Total loss of confidence...

Lots of good advice here and all I would add is that slipping the lines is often the hardest part of setting out and thereafter the nerves will settle down. So to get round this I find planning the line slipping process along with visualisation and briefing the crew ("when this line is slipped the bow will drift to starboard etc") helps in terms of your own planning and preparation. This in turn should help your and the crew's confidence for what is usually the most anxious part of the trip.
Anyway, if there isn't a hint of nerves or anxiety there's probably a tad too much complacency ! Best of luck anyway
 
I think you need to bite the bullet and get out there, once the last rope is let go and you get going your mind should ease a bit, things allways seem worse when thinking and worrying about what could go wrong, instead of concentrating on what a great day you are going to have, Having said that i allways worry when i take my other half out sailing she a seems to find strange noises coming from the engine, and she hates heeling when the sails go up,and as someone said earlier she is an extra pair of hands.
 
Lots of replies and as many theories so here's another one.

Your experiences, prior to the reported incident with your wife as crew, were a stage in your self-improving and whilst you had ultimate responsibility for your crew, they were independent of you in life and sufficiently adult to make up their own minds whether to come or not, thus removing a lot of the apparent responsibility from your shoulders.

However, once a member of your close family comes aboard you know to the 'nth' degree how experienced or not they are and also you become much more aware of your responsibilities to the family unit and your individual loved ones.

It is perfectly natural under those conditions to have a heightened state of awareness of the risks and a solution is to conduct the early trips, while this condition prevails, choosing balmy days with a settled pressure system ; beforehand sit yourself down and do a realistic apparaisal of the risks involved which will help to reassure you.

You probably have a lot of imagination and it needs to be brought under control, I suspect, so good luck with the next trip and try to look for more of the pluses and less of the minuses
 
Lots of good ideas there, I took a bit of time to remember my first trips on a cruiser. Trying to remember how I dealt with the stress. I had plenty of experience on dinghies & SWMBO had crewed on some of the madder stuff.

I wanted to go large & take the kids as well, so we chartered a small yacht from Mylor. Lots of sheltered water to explore & interesting anchorages. Short passages, sheltered waters were the key. Charterer supplied an experienced guy to check our capability before letting us go it alone. It was a little stressful knowing I was being watched, but reassuring that there was someone there to ask questions and if it all went wrong, to take charge. In the event, it all went OK & when we asked about picking up moorings, we were encouraged to have several goes, swopping roles between SWMBO & I. A great confidence booster.

Anyway, the point I am trying to make is take a friend with some experience, not to show you "how to do it", but to provide back-up - if needed.

As already suggested a local club can be very helpful, cruises in company are often organised too. These mean that someone else is in charge of planning & the input from all skippers will be taken into account, generally great social events too.

All the best, you can't succeeed if you give up, so seek some support, if you feel it will help.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Don't underestimate your wife, or let her think she's just along to make sandwiches.

[/ QUOTE ]SWMBO kept me going more than once when I got the willies on the way back to the UK from the Canaries and the Azores.

Nerves are normal. After a big storm four days out from Portugal near Porto Santo I found I was almost too scared a week later to put to sea for a sunny F4 30nm sail to neighbouring Madeira.

Anyone who has never been frightened in a small boat at sea is either lying, a fool or posessed of no imagination.

- W
 
Many thanks guys - a huge amount of help and I'm glad to know it's not unusual to have doubts from time to time. Gin, in particular, has also hit the nail on the head with the scurvy crew versus kith and kin theory. I didn't mention it before but there is also a scruffy sea-legless dog involved which makes a total of two novice family members involved.
Anyway, will book a compressed day of Competent Crew tuition on the boat with me just as bus driver. Again, many thanks to y'all..
 
[ QUOTE ]
slipping the lines is often the hardest part of setting out and thereafter the nerves will settle down.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agree 100%. I started sailing 51 years ago and I've crossed the Atlantic several times but I still sometimes find myself getting stressed before even a short coastal trip. Almost invariably, once the sails are up and we're under way I wonder why I got stressed about it.
 
Many on here have thro' & thro' sea dogs. But mine couldn't even stand up on the boat at sea. She was far happier if given her own holiday at the kennels. Next dog was never even given the chance to scratch the decks, he too was happy enough to go in kennels & we certainly didn't miss having a stressed dog aboard - just one less distraction.
 
great thread - it happens to everyone -

perhaps you need a success under your belt (s) ..... go out and and motor about and come back in to do a practice berthing.

Plan to acheive this singlehanded but allow for help from the beloved which has to be much appreciated ("pass me that rope" "oh briliant darling") and then hopefully give it a while and you will both be chomping at the bit to do have a look outside harbour and get the sails up -

another thing a bit further down the line maybe not best to share every concern and worry -
 
Don't regard fear as your enemy. It's just a normal contributer to strategy. If you treat it as an enemy then you get frightened by the fact that you are frightened and frightened by the fact that you might get frightened, which creates a feedback loop.

Don't think for an instant that the guy in the next boat is any less frightened.

Do think hard and plan what you would do in the face of a range of cock-ups. As a beginner plan all moves as far as you can, and, if it isn't going to plan stop and think if the situation allows it.

Ask for help - I have asked the marina staff to help me out of the berth on a day when it looked easy just because I had a bad feeling about it.
 
[ QUOTE ]
I The most emotionally challenging trip of the season is almost invariably the 5 mile run from the winter mudberth round to the mooring - and it doesnt even involve a sea passage - its all sheltered water.


[/ QUOTE ]

Without doubt the answer to that one is to sail through the winter. In this cr*p climate of ours it usually isnt much colder / wetter / windier in winter than summer anyway
 
I'll add my two-barnacles' worth...

In my first season, I found myself on a couple of occassions aborting day sails with new, enthusiastic but inexperienced crew - things maybe just didn't feel right, running a bit late, took too much time over safety-brief, blowing a bit hard, low-blood sugar, subconscious unease, etc. But, with the same crew, next time we just went out and sailed for a complete weekend!

It takes time to build the confidence to take off with just your inexperienced wife as crew - it adds a lot to your mental load to think through all the aspects of sailing the boat while ALSO teaching and reassuring a novice! So I took another mate with us for the first few trips, especially as SHMBO also had our baby boy on board to look after. Adding to that two days of own boat tuition, then SWMBO and I were ready to go off as a couple on our own. The next step was to go off as a family with no extra crew, which we did to known destinations.

The point I'm making is to build solid foundations: for yourself as skipper, for your wife as crew, building confidence step by step.

SWMBO went in two seasons from 'white knuckled' fear that our heavy displacement 27 footer would capsize at the slightest puff, to a competent relaxed person on board - which adds enormously to my own confidence as skipper.

One final point to make is that we've both received enormous support and encouragement from having joined a local club. There's nothing like a friendly, experienced sailor telling you that you'll be just fine on a club rally to somewhere outside your previous comfort-zone.
 
Heres a similar post i made a couple of years ago.... Forum post
I really was ready to give up but followed lots of the advise given....



and heres one i did last weekend
Single handed across to Oostende

I now enjoy my boating.....whether its with others on their boats gaining more experience or going for it on my own boat.

It WILL get better....give it time and dont rush it.

Good luck

Dougie
 
Mucho kudos to you, pop, for starting this thread. As you can see, you are not alone.

FWIW, I have been sailing with my family for about 25 years (as crew/mate - Dad is skip!) and there are still days when I feel very wary about going out. Although, for me, I think sometimes I am most wary about coming back in again. Coming into the berth is STILL a nerve-wracking time for me and I have done it hundreds of times and we are pretty slick in our operations after all this time.

You can do it! Just remember, there are usually lots of options available to you at any given time in advance of anything going seriously pear-shaped. Giving yourself sea room or a 2nd (or 3rd or 4th) pass at something is all part of the learning curve.

And don't forget - when you first think of something (eg whether to put in a reef) is the time to do it, especially when you are starting out. Play it extra safe for now until you get more comfortable.

Let us know how you get on.
 
I really sympathise with you. It doesn't matter how many times I go into and out of berths, nor really matter much who is helming, or whose boat it is....Every time I have a stomach full of butterflies and jelly-legs unless loads of crew! Would rather be stuck well out at sea in a F8 than get near another boat in a marina. Not rationale but that's the way I am. Doing RTI race is like that non-stop for 10 hrs! You're very much not alone. I hope reading all these posts has reassured you...I feel better knowing even very experienced sailors sometimes feel nervy too.

Vanilla
 
Almost exactly as we did - Hired the skipper that I had used before to take us out for a 3 day "confidence builder" - not just for Caroline but for me too. I had only been on our boat for a 5 day Comp Crew course and ended up buying it !!! (Westerly Storm 33). Never sailed in my life before that. Now, a few months later, we are out most weekends and some weekdays when I am home, cruising around West Coast of Scotland. No dramas at all (so far - that's done it !) and wife, who had NEVER sailed before absolutely loves it and is a real asset. Her short handed berthing technique is brilliant - never let us down yet........
My advice, get an easy going "tutor",
Ask him to show you the easy/safe/ common sense way to do things - as opposed to some of the RYA instruction.
Enjoy it

mikehibb said:
My wife was a complete sailing novice, so I decided that the first time she went out with me we also took another experienced skipper/instructor. I acted just as crew.

The idea was that she would be under instruction from an instructor, not a husband (already seen what happened when father tried to teach mother to drive) She thoroughly enjoyed the sail as did I, what a relief not have to worry about skippering and instructing SWMBO at the same time.

First thing she said when we got back was when are we going out again (but without the instructor) the answer was next day.
She is still learning some of the correct terminology of the bits of string and the turny thing that you put the handle in. But she is brilliant up at the pointy end with the anchor.

The guy that went out with us was the same guy that I used when I first took my boat out. I had sailed as crew before with a couple of hundred nautical miles under my belt, and a few more on RN MFVs. But that was quite a few years before buying my own boat, and never as the skipper ( and never short handed before)

I recommend to Popingley to try the same. For the cost of an instructor for a day it was well worth it, and it made an enjoyable start to our sailing experiences.

We too have a 33 fter and normally sail short handed, just the two of us. When we have guests aboard they have to date mainly been non sailors (so tend to stay in the cockpit until we have anchored) whilst SWMBO skips around the deck pulling things and winding things in looking like she has done it all her life.

Never be too proud to ask for help or instruction. Not doing so might put you off what should be a relaxing and enjoyable experience.
Click to expand...
 
Hallelujah!!
I'm glad I'm not the only one nervous about bobbing about with family and being in charge!!!
I've done CC and DS (with a good school) as well some mile building this year. Previously other half and I have done (separate) Dinghy stuff but I'm still very concerned about SWMBO and heir coming out with only me to direct proceedings.
Solution - booked a Skippered Charter for a couple of days and I will pull string etc. when so commanded, SWMBO and runt in charge to get some experience.
Wish me luck......
 
Certainly not the only one ! We all feel like it and often it's down to things like not having a decent night's sleep or just feeling a bit "off" or out of practice. But if you sit on your mooring and listen to the other couples you'll find that most of them (even the most experienced) get pretty fraught at times.

Perhaps, as a female of the species and one who was introduced to bigger boats by HWMBO, you should consider trying to swap roles or do things as a joint effort. Quite often we sit there and one of us says "Perhaps we should wait until tomorrow" but when you once make the effort it suddenly seems so much better.

One thing I would say is that I think "chaps" often feel too much pressure when they have a crew which is not necessarily experienced or highly-skilled but quite capable of working things out. Someone on this forum recently talked about feeling pressured with a neophyte wife and boys of 8 and 10. I didn't get time to answer him but I was going to say that children of that age can, and will enjoy, getting involved. So perhaps the suggestion of short sails and a bit of "messing around in boats" involving everyone on board is a good way to become familiar with the tricky bits like parking, anchoring etc.

But then I'm sitting at my PC in the office not out on the briny so what do I know :)
 
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