LittleSister
Well-Known Member
Is there a cruising version you can do with a cup of tea in one hand and a book under the other arm?;-)
The hardest thing in sailing I have ever had to do.
- Thread starter monkfish24
- Start date
Is there a cruising version you can do with a cup of tea in one hand and a book under the other arm?;-)
onesea
Well-Known Member
I knew what you meant
No but if I spilt SWMBO's G&T over her copy of contessa 32 weekly it would be my last tack
(that smiley is not as good since the forums changed 
)
DJE
Well-Known Member
Many of our club dinghies have been re-rigged so that they are all centre mainsheet. That way we only have to teach one method of tacking and gybing. Hard luck if a student then goes on to sail an aft mainsheet boat!
alant
Well-Known Member
What a stupid statement!
alant
Well-Known Member
Simondjuk
Well-Known Member
I've sailed with many excellent guys and gals who obtained their Yachtmaster via the fast track route. They get examined just as rigorously as anyone else, possibly more so if the examiner is aware they may be intending to move into commercial sailing.
I also know a guy who had been sailing for 20 odd years, was very competent and would almost certainly have walked a Yachtmaster exam with no training. He decided, mostly for fun, to do a fast track course and came away full of enthusiasm about how much he learned and how living and breathing boats 7 days a week for a few months had made him a markedly better sailor. I imagine the same would go for pretty much anyone who did likewise, yourself included.
Seajet
...
simonjuk,
thanks but in my opinion there are are experienced sailors and newcomers, when it comes to training; I was chief instrusctor for British Aerospace Social club on dinghies.
I have sailed dinghies and cruisers since a toddler, and did the night school on 'Nav level 2' years after I'd first crossed the Channel in case I had missed anything; I hadn't !
Yachtmaster offshore was huge fun due to the people I was with - thanks Mike Dymond and Pete Misson ! - while I cannot compare myself to such brilliant sailors, I don't think I'm too bad; all based on experience over now 40+ years as skipper, dinghy and cruiser; I find it an offensive joke that people should think they are on the same level after a few months .
thanks but in my opinion there are are experienced sailors and newcomers, when it comes to training; I was chief instrusctor for British Aerospace Social club on dinghies.
I have sailed dinghies and cruisers since a toddler, and did the night school on 'Nav level 2' years after I'd first crossed the Channel in case I had missed anything; I hadn't !
Yachtmaster offshore was huge fun due to the people I was with - thanks Mike Dymond and Pete Misson ! - while I cannot compare myself to such brilliant sailors, I don't think I'm too bad; all based on experience over now 40+ years as skipper, dinghy and cruiser; I find it an offensive joke that people should think they are on the same level after a few months .
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Woodlouse
Well-Known Member
Who says they are on the same level? The have the same qualification and they had to pass the same test to get it. The Yachtmaster is a set level of competence and doesn't take experience into that account. No one is saying that a new Yachtmaster is as good as a sailor with 40 years experience. This is why when applying for work on boats you have to supply a cv, not just a certificate.
Simondjuk
Well-Known Member
Seajet,
Some fast trackers, after just a few months, are dramatically better sailors than some I've encountered who have been sailing for in excess of 40 years. That doesn't make all those with 40 years experience a joke who shouldn't be trusted with a boat though, does it?
Miles are a better yardstick of experience than years anyway, but even then I wouldn't assume that quantity necessarily guarantees quality.
Some fast trackers, after just a few months, are dramatically better sailors than some I've encountered who have been sailing for in excess of 40 years. That doesn't make all those with 40 years experience a joke who shouldn't be trusted with a boat though, does it?
Miles are a better yardstick of experience than years anyway, but even then I wouldn't assume that quantity necessarily guarantees quality.
Woodlouse
Well-Known Member
Miles do help but they need to be coupled with a fairly broad range of experiences. I seem to recall reading in heavy weather sailing that it is not uncommon for '30 years of experience' to actually mean one years experience repeated 30 times.
Simondjuk
Well-Known Member
Miles measure sea time, weather encounters, sailing grounds, breakages and their dealing with, etc., etc. That's breadth of experience. Decades of doing a couple of hundred miles a year pottering across The Channel when the forecast is for a Force 4 might not provide the same breadth.
Seajet
...
Or 40+ years experience in high performance dinghies and cruiser racers and over 1000 miles logged on 3 week holiday cruises 
I have dealt with ' fast track ' gits, whose only real qualification was their arrogance; at the time I had a Dart 18 dinghy cat', and one of these berks ( who proudly claimed he'd wrecked a Sigma ) virtually demanded to sail my Dart.
He got a short sharp reply.
I have dealt with ' fast track ' gits, whose only real qualification was their arrogance; at the time I had a Dart 18 dinghy cat', and one of these berks ( who proudly claimed he'd wrecked a Sigma ) virtually demanded to sail my Dart.
He got a short sharp reply.
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FistralG
Well-Known Member
To bring the thread back on track.
The hardest thing in sailing I've had to do is hand the boat back at the end of the charter last holiday.
We didn't want the holiday to end.
On a more serious note...keeping a Unicorn's lee bow out of the back of a wave whilst on a broad reach in a force 6 with a large following sea, and not end up swinging round the front of he mast on the trapeze, is the hardest thing I've had to do in sailing.
The hardest thing in sailing I've had to do is hand the boat back at the end of the charter last holiday.
We didn't want the holiday to end.
On a more serious note...keeping a Unicorn's lee bow out of the back of a wave whilst on a broad reach in a force 6 with a large following sea, and not end up swinging round the front of he mast on the trapeze, is the hardest thing I've had to do in sailing.
Simondjuk
Well-Known Member
Seajet,
You seem to be focusing entirely on yourself and consequently missing my point, which is simply that it's just as absurd to say that all fast trackers are a joke as it is to say that all 40 yearers are. It's got nothing to do with what you have spent your own particular 40 years doing. Many others have spent the same time merely refining the art of nautical incompetence. There are good and bad in both camps.
You seem to be focusing entirely on yourself and consequently missing my point, which is simply that it's just as absurd to say that all fast trackers are a joke as it is to say that all 40 yearers are. It's got nothing to do with what you have spent your own particular 40 years doing. Many others have spent the same time merely refining the art of nautical incompetence. There are good and bad in both camps.
sailorgirl
Well-Known Member
Probably the pre-assessment for the dinghy instructors course... most of my dinghy sailing has been done in the benign settings of the River Thames or the Arabian Gulf... I wasn't prepared for a UK harbour in a F5/6 gusting 7 in waters not always deep enough to keep the dagger board down and a young crew whose sailing experience was entirely in single handed dinghies! Not surprisingly I failed and have decided not to bother again unless there is somewhere that doesn't mind over-50s
alant
Well-Known Member
Some people can do something for a lifetime & still not learn anything - your consistent harping on about being "I was chief instrusctor for British Aerospace Social club on dinghies.", whilst still breastfeeding, is evidence of that!
Woodlouse
Well-Known Member
Or 40+ years experience in high performance dinghies and cruiser racers and over 1000 miles logged on 3 week holiday cruises
I have dealt with ' fast track ' gits, whose only real qualification was their arrogance; at the time I had a Dart 18 dinghy cat', and one of these berks ( who proudly claimed he'd wrecked a Sigma ) virtually demanded to sail my Dart.
He got a short sharp reply.
I'm afraid that in my experience, the more someone goes on about how long they've been sailing for and how experienced they are, the less likely it is that their competence will match.
I have no idea how competent you are. But from what you write you don't seem very comfortable with the prospect that someone with less experience might be as good.
Seajet
...
I'm no Francis Chichester, but you are welcome to come along and find how incompetent I am; PM me for details, the boat is out of the water until April.
Andy
Andy
fireball
Well-Known Member
Pah - the L2k is a pussycat ... it's what I'll jump into if it's too windy to sail my own RS400 ...
Seriously though - the RYA method of tacking a centre mainsheet - as described earlier in the thread - is pretty much what racers do in similar vessels - even the top ones ... (we're not talking 49'er or moths - they're a different breed!).
I was fortunate to do a DI course when I was younger - after spending quite a few summers helping teach - including some level5 and DI courses - and the RYA method for gybing was alien to me as I'd spent most of my life racing boats - but I did have to learn it and understood why it was important to teach a standard method - because, once they've got a basic, reliable method learnt they can then go and adapt/change it for something a little slicker if they desire - but they've always got that basic & reliable method to come back too.
SJ is right that gybing on the plane takes a bit of practice - it's having the balls to gybe whilst doing the speed and knowing how much rudder to apply - the 2k (it's not a Laser anymore - LDC have taken on the build now) has a big rudder and it's easy to oversteer - especially when going quickly.
My experience of the 2k? I've raced it over the last 12 years - mostly as crew, but also as helm - and have been heavily involved in the CA. It isn't a "performance" boat by any stretch, but (IMHO) it does make a good, seaworthy and stable teaching boat. It's a PITA in light winds but comes into its own in anything above a F5 where the lack of canvas is less of an issue.
pteron
Well-Known Member
Pah - the L2k is a pussycat ... it's what I'll jump into if it's too windy to sail my own RS400 ...
Pah, it's never too windy for an RS400
