What scares you most when sailing?

[thecommander]

Serious thread.
Most things can be dealt with but the thought of a serious onboard medical emergency in heavy seas miles from help scares the bejesus out of me.

 

[Kukri]

Ooh...err! It's almost all scary!

Fire. Ships in fog. Injury. Floating objects, be they logs or containers. And so on.

 

[johnalison]

I don't think that I have ever been scared for my life while sailing, even if I have had moments of worry. I find it very hard to pluck up courage to go offshore when at home, even though I am as happy as a sandboy when out of sight of land. Since radar, I don't fret about fog. I suppose that being overwhelmed by heavy weather is my worst nightmare, long with unpredictable nasties such as fire.

 

[mainsail1]

Drama Queen. I bet there is more to be scared about getting to the boat.

 

[RupertW]

Sea monsters - seriously although I know it's irrational

 

[Bru]

Getting it wrong. If it goes pear shaped despite my best endeavours, that's life but I live in constant terror of cocking it up

 

[Kukri]

Back in the days of JDS. YM announced that more yachtsmen were drowned from the tender between the shore and the boat than were drowned from the parent yacht.

(It occurs to me that the huge growth in marinas took place just after this news was published!)

Anyway, I treat my tender with great respect- it always has oars, bailer, buoyancy, an anchor, a torch and a hand held VHF...

 

[Kukri]

Getting it wrong. If it goes pear shaped despite my best endeavours, that's life but I live in constant terror of cocking it up

You and I are probably of an age. As a keen teenager with my first boat I lived in mortal terror of the audience of smacksmen, Thames barge skippers and professional yacht hands who gathered under a blue haze of pipe smoke in The Victory in Mersea, the Butt and Oyster in Pin Mill, etc.

"Saw you come in in that little boat of yours, boi... Yew shouldn't hev done that..."

 

[pyrojames]

The unknown. What I might have missed in preparation, rig, hull, passage, weather, it's just whatever I can't account for.

 

[Wandering Star]

Discovering I've left the can opener behind so can't remove the lid from the Fray Bentos pie.

 

[Yellow Ballad]

Marinas with expensive boats in them.

 

[thecommander]

When a big mobo on plane comes straight for you.....

 

[weustace]

Falling overboard/losing a crew member overboard, especially when offshore. "Can be dealt with", and occasionally drilled, but it doesn't take much extra swell or some additional issue (seasickness is perhaps the biggest concern, actually, but also ropes round prop, halyard jams etc) to make it dramatically less manageable. The idea of being in such a hideous situation as the crew of Lion fairly recently, in which they lost a friend (and relative) overboard and recovered a corpse, is indescribably awful.

 

[jonjo]

What scares me the most?

The possibility that I might forget to be scared.

 

[JumbleDuck]

The engine stopping. Not that my 1GM10 every did stop, or even miss a beat, and I always had a Plan B. but it did occasionally drink oil and there were times when a sudden stop or a low oil warning would have been a serious pain in the bahooki. My nice new Nanni undergoes sea trials at the yard on Monday ...

 

[Gwylan]

*ocking it up more than usual, giving evidence to the resulting enquiry.

Not wussing out when the weather is going off and sailing against my better judgement. Did that a couple of weeks ago, under pressure from a gung ho crew. We had a thoroughly torrid 12 hours, but nothing worse.

 

[NUTMEG]

This sounds very whimpish, but deep water upsets me. East coast is my usual cruising ground, depth usually measured in 10's of meters. Once went a bit further afield and noticed 100+ meters under the boat and came over all vertigoish. Really, like standing on top of a high building. I had to consciously push the image of all that water under the boat to the back of my mind. Had I allowed myself to dwell on it I am not sure how I would have coped. Silly, but I don't like deep water, sure I would get used to it, but...

 

[westhinder]

When I started sailing, it was the obvious: getting into really bad weather and losing control of the boat. With more experience and better weather forecasts that has eased off.
What stressed me most, in retrospect, was when the kids were young, sailing with their friends on board: young kids not used to being on a boat and doing unpredictable things. I was constantly on edge, unable to relax and enjoy the trip. I never had that with my own kids, who more or less grew up on board.

 

[JumbleDuck]

This sounds very whimpish, but deep water upsets me. East coast is my usual cruising ground, depth usually measured in 10's of meters. Once went a bit further afield and noticed 100+ meters under the boat and came over all vertigoish. Really, like standing on top of a high building.

I know the feeling, I think. In my gliding days I really didn't like getting above 10,000' above ground level. Below that I was absolutely fine, even though I am rubbish at heights, but above 10,000' the ground looked an awful long way away, the wings looked awful thin and a little voice whispered in my ear "You're two miles up".

My other half does not like being afloat in non-shallow water and therefore does not come sailing with me.

 

[cmedsailor]

What really scares me most is if I am sailing with my kids (age 12 and 14) and I fall overboard. For this reason I try to learn them how to stop the boat (unfortunately they haven't learnt that yet).