Who said "Gentlemen don't sail to windward"? And why?

[lw395]

Gentlemen's yachts were for racing.

Cruising was more of a retired-officer thing?

 

[Colvic Watson]

It's a real bete noir for me and my response is normally something witheringly sarcastic like 'Oh how I pity anyone who lives on a lee shore. They must be knee deep in the corpses of these gentlemen'.

Hmm, not very withering. I think you need something less convoluted - perhaps - "in that case sir, I am no gentleman".

 

[johnalison]

I wish I had been given a quid for every person who has told me that they sailed all the way across the North Sea/English Channel or whatever with a force 6,7 or more on the nose, when I know perdectly well that they haven't; what they have done is sail across close-hauled on one tack or on a close fetch. In open water a cruising boat is going to be lucky to make a VMG of even two or three knots, giving a journey time of two days or more in many cases. What gentleman would make his crew do that?

 

[Sybarite]

I wish I had been given a quid for every person who has told me that they sailed all the way across the North Sea/English Channel or whatever with a force 6,7 or more on the nose, when I know perdectly well that they haven't; what they have done is sail across close-hauled on one tack or on a close fetch. In open water a cruising boat is going to be lucky to make a VMG of even two or three knots, giving a journey time of two days or more in many cases. What gentleman would make his crew do that?

I got talking to a wee guy in the bar at the marina. He was shabbily dressed in dirty old jeans and I assumed he was working on one of the boats. I asked him if he sailed and he said that he did.

What boat?

A Trintella 57'! He had sold his scrap business in England and now was headed off around the world.

When was he leaving?

Don't know. That depends on the wind. He absolutely refused to go anywhere if the wind wasn't with him. As he had his home with him, as well as all the creature comforts he would probably have in his home, he was in no rush.

I didn't tell him that I had claimed priority and made him tack on his approach to the port.

 

[dom]

...when I know perdectly well that they haven't; what they have done is sail across close-hauled on one tack or on a close fetch. In open water a cruising boat is going to be lucky to make a VMG of even two or three knots, giving a journey time of two days or more in many cases.

These numbers are way off for many modern boats . First AWA swings more slowly away from TWA as wind strength increases. Secondly, improved modern hull shape (apart from the marina caravans), better foils and laminate sails have radically improved upwind efficiency.

 

[johnalison]

These numbers are way off for many modern boats . First AWA swings more slowly away from TWA as wind strength increases. Secondly, improved modern hull shape (apart from the marina caravans), better foils and laminate sails have radically improved upwind efficiency.

I'm talking about average cruisers, some as small as 28'. Yes, I know that a crack modern boat can make good way but my HR34, which is known as a good windward sailor, and has a laminate jib, will make heavy weather of getting anywhere in the open sea dead to windward in F5 or more (real wind, not just gusts)

 

[Hydrozoan]

What is a bit odd to me is that nothing on the web or in sailing books that I’ve seen gives any notion of when the phrase (or any recognizable variant of it) came into wide usage. The term gentlemen does suggest the wealthy gentleman owner/racer of the C19^th and early C20th, but I’ve seen nothing specific.

Anything parallel, with perhaps better dating, in French or Dutch?

 

[JumbleDuck]

These numbers are way off for many modern boats . First AWA swings more slowly away from TWA as wind strength increases. Secondly, improved modern hull shape (apart from the marina caravans), better foils and laminate sails have radically improved upwind efficiency.

Efficiency? Yes, indubitably. Sustainable fun? I doubt it.

 

[dom]

I'm talking about average cruisers, some as small as 28'. Yes, I know that a crack modern boat can make good way but my HR34, which is known as a good windward sailor, and has a laminate jib, will make heavy weather of getting anywhere in the open sea dead to windward in F5 or more (real wind, not just gusts)

Fair point, and you're certainly right in relation to v. small cruisers and boats primarily intended for the charter market. I've never sailed a HR34, but I'd strongly suspect you could do a lot better if you really wanted to. The trick is often as simple as killing as much windage as possible, setting the mast up properly, tweaking the main for upwind work and fitting a well cut inner-jib, which can easily be deployed and doused from a continuous furling system.

 

[LadyInBed]

"Gentlemen don't sail to windward"? And why?
Maybe because
"Beating is sailing twice the distance at half the speed and three times the discomfort"

 

[dom]

Sustainable fun? I doubt it.

...certainly for kids, who in my experience love beating into a blow. For me - when the boat's set up properly - yes great fun.

Also don't forget that the Channel Islands and Normandy are mostly SW of us "Solent Softies". So we don't have much choice really

 

[Colvic Watson]

My mum's old adage "the sea's always ready for another drowning". I prefer "The yacht club bar is always ready for another bragger."

 

[johnalison]

Fair point, and you're certainly right in relation to v. small cruisers and boats primarily intended for the charter market. I've never sailed a HR34, but I'd strongly suspect you could do a lot better if you really wanted to. The trick is often as simple as killing as much windage as possible, setting the mast up properly, tweaking the main for upwind work and fitting a well cut inner-jib, which can easily be deployed and doused from a continuous furling system.

You are talking to someone with sixty years of racing experience in dinghies and cruisers. I can twang down the backstay and flatten my sails to my heart's content and I will be leaving most boats of our size well behind, but I will still be getting almost nowhere towards my destination - in open water. Trying to get back to Essex from Ostend against anything over a force four from the NW is a mug's game. Most people who try end up back where they started or in Calais or Ramsgate.

 

[Daydream believer]

You are talking to someone with sixty years of racing experience in dinghies and cruisers. I can twang down the backstay and flatten my sails to my heart's content and I will be leaving most boats of our size well behind, but I will still be getting almost nowhere towards my destination - in open water. Trying to get back to Essex from Ostend against anything over a force four from the NW is a mug's game. Most people who try end up back where they started or in Calais or Ramsgate.

Did it in 1977 heading back to Burnham against a F8- with F9 for a while- took 32 hours ( inc 4.5 hours hove too in the windiest bit)
That was my " record"
I said never again- but somehow often get caught
Law of averages says one is likely to after 61 visits to Ostend
People who say sailing to windward is fun have not really had a slog of a couple of days where simple movement about the boat is draining to say the least & just trying to brace ones self in the cockpit is a strain

 

[dom]

Trying to get back to Essex from Ostend against anything over a force four from the NW is a mug's game.

Perhaps I'm a mug then, but I can usually average a sustained 5.1-5.8kts VMG (12.7m LWL) in anything between 14 and 30kts true, a bit less at the upper end if sea conditions are particularly messy or wind is against tide.

I guess this beating thing is horses for courses, but I'd better stop there as I don't want to drift this gentlemanly thread!

 

[Daydream believer]

I was told that the phrase was oft quoted by D Hilliard in response to questions about why his boats sailed like old dogs

 

[Resolution]

"Gentlemen don't sail to windward" was said many times at my venerable posh London yacht club by the Chief Sailing Officer (a man of great character and Irish humour) as he set wonderful courses in the Solent which managed to combine one nasty leg to windward with a succession of reaches and runs back to the finish line.
Strangely enough, most of the ancient/ venerable lithographs and paintings that litter our club house seem to show fantastic large yachts with enormous amounts of canvas racing to windward!!

 

[SimonFa]

I thought gentlemen didn't sail to windward so that their guest didn't spill their G&Ts.

 

[dancrane]

Thank you all for plenty of interesting views on what was originally my very idle thought.

I can see that sustained beating to windward at sea in more than a moderate breeze will be very hard on boat and crew, and that doing so nonchalantly needn't be anyone's aim.

But, was such a rugged, comfortless, ruthlessly determined style of sailing (ie racing, I suppose) really the target of the "gentlemen don't sail to windward" comment?

I always supposed it was intended more generally than that - so that even a close reach was deemed by believers to be not quite an acceptable use of sailcloth and breeze.

I remember hearing of a fashion designer who presented a beautifully-made, frightfully fashionable, impossibly expensive raincoat...

...and when somebody pointed out that it wasn't remotely waterproof, the designer said contemptuously, "it doesn't rain on the rich".

There seems to be a similar, glib over-simplification in both these daft phrases, both attempting to suggest that weather will trouble a humble fellow, while favouring the smug.

So...considering few (if any?) of us would claim to be so fortunate that we don't routinely need to sail upwind, why is this preposterous saying regularly dug out and repeated?

 

[phanakapan]

Dunno who said it. Doesn't apply to me anyway, I'm a lady not a gentleman, so I can sail where I like. Well except to windward in my old rust heap!