Steve B. and Randy - hahahah!!
And hey, not talking down and keeping the steam issuing from your ears at un-detected levels are valuable skills. Especially if your first mate is also a first-class snot, like me. "You said WHAT?!?" *throws
rope down, stomps belowdecks* 'cause plenty of folks learn to single-hand everything when they don't develop such talents.
As it happens, Geordie both has those talents *and* single-hands a lot of the time, (a) because I lack confidence and he knows better than to push me, (b) I am the cook and he probably doesn't want PB&J for dinner *every* night, and (c) he knows where his bread is buttered between the
sheets. So.
I have driven in order to pull *up*
anchor, as a convenience to him on one windy, misty morning, but he's perfectly confident setting it on his own. At least in the few places we've anchored our boat so far. On the few occasions he's asked for help, it's always been my option to agree or say I'm not confident enough.
All this means that I got rather safety-Nazi on him about wearing a
PFD outside the
cockpit and insisting on the immediate
purchase of a life sling in the unlikely event that I could figure out how to get the boat back anywhere near him if he went over. I can hope for one miracle, but the additional miracle of being able to haul his soaking-wet hypothermic body over 4' of freeboard after having done so was too recklessly optimistic even for me.
We're doomed if anything happens to him, because on the
Oregon coast perfectly confident and experienced boaters get dashed to death on the rocks, never mind panicking first mates who've never been responsible for anything. But the adrenaline rush accompanying my frequent deliberations of everything that could go wrong makes a person feel alive, I s'pose. I couldn't logically prevent him from going sailing 'til I was competent to take over all functions he can perform; he's got about 40 years of experience on me. So I just live with a mild state of panic when we're out and try hard to get over the mental roadblocks I have in
learning to sail.