When we shouldn't encourage people to "just go"

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by evm1024

In climbing circles there is a progression that I would guess applies to sailing too.

Beginners - They are bright eyed and bushy tailed, eager to learn. They really have no clue as to the number of decisions that they are making (and the results of a bad decision). Ignorance is bliss.

Intermediate - These folks have some training and are building on their skills. They have plans for failures but little experience. This is where over confidence comes into plan and makes for a bad day.

Advanced - These folks have a deep understanding of what it is all about and the experience to see where they were this close from disaster. They have become measured and cautious even when doing bold things.


In my experience teaching climbing over the last 40 years I find that the "tourists" never leave the Beginner stage. They do a few climbs and then move on.

A vast majority end up in the Intermediate stage and never advance. Not only does it take experience to move on to advanced but it also takes some deep understanding. Just a few go on to become advanced climbers.

This is not to say that intermediate climbers are "dangerous" climbers. It just means that as they do more and harder climbs they are at times exceeding their limits and when the conditions are unfavorable their skills or decisions fail them with undesirable results.

Climbing and sailing may be too different to compare.

In sailing, you can have tons of sailing experience and never have crossed an ocean.

You can be an advanced/experienced cruiser but have spent all your time in the ICW or within 100 nautical miles of the continental US

Many sailboat racers for example can sail circles around many cruising sailors but maybe have never spent a full week at sea nonstop or weathered a prolonged storm event

The guy mention earlier, Rebel Heart, also had a baby onboard and a wife. Things may have been different had he been alone or with a good crew

[evm1024]

Originally Posted by thomm225

Climbing and sailing may be too different to compare.

In sailing, you can have tons of sailing experience and never have crossed an ocean.

In climbing you can have tons of climbing experience and never gone on an expedition.

You can be an advanced/experienced cruiser but have spent all your time in the ICW or within 100 nautical miles of the continental US

You can be an advanced/experienced climber but have spent all your time in the Cascades or only in the Valley.


Many sailboat racers for example can sail circles around many cruising sailors but maybe have never spent a full week at sea nonstop or weathered a prolonged storm event

Many technical rock climbers can rock climb circles around many alpine climbers but maybe have never spent a full week in the mountains or weathered out a storm in a tent for a week


The guy mention earlier, Rebel Heart, also had a baby onboard and a wife. Things may have been different had he been alone or with a good crew

Not to be picking a fight, I just wanted to point out that the change in attitude and not the activity is what sets the 3 groups apart.

I did follow Rebel Hearts posts over the years he was here. Playing the what if game is ....

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by evm1024

Not to be picking a fight, I just wanted to point out that the change in attitude and not the activity is what sets the 3 groups apart.

I did follow Rebel Hearts posts over the years he was here. Playing the what if game is ....

No problem.

I was just thinking Jon Krakauer's climb of the Devils Thumb as he described it in his book Into The Wild.

He was describing a learned skill that required deep concentration to keep one alive but also you needed experience to recognize possible problems ahead and for the technical aspects of climbing itself

In sailing, racers for example can tack and gybe in a few hours more than cruisers do in a few weeks and the racers are much better at this but they may not have the experience needed for long distance cruising which requires a whole different mindset ........just the boredom and slow pace for example might get to some

[Cadence]

Sounds like the thread has become a bunch or psycho babble. dividing people into groups. It is those with common sense that will survive, recognizing their own limits and knowing how far not to stretch them. It's human nature to stretch the limits.
And I said psycho babble? Relying on someone else's opinion after a paragraph of should or shouldn't I sounds ludicrous. To little info.. Maybe some good info, on ways to prepare but saying head out on limited info.?

[Tricolor]

For some here you feel they will manage, for some others its just waiting for accidents to happen. This counts for so called beginners and the self called old sats...

[PLANET EXPRESS]

If you ask me I would say go it will be memorable either way good or bad. And this also enforces natural selection.....lol

[caldawson]

Hey guys. Can I just say. Well. We “just went”. We have had a lot of learning, two near death experiences, one broken arm, and a hole in a side portal.
So learning by experience has been the greatest thing for us.

Thanks guys.

[caldawson]

Originally Posted by Mr B

It all depends on where you live down here,



Yaringa and Hastings have all facilitys, Western Port Bay,

Park your car beside the Marina's,



Williamstown is easy to get in and out of, Its on the bay, Its very crowded, Not sure if they have available berths,



Sandringham YC, Port Phillip Bay, has J boat racing on Wednesday and Sunday, They take out beginners,

But racing and cruising are two very different things,

I stopped going there as Racing is not my cup of tea, Im a cruiser,



St Kilda YC is close to every thing, But the walk down the peir, Then a courtesy dinghy ride and no where to park your car, Is a PITA,



You can check all the prices on line for all the moorings, And available Moorings,



Im near Hastings as it takes the same time for me to get to St Kilda as it does to get to Western Port Bay,



Have you moved your boat down here yet,

Yeah we were in docklands but weren’t happy with Melbourne, so we took off again and ended up in Newcastle as we Re goi g to head north.

[davefromoregon]

Originally Posted by caldawson

Hey guys. Can I just say. Well. We “just went”. We have had a lot of learning, two near death experiences, one broken arm, and a hole in a side portal.
So learning by experience has been the greatest thing for us.

Thanks guys.

Glad those experiences were “near death” only.

Since we know nothing else of what happened, I’ll leave it at this. Glad you made it back to tell the tale.

[caldawson]

Originally Posted by davefromoregon

Glad those experiences were “near death” only.

Since we know nothing else of what happened, I’ll leave it at this. Glad you made it back to tell the tale.

We had 50+ knots across the beam, one day and ended up surfing 6m waves in 30+ the other.
For an experienced sailor these experiences are probably insignificant but for us, (first time on the open water), it was pretty hairy. Especially trying not to round up with a preventer on.

I would like to try the champagne sailing life style I think, we are defiantly not as prepared to try and cross oceans yet I don’t think, this was just east coast sailing.

We are glad to of made it too.

[exMaggieDrum]

Originally Posted by caldawson

Hey guys. Can I just say. Well. We “just went”. We have had a lot of learning, two near death experiences, one broken arm, and a hole in a side portal.
So learning by experience has been the greatest thing for us.

Thanks guys.

Good on ya for surviving and going. Inquiring minds would like a few details to document the experience, such as how long before you went did you have the boat, what you did to prepare (if anything), boat, previous experience, etc.

[caldawson]

Originally Posted by exMaggieDrum

Good on ya for surviving and going. Inquiring minds would like a few details to document the experience, such as how long before you went did you have the boat, what you did to prepare (if anything), boat, previous experience, etc.

We spent all up about 6 months preparing and that was 100 percent not enough, I had the boat and we were living aboard her for that six months, all the prep we really did was just learning to sail on a bay, we have no previous experience at all before that.
One of the biggest lessons we have learned is not needing as much stuff as we actually took, hatches were flying open and learning that even the smallest thing can become a lethal projectile.
Navigation for us has also been a big problem, we have paper charts and an out of date raymarine chart plotter, so trying to find moorings at night and judge distances have been really hard (and scary).
Performing gybes properly have been hard on us to. We try not to do it at all, and then I had a good friend and a great teacher, show us how to perform a granny gybe and that has saved us although it takes some practice, we in all honestly didn’t do enough prep. Neither of us even really knew how to communicate on a radio properly, or we don’t know how to read a radar properly, but we are learning and learning the hard way.
But now we are stopped in a port we are in the process of getting storm sails made up, and doing a little bit of racing on a friends boat, so we can get some more experience before the next leg. I think we relied on our teacher a little bit more than we should of.
To break it down when we first bought the boat we couldn’t even dock her, or tie a bowline.

[caldawson]

I also learned that I get sick and spent 2 days throwing up all over myself while trying to control my boat. I have the heart just not the knowledge.

[Sojourner]

My two cents, working backward:

1) A quote from the best movie in the world (The Edge ) What one man can do....ANOTHER CAN DO!!! That's in Anthony Hopkins' voice, so be sure to hear him in your head. Meaning there is nothing you can do that I cannot, and conversely there is nothing I can do that you cannot. Newbies with a dream to go sailing? If there is one wind-jockey on this forum who has done a crossing, a circumnavigation, a race, or come out of a hurricane intact (or even better, has the skills and sense to weather-route around it), then any newbie has the power to do the same. They just need the WILL....

2) If they have the Will, then they will do their homework, because it isn't homework...it's FUN. They'll learn that setting off without the right training or experience or doing things too fast can (but not always, depending on their risk aversion) lead to tragedy. If they go slow, research their boat, get up a budget, learn their chops, take things in small steps, then any newbie can do what we can do because they won't be newbies anymore. I haven't really seen anyone suggesting someone who has never sailed buy a bluewater boat and hit the north atlantic with their wife and kid the next day, so... And first, before the Will comes...

3) The Dream. I don't think any of us go into this lightly. Who would give up jobs and houses and stability to find something in a dangerous and unforgiving and expensive environment just on a whim? Risking their lives and families and relationships? I'm not talking about people who grew up sailing and fell into it naturally, I'm talking about the 30 or 40 or 50 year old newbies who seem to one day just up and try to go. Something must have been bubbling in them for a long time to get to this point, something scratching at the door for a lot of years that they want to silence or at least understand. Looking for peace, for adventure, to soothe a midlife crisis (I've had several by 41, so I know what I'm talking about ) What seems like a whim is more likely years or decades of dreaming, wishing, for what probably many couldn't even articulate for a long time.

Not discounting natural selection of course. So let the newbies fly free! They won't be newbies for long. One way or another.... Those who skip a lot of steps will slip away. Financial disaster, disaster at sea, broken marriage, unhappiness....they'll leave and if they are able, buy a Corvette. Those who take the right steps--dare I say, the same steps we've probably all taken to get here--then we'll see them in some stormy anchorage and have no worries they're gonna drag down on us cause they'll know what they're doing. Long story short, we were all them once.

Sorry for the stream of consciousness word salad... I'm stuck in Hungary away from Wake and my girls and my cats, 8 am hungover and bored

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Sojourner

My two cents, working backward:

1) A quote from the best movie in the world (The Edge [emoji3][emoji3]) What one man can do....ANOTHER CAN DO!!! That's in Anthony Hopkins' voice, so be sure to hear him in your head. Meaning there is nothing you can do that I cannot, and conversely there is nothing I can do that you cannot. Newbies with a dream to go sailing? If there is one wind-jockey on this forum who has done a crossing, a circumnavigation, a race, or come out of a hurricane intact (or even better, has the skills and sense to weather-route around it), then any newbie has the power to do the same. They just need the WILL....

2) If they have the Will, then they will do their homework, because it isn't homework...it's FUN. They'll learn that setting off without the right training or experience or doing things too fast can (but not always, depending on their risk aversion) lead to tragedy. If they go slow, research their boat, get up a budget, learn their chops, take things in small steps, then any newbie can do what we can do because they won't be newbies anymore. I haven't really seen anyone suggesting someone who has never sailed buy a bluewater boat and hit the north atlantic with their wife and kid the next day, so... And first, before the Will comes...

3) The Dream. I don't think any of us go into this lightly. Who would give up jobs and houses and stability to find something in a dangerous and unforgiving and expensive environment just on a whim? Risking their lives and families and relationships? I'm not talking about people who grew up sailing and fell into it naturally, I'm talking about the 30 or 40 or 50 year old newbies who seem to one day just up and try to go. Something must have been bubbling in them for a long time to get to this point, something scratching at the door for a lot of years that they want to silence or at least understand. Looking for peace, for adventure, to soothe a midlife crisis (I've had several by 41, so I know what I'm talking about ) What seems like a whim is more likely years or decades of dreaming, wishing, for what probably many couldn't even articulate for a long time.

Not discounting natural selection of course. So let the newbies fly free! They won't be newbies for long. One way or another.... Those who skip a lot of steps will slip away. Financial disaster, disaster at sea, broken marriage, unhappiness....they'll leave and if they are able, buy a Corvette. Those who take the right steps--dare I say, the same steps we've probably all taken to get here--then we'll see them in some stormy anchorage and have no worries they're gonna drag down on us cause they'll know what they're doing. Long story short, we were all them once.

Sorry for the stream of consciousness word salad... I'm stuck in Hungary away from Wake and my girls and my cats, 8 am hungover and bored

Hung over or not, this is a very nice, very insightful post