the joy of crewing

snowleopard

snowleopard

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off to brittany this w/e to bring a boat back to blighty. for the second time in 5 years i'm looking forward to not being skipper for a passage. the feeling is really liberating, if something breaks it's not my problem, if it sinks, all i have to do is get onto the raft. no tough decisions to make. of course it helps that i know and trust the boat and skipper.

how do you feel about surrendering the captain's seat?

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I've not been so lucky, I've had apprentice skippers on my boat but can't totally relax with them, and done a couple of delivery trips with a skipper (RYA YM Instructor power and sail) who didn’t instil me with any confidence in him what so ever.
So why twice? Well the second trip was up to Denmark and I had never sailed up that way before.


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Thorooghly enjoy crewing. In fact I'm seriously considering selling the old tub and joining crewseekers. On a trip with the bro-in-law I was smugly nonplussed when he ran us aground and we spent 5 hours at 35 degrees (fin keeel), and all I had to worry about was lowering the anchor to the dinghy for him row and lay out.

kim

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I have an apprentice skipper who takes over now and again to get points for his YM. Thoroughly recommend it - he's competent enough for me not to worry, and I get to lie-in in the 'owners suite' and to generally behave like a spoilt brat for the journey. Take the odd spell on the helm when it's good sailing, but hand it back if anything wet starts to happen.

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Yes, its a pleasure. I particularly enjoy egging on the skipper to push the yacht the way I wouldn't dream of with my own.

Oddly enough, I do occasionally get invited back. :-)

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I've spent most of my big boat 'sailing career' as a crew and thoroughly enjoy it.

Initially my friend bought a boat and had some sailing experience.
I had raced dinghies for some time and had some navigation knowledge.
When he was fitting out his boat I took YM thoery and Coastal Skip practical.
By the time the boat was launched I was confident in my navigation and skippering duties.

Within months we were doing our first Channel crossing and we fell into our natural roles. He as skipper, me as navigator and we've learnt from there.

Often there are just the two us for Channel crossings and we are often making joint decisions and I think a skipper also likes having a crew / navigator that can act and think like a skipper as well.

The obvious benefit of being a crew is that it is considerably cheaper than ownership and maintenance costs are surprisingly low !












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Mmm- I've got a friend like you- how much wind can a spinnaker take?? Lets see if we can hold it without broaching etc etc.

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Well if it's this weekend I'd make sure I didn't leave all the decisions to someone else given the forecast ! What kind of boat is it ?

<hr width=100% size=1>a pragmatist is an optimist with a boat in the UK - but serious about not being in the UK !
 
Given that the world is about to end this weekend, I'm afraid all the decisions seems to have been left to someone else already. Or perhaps you were talking about a different forecast?

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metcheck is showing 3-6 southerly for sun/mon with gales returning late tuesday. have to hope they're right.

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Sold my boat this year so have crewed on various others - great fun and no worries - that is until you realise that the anchor is held to the chain by a carbine clip - the alternators not working, the engine overheats at anything over 4 knots - (No its not Snowleopard!) - you start noticing more and more ........ you bite your lip and hope it all holds together!

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Came back yesterday from "crewing" a boat into the Medway. Just me and the skipper on a 45 footer. I did the navigating bit, he skippered the boat, but we work well as a team and with 35 knts of wind over the deck topping out in a gust of 52 knts I was quite pleased to be the crew. I enjoy both skippering and crewing boats, it's just crewing has less responsibilities therefore is easier on the o'l brainbox.

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