DownWest
Well-Known Member
She still does, under an excellent new owner:
Must have a bit of a wrench seeing her go.. RYS?
Should Sailing Involve Physical Effort and some Discomfort?
- Thread starter DJE
- Start date
Must have a bit of a wrench seeing her go.. RYS?
Kukri
Well-Known Member
Yes. And yes. Since she is the perfect English gaff cutter - teak, to Lloyd’s Rules, rig all according to Worth, metacentrically balanced, all the original roller bearing elm blocks, coal stove in saloon, and so on, it was time to try something completely different, so I now have a plastic winch farm. It’s quite a learning curve, but the cockpit is much more comfortable!
maby
Well-Known Member
The sailing's only as good as the weather. Open-cockpit boat...limited days of pleasure in the UK.
I'd enjoy a physically demanding traditional boat, but I can't justify the mooring cost for a yacht I would only want to sail in summer.
So...effort? No problem. But discomfort? No thanks.
Solution? Motorsailer. Funding? Pending...
I think you may be overestimating the effect of winter weather on sailing - probably because you have been primarily a dinghy sailor up until now. There is certainly no particular fun in helming in torrential rain or a blizzard, but we do have a lot of dry, cold days in the British winter and they can be great fun for sailing. The difference between a dinghy and a yacht - even a small one - is the presence of an enclosed space with a galley. Well wrapped up in decent sailing gear, you can easily helm in an open cockpit for a couple of hours provided you get some hot drinks into you from time to time. Add to that a pause for lunch under cover with some freshly prepared hot food and more tea, and you can get a good day's sailing in even in the middle of the winter. If you are not sailing single-handed, then you can extend the time even more by taking turns at sitting out in the cold while the other is below, warming up and making hot drinks for the poor bugger outside!
Sybarite
Well-Known Member
This video gives a great idea of Amel systems in a Super Maramu 2000 :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ey1FX9icWv8
Greenheart
Well-Known Member
Hmm, I know there's often less rain to complain about than we ourselves might believe. I cycled to and from work every day last winter, and only got really wet twice. And I spent a week of sunny days in January last year, working on the boat ashore, really envying the crews of the very few yachts out.
But...to buy an open-cockpit boat, relying on enough kind weather in the UK, to make sitting outdoors pleasurable from November to March, must necessitate a very free calendar. If you can go at short notice when the sky is clear and the wind light, and if you can wait in distant marinas when the weather breaks, until another rare sunny zephyr wafts you home, it may indeed be blissful.
I like going out more often than that, and at my convenience rather than when January imitates May. With the dinghy, I can shrug and accept that winter sailing is most often ghastly. But when I buy a cabin boat, I don't only expect broader horizons in summer, I will want to want to go afloat, even when it's grey, damp and shudderingly cold. To me, that requires an option to helm indoors.
I venture to infer that you too, would rather be in a wheelhouse sometimes!
Plus, we get unpredictable filthy weather during most UK summers, when I'd sooner steer behind a slow motor-boat's windscreen than wrestle a sailing boat against squalls. For me, a motor-sailer doesn't compromise comfort for the reward of being afloat.
This overlong post wasn't meant to bore readers with my taste, it's a sincere answer to the OP. Should sailing involve effort and discomfort? Only as much of either, as the bill-payer claims to enjoy, surely? The fact that (to my sensitivities) the weather often makes most sailing yachts uncomfortable, needn't mean that sailing itself should be uncomfortable. That depends on the boat you choose.
I walked beside Chichester Harbour one bright day last November...my photos of Bosham were vivid gold and azure, it was terrific.
It was also paralysingly cold. :biggrin-new: It's right round the corner, chaps. Enjoy. :encouragement:
TSB240
Well-Known Member
Discomfort comes in many forms on any boat. Some can be mitigated but this will often bring out the selfish or sadistic nature of a purist owner. This then justifies. No boat should have: Spray hood.Dodgers.Stored hot water.Through hull fittings (a bucket will suffice). Reefing lines lead aft. Cockpit Tents. To name a few. Some of these comforts have minimal detrimental effect on the pure sailing ability of most boats but add to the pleasure of being on board in all weather.
The one thing that really bugs me is a poorly designed berth. Too short, Too narrow,Too hard,
Worst of all No room for Two! No boat should ever have a poorly designed fornicatorium.
The one thing that really bugs me is a poorly designed berth. Too short, Too narrow,Too hard,
Worst of all No room for Two! No boat should ever have a poorly designed fornicatorium.
Seajet
...
I agree about poorly designed berths !
A lesson I learned the hard way with my Carter 30 which had a double berth apparently intended for randy Leprechauns and a settee berth opposite so narrow I had to hang on by my fingernails all night.
Always lay down and try bunks, just looking is insufficient - I did this on another boat and discovered my feet were higher than my head...
A lesson I learned the hard way with my Carter 30 which had a double berth apparently intended for randy Leprechauns and a settee berth opposite so narrow I had to hang on by my fingernails all night.
Always lay down and try bunks, just looking is insufficient - I did this on another boat and discovered my feet were higher than my head...
maby
Well-Known Member
.....
I venture to infer that you too, would rather be in a wheelhouse sometimes!
...
Well, I'm certainly not opposed to the idea of a wheelhouse, but it does significantly restrict your range of choice. They have never been common and these days if you want something close to new, I think you are probably limited to the Moody Deck Saloon - at least from the point of view of standard off-the-shelf boats. That is a rather weird looking beast and certainly not cheap.
DJE
Well-Known Member
We tend to use the boat intensively all summer then lay her up for the winter to give us time to do something else.
But the cold of April is offset (at least for a little while) by the warm glow that comes from owning a boat the looks pretty and sails like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqLPC8c2LNM
dom
Well-Known Member
Now I know what you mean by "physical effort and discomfort", bung the entire crew up on the weather rail while you tuck in at the front of the cockpit telling them what to do
Greenheart
Well-Known Member
Let's not deceive ourselves. Nobody denies you "time to do something else" in summer, if you wanted to. You lay up in winter because it's mostly vile, then.
Truth is, whatever we shell out on foul-weather clothing and however much we adore our summer fun, most of us don't enjoy sitting outside in a UK winter...
...we'd be a bit barmy if we did. I don't intend an atom of disrespect - I'm more limited than anyone, by weather. That's why my next boat, won't be.
Undoubtedly, lovely boat in high summer...oh my Lord, that video IS summer!
Your footage makes me more entrenched than ever, about wanting the option of a second, inside helm position. :biggrin-new:
maby
Well-Known Member
Let's face it - you're nesh! Most of us are to a greater or lesser extent - my daughter-in-law is Canadian from just inside the Arctic Circle - she was showing me pictures of her father out in the garden, barbecuing steaks with a couple of feet of snow on the ground while wearing shorts - he's not nesh!
Greenheart
Well-Known Member
In English, old chap, there's a good fellow.
No idea what point you're making.
No idea what point you're making.
maby
Well-Known Member
In English, old chap, there's a good fellow.
No idea what point you're making.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nesh - very old English!
Greenheart
Well-Known Member
"Usage has been recorded in Staffordshire, the East Midlands, Lancashire, North Wales, South Yorkshire and Shropshire."
I can't help how they speak in the north. :highly_amused:
I can't help how they speak in the north. :highly_amused:
newtothis
Well-Known Member
In English, old chap, there's a good fellow.
No idea what point you're making.
In English, he's calling you a big girl's blouse.
Slightly back to topic, I do a strange imitation of falling down a mountain most winters while my friends go skiing. That is a similar experience to sailing I guess. You do it for some experience of the outdoors, some physical exercise, a bit of discomfort/effort. If you just wanted to go up and down a mountain, you'd take the lift in both directions. If you just wanted to cross Lake Solent, you'd take the ferry.
But in the same way I won't ski in a blizzard, I won't sail in conditions that require me to do it from inside.
That may well change as I get older but for now I don't mind a bit of a splash and a breeze.
Greenheart
Well-Known Member
Thank you for clarifying. I thought he was trying to type a speech impediment. I s'pose it could mean "Never Eats Smoked Herring" or something northern like that.
I wonder why it is held by some people to be a failing, to be disinclined to put up with discomfort? It's fairly easy to let discomfort reign - but that's rarely a reason to put up with it.
I wonder what proportion of yachtsmen are acutely aware that their sailing IS often less comfortable than they honestly enjoy, but just keep doing it?
And, why?
DJE
Well-Known Member
Now I know what you mean by "physical effort and discomfort", bung the entire crew up on the weather rail while you tuck in at the front of the cockpit telling them what to do
Rumbled!
Though it has to be said that shortly after we stopped filming we took a wet one down the deck and I caught most of it! -Had to go below to get a dry shirt and put my jacket on.
Blue Sunray
Well-Known Member
As was posted long ago on this thread (post 12) more than a few of us are used to the saying 'any fool can be uncomfortable'. Which is often followed by a requirement (often less subtly put) to put some effort in to reduce said level of discomfort.
However since sailing is a voluntary hobby, putting in the level of effort or expenditure to reduce the level of discomfiture is, of course, up to the participant. It's a payoff but if you can't be bothered/afford to reduce the discomfort you can of course make yourself feel better by claiming it's 'proper sailing' and the others are just 'big girl's blouses'.
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Major_Clanger
Well-Known Member
No, you're not mad; I'm with you almost all the way except that I don't have a spray hood (and it's a very wet boat) and still have various heads'ls rather than a furler.
Modern aids to navigation, physical effort and creature comforts are all great, but, for me at least, they detract from one of the reasons I go sailing. Namely a desire to be with, and work with nature. That desire may be in my subconscious but it's there. Spray hoods, stack packs, hydraulic steering and winches, nav screens everywhere, alarms... Surely they partly remove us from that primeval desire that's in most of us? In the case of hydraulics too they can be a real hindrance as they take away 'feel'.
I'm not some hair-shirt loon (others may disagree), and I have benefited from all manner of gadgets when I sailed for a living, but like the OP, I like to experience the whole shebang and feel at one with the boat as much as I can.
I don't think I've explained myself very well, but I understand it!