passage, but weekend sailors, like me and many others here, really have no excuse for being out there in weather that doesn't allow entry into a safe haven. It may be worse than forecast, but it's almost never that much worse. The forecast was for a fun 6 and it's turned into a southerly 7 gusting 8 and the tide's coming out of Chichester like a train? Head for Portsmouth. I can imagine conditions a yacht might not want to go in there, but the Met Office would have been issuing red warnings for days. and I'd be safe at home putting a double reef in the TV aerial. Different matter for boats without reliable engines, of course.

 

[zoidberg]

“I don’t have to know an answer,” Richard Feynman said. “I don’t feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost .....”

Do I need to know 'where I am' at every waking moment, and deteriorate to a quaking jelly if the chartplotter fails somehow to do its stuff? Or am I entirely comfortable just poking my head outside, looking around the horizon and up at the sails, sniffing the breeze and saying to myself 'THIS is where I am.'.....?

 

[Kukri]

Forty years of wooden gaff rigged boats with very doubtful engines has left a mark on how I go about things afloat.

 

[Laminar Flow]

Ive done a couple of passages north and south along the North American West Coast. From Bodega Bay, just north of San Francisco there is, for some 750 miles, until you reach the Straight of Juan de Fuca, not a single safe entrance in rough conditions as all harbours are on river mouths. If you're out, you're out. Consequently, we got a real a**- kicking on my next north-south trip.

The first time I was up that way we met a very nice old couple in Brookings. She had been the editor of the local paper and showed me a series of photos of a local fishing boar being overwhelmed by heavy seas in the entrance. "Bob, he didn't make it," she said.

 

[Laminar Flow]

“I don’t have to know an answer,” Richard Feynman said. “I don’t feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost .....”

Do I need to know 'where I am' at every waking moment, and deteriorate to a quaking jelly if the chartplotter fails somehow to do its stuff? Or am I entirely comfortable just poking my head outside, looking around the horizon and up at the sails, sniffing the breeze and saying to myself 'THIS is where I am.'.....?

... which is precisely why some areas sport an inordinate number of wrecks. Did Mr. Feynman do a lot of sailing? I had him down to being more of a theoretical physicist.
Before my first ocean passage I was rather nervous about my navigation. So, when I saw a Canadian boat anchored off Las Palmas I rowed over for any information I could get to soothe my jitters.
The old fellow had a pretty rustic set-up; somewhere between the marine equivalent of an old trapper's outback cabin and Noah's ark. Of course I asked him how he navigated. "O well, once every few days I'se take a sight; that's enough. Then I"se go from there. When yer' cross an ocean, yer bound to hit land somewhere 'the other side," he assured me. He also told me he had lost some five boats over his sailing career, which did little to ease the raw state of my nerves or exactly recommend his methodology.
I still think that navigation requires a greater degree of tracking and accuracy than a three day interval of update. I do like to know where I'm at and I came to navigation long before I ever knew, other than in science fiction, that there was such a thing as a chart plotter.

 

[Habebty]

Being predominantly a singlehander, I think I would make a crap skipper. However, being on my own tends to make me think of my limitations and plan accordingly with lots of plan Bs, especially with regards to weather on a passage. Managing the welfare of a crew is a responsibility and skill not to be underestimated, particularly if the crew is not a strong(experienced) crew.

 

[zoidberg]

'Yessirreebob', Laminar Flow.

I'm reminded that 'The land claims more ships than the sea'..... and that it is a good principle to stay well clear of the hard sticky-up bits.

 

[mjcoon]

... which is precisely why some areas sport an inordinate number of wrecks. Did Mr. Feynman do a lot of sailing? I had him down to being more of a theoretical physicist.

And bongo player, safe cracker, maybe juggler (not so certain about that one)...

(Oh, yes, and ghosted author of the autobiographical "Surely you're Joking Mr Feynman".)

 

[Stemar]

If I had a three week passage across an ocean and no hard bits to bump into, I'd probably be fine with a fix every few days for the first couple of weeks but, if I'm heading for the Caribbean, I'd quite like to be sure I'm going to end up on an island, preferably my choice of island, and not Venezuela.