Poll-Sailing Experience

[Richard5]

Originally Posted by captain58sailin

I only counted my unpaid voyaging on my own or family's vessels. Which still puts me in Oceanic. I made an 800+ nm single handed crossing, the gulf of Alaska (deck hand was too sick to get out of the bunk.). Just to get my current love of my life home for a refit.

See there. Cruising AK is diff. It doesn't conform to mileage and rightly so. Just like flying in AK doesn't bare any semblance to the lower 48.

[Ocean Girl]

Originally Posted by Richard5

I omitted solicited crew because it seems a significant portion of boats go forth with not much concern for experience. I suppose one could vote and also add comments for further explanation if they choose to do so.

To wit, Cook, 3rd Class isn't exactly fitting. However, do not be dissuaded. Comments are welcome.


By "solicited" I mean where one party actively recruits a 2nd party to help staff the vessel. A friend was a radar man in the USN. He always knew which port was being entered but he never saw it from above decks. That wouldn't exactly apply to pleasure craft but I trust it makes my point.

I see your point.
I posted oceanic (25,000+) though always crew. Never had a single duty, always included navigation, watch keeper, bailer, cook, repairer of things, whatever the boat needed to keep going. I forget that crew jobs are looked at as single positions. Most of my jobs were were deliveries, not crewed races, or rich mega yacht stewardess.
Only couple thousand single handing on own boat.

[David_Old_Jersey]

TBH I find it fairly easy to tell folks who are knowledgeable and those who are less so........and I am appallingly bad with names .

Originally Posted by Richard5

Looking over some past posts of mine I realized I had assumed many on CF are accomplished skippers. To rectify that assumption I thought perhaps a poll would do.

The power of assumptions.........

Many here are . Some have crossed oceans, some haven't..........others have simply covered a lot of miles . But CF about far more than folks who are out there "doing it" or "done it".....if I want help fixing my Fridge, do I want someone who has used one onboard across the 7 seas - or someone who has been installing and fixing them ashore for 40 years?.......

Me no oceans, and only far enough away from land to drown - but also far enough away from land to not hit anything (well, so far!). Would I class myself as an accomplished Skipper? No. But know enough to know when I am doing dumb stuff . and also fairly all round competent as crew (lots of other jobs onboard besides Skippering, even if in practice the "skipper" has to do them), albeit mechanicals is my great weakness - I have 2 left spanners . If as kid I had been sent down into the engine compartment instead of onto the foredeck then perhaps things would have been different .

I also don't have a hat marked Captain .

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by David_Old_Jersey

But I don't have a hat marked Captain .

That's the 'Bar Stool/Armchair' qualification....

[Panope]

Coastal.

[captain58sailin]

I have always maintained that if you have to have a hat that says "Captain" then there is some doubt as to your ability. Alaska does fall into a different arena, kind of like Jersey, without all the women.

[atoll]

as a side note i would like to add,experince is not every thing!

having had many people crew for me over the years,many with little or no experince on boats,one thing i have noticed is that some people are "natural sailors" who take to life on passage as if they have been doing it all their lives.

others with training ,and a degree of experince on boats can be downright dangerous to themselves and others!

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by captain58sailin

I have always maintained that if you have to have a hat that says "Captain" then there is some doubt as to your ability. Alaska does fall into a different arena, kind of like Jersey, without all the women.

LOLOL...

[rebel heart]

Originally Posted by atoll

as a side note i would like to add,experince is not every thing!

having had many people crew for me over the years,many with little or no experince on boats,one thing i have noticed is that some people are "natural sailors" who take to life on passage as if they have been doing it all their lives.

others with training ,and a degree of experince on boats can be downright dangerous to themselves and others!

I think that's across all disciplines. Aptitude, the innate and native ability to advance and acquire a given set of skills, is really varied. Some people are very quick on uptake. Others seem amazingly able to resist getting better.

I know a guy, halfway through the South Pacific on his way to Austrialia (having gone from San Diego to Mexico and then across the Pacific) who is, and I believe always will be, a shockingly terrible sailor.

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by captain58sailin

I have always maintained that if you have to have a hat that says "Captain" then there is some doubt as to your ability. Alaska does fall into a different arena, kind of like Jersey, without all the women.

It's kinda the same with Armchairs, real Armchair Sailors also have a bucket.....and a stick to beat off the women .

Do you also have Buckets in Alaska?

[captain58sailin]

Buckets are the most prized possession in Alaska, you need one to put your clams in at low tide, carry your fish up from the boat. And a dunny, you have to be careful to keep your clam bucket separate from your dunny bucket.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by captain58sailin

Buckets are the most prized possession in Alaska, you need one to put your clams in at low tide, carry your fish up from the boat. And a dunny, you have to be careful to keep your clam bucket separate from your dunny bucket.

Not into steamed clams huh...



Man.. that was gross... even for me..

[atoll]

Originally Posted by rebel heart

I think that's across all disciplines. Aptitude, the innate and native ability to advance and acquire a given set of skills, is really varied. Some people are very quick on uptake. Others seem amazingly able to resist getting better.

I know a guy, halfway through the South Pacific on his way to Austrialia (having gone from San Diego to Mexico and then across the Pacific) who is, and I believe always will be, a shockingly terrible sailor.

+1 some people are just naturally "lucky"

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Not into steamed clams huh...



Man.. that was gross... even for me..

Sheesh, Phil, get back out to sea...

Ji,

[Hudson Force]

I hesitated posting earlier about my thought that there's little relationship between experience and distance offshore because I didn't want to appear to be promoting my own experience, but I just can't hold back any longer. Yes, I'm a coastal cruiser and I have been for fifty-five years and forty-two living on my boat. I spend my cruising time in shallow water, in and out of inlets, threading coral heads and among the rock and fog. Sure, I've been on some offsore passages of only 100 miles or so, but there's little variation in experiences offshore from the calm slap if the rigging in the swell to the violent strom. Navigation is always easier offshore. I respect the experience of long distance offshore cruisers, but the trauma and the test comes with crossing the bar; breaking the inlet and weaving about the obstructions.