Is This Really What An Inexperienced Skipper Gets?

[Sailor 99]

Originally Posted by mikedefieslife

The boating community is a strange one. In some cases people are super helpful and encouraging, in others they’ll happily sit there with a drink in hand and watch you hit an unmarked rock.

Been sailing for 30 years and never seen this happen.

Originally Posted by mikedefieslife

There also seems to be this craze for banding around the word ‘seamanship’ like it’s something special. They forget maybe that seamen used to be uneducated and illiterate.

Your likely right on that but that makes them just like all the rest of the people in their era. Lots of fisherman on the east coast of NA even today likely have no more than a grade 10 education but they know how to go out on the water and get back home safely.

Education and literacy are all well and good but they are not an indication of skill or intelligence.

Seamanship is the ability to take your boat out and get it back with all of the crew healthy and with no damage and a minimum of muss and fuss.

Recently there was a 50 ft sail boat that attempted to come over from Europe to Canada in Nov/Dec. The owner has been sailing for years. The delivery skipper very experienced. The crew was pulled off a few hundred miles short of Nova Scotia in early Dec and the boat lost due to equipment failures and seasickness.

IMHO taking a late model flat bottomed production sailboat out into the North Atlantic in late fall, early winter and sailing it 3,000 miles into the wind does not demonstrate good seamanship.

I am sure the owner and the delivery skipper would disagree as they made that choice and I am sure they chock it up to bad luck.

If the boat could talk, I am sure it would agree with me.

Seamanship is about being competent out on the water and making sound decisions. It has nothing to do with education levels or literacy.

[Sailor 99]

Originally Posted by surf_km55

In order to get helm time, REAL helm time, .

Helming the boat is easy and a very small part of sailing.

Sailing is about the trimming of sails, reefing sails, tossing the reef off, seeing how the boat moves in different kind of air. Making the boat go. Is the boat laboring because she is over sheeted? Changing sails on the fly. How to approach a flogging sail.... Is the boat pointed too high in the waves so that the boat looks all pretty but is going no where. What do you do in 25 or 30 or 40 knots of wind. Where is the wind coming from. What is that ahead of us.... These are the important parts of sailing.

These are the things you learn racing. Both my wife and I can tell if the boat is laboring just by how she feels and moves. We got that from racing. Its a rare cruiser that has ever been out in 25-30 knots unless they are a long distance cruiser. Most people avoid weather like that and for good reason. It's tough and its better learned in skilled company.

Spend a couple of weeks on the boat and see how the skipper drives the boat and you will find out there is not a lot to it, which is not to say that it is not worth knowing or that it is not a learned and complex skill or that its not fun. But it is not the important part about sailing. On a race boat we call the guy at the helm the driver... That's all he does.

As a cruiser I rarely helm unless we are in a harbour or auto is broken. Helming is fine on the race course if your trying to get the most out of the boat but otherwise its just not that interesting.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Dark Horse

Helming the boat is easy and a very small part of sailing.

Sailing is about the trimming of sails, reefing sails, tossing the reef off, seeing how the boat moves in different kind of air. Making the boat go. Is the boat laboring because she is over sheeted? Changing sails on the fly. How to approach a flogging sail.... Is the boat pointed too high in the waves so that the boat looks all pretty but is going no where. What do you do in 25 or 30 or 40 knots of wind. Where is the wind coming from. What is that ahead of us.... These are the important parts of sailing.

Excellent summary!

[loneshark64]

Second this! I have learned a lot from reading this forum and others as I dreamed and planned. I was also put off by some of the attitudes, but I learned a to that has been valuable. Frankly I learned more faster from ASA 101, 103, and Power Squadrons courses. But the net has helped a lot. Now I have my boat and I am sailing it, and realizing that I will never stop learning. I will never know it all and that is half the fun, an opportunity for life long learning. Just ignore the hard-ons who think they know it all, and keep sailing on.

[stewie]

How true !!!

[Jim Cate]

Frankly I learned more faster from ASA 101, 103, and Power Squadrons courses.

If you hadn't learned more from the commercial courses than the free internet fora, I'd have wanted a refund of tuition!

And when you wake up in the dog watches with a question, can you fire up your computer and ask the ASA classes for help?

CF and other fora are home to some jerks, that's for sure, but they can be mighty helpful... and funny as hell some times... and not always in the joke thread!

Ji,

[surf_km55]

Originally Posted by Dark Horse

Helming the boat is easy and a very small part of sailing.
Sailing is about the trimming of sails, reefing sails, tossing the reef off, seeing how the boat moves in different kind of air. Making the boat go.....

Semantics.

If I'm @ the helm, it's my prerogative to ease the main, bring in the jib, head up or fall off. Maybe I'm wrong, or maybe helming is just different for me. It is anything but simple if you, the helmsman, wish to extract the most speed possible in deference to the wind direction and the direction you need to go. If you're @ the helm, the buck stops with you. Perhaps you come from the world of tacticians and grinders, where tasks are more compartmentalized.

On my 3rd sail ever with a buddy, almost 10 years ago, I was @ the helm on his Pearson 30 a couple miles off Pt. Loma in ~27 knot wind, ~42 gusts. We shouldn't have been out, but in hindsight the forecast was definitely off. Anyway, given the conditions, I shouldn't have been at the helm.

Heh, I didn't want to be at the helm, but had no choice since my buddy had crawled to the bow to deal with a tangled, flapping jib that needed stowing. We already had the main double reefed & the boat hove-to when a gust grabbed the boat and laid us down about 80°, simultaneously forcing a hard course change despite my not losing grip of the tiller...and we went into a gnarly unwanted gybe.

I could feel it happening and I knew what I was supposed to do since my buddy had the wherewithal to forewarn me, but...the tiller did nothing, as if we'd gone beyond the point of no return. The horror that creeped up on me remains a large component of the PTSD I still experience. I vividly recall my buddy looking back @ me with a WTF look on his face, as he bounced off the deck & lifelines, nearly going overboard; while the mainsheet came free from the winch & the boom swung a ~100° arc ending with a resounding bang. Even if I had responded properly, that became irrelevant since it simply wasn't good enough. Although my buddy absolved me of all culpability, I still hold that failure close to my heart.

Yeah, helming is easy.

P.S.
Accidental gybes? One and done. I will go to my grave, never to experience an accidental gybe ever again. In the name of Neptune, this I declare.
Apologies for the thread highjack

[loneshark64]

I am "in the same boat". Took ASA101 and 103 over the years. rented boats, and had a tiny day sailor for a while, but finally retired and got my own O'Day 28 last year! I took the ASA course again, and did some Power Squadron courses, and studied a lot. I am sailing a couple times a week and fixing things that don't work in between. I am learning fast but often do stupid things.

The first time I tried to dock, on my own empty floating dock on a river, I missed it 3X due to current before getting in safely. I was stressed and tired after and a neighbor, a total "Admiral Boom" type, took the opportunity to deride me and shoot his mouth off. I dismissed him politely and without killing the guy (age mellows us?). Things have gotten better from there. Turn out - he doesn't have a boat.

On Sunday this week I was leaving a mooring and had a line drag into the water. I waved at the guy moored next to me and he said "you have a line in the water" and under his breath, "[idiot]". I said thanks. On Monday I was
doing boat work and this same guy pulled up to his mooring and missed picking it up at least 6 times. When he finally got it I gave a thumbs up, he said something about the current, and I said, "well you kind of made me feel better as I miss it more often than not myself!" and we had a laugh.

Some of these jackasses think they are Lord Nelson or John Paul Jones, but the sea and wind humble us all. A little humility is a helpful safety measure.

[dgmultimedia]

Originally Posted by bmonteiro

Hello!

... In the process I am finding out that there are a lot of people in the boating community that seem very intolerant towards inexperienced skippers/sailors with absolute negative comments being shared online for little reason. Is this really what we are facing? Do people forget how they started? How can a jump from not sailing to be an inexperienced sailor be done? What’s exactly going on?...


B.Monteiro

I agree that everyone started as a novice - but the ones that have actually bothered to do the courses, read the books, practice the techniques and pass the exams are not the intolerant ones, it takes time and sea miles, its not like driving a car, there are far too many variables that if ignored will get you in a really bad way. If you have done the full RYA Day Skipper T & P and can examine every trip you plan to make and don't skip the planning taking every possible risk into your planning then you are not really that far away from "Costal Skipper" - the theory doesn't change - it gets a little more in depth thats all... and you have to log the sea miles...
As for close quarters manoeuvring you really have to persevere with an owner/Instructor/School to allow you to take charge, in the safest conditions first, the problem is that every kt of wind and tide will throw a different scenario at you - you have to demonstrate that you have a Plan that will get you from safe open water to secured on the Mooring/Anchor location/Dockside/Berth ( in order of risk ) that takes account of all the factors that WILL affect the boat as you do it - have a plan B, Plan C etc. after all how many hours of practical driving did it take for you to pass your driving test, multiply that by 5 and you might then have a expectation of the time to will take to master a boat.... Best of Luck...
A good example we witnessed from the back of our Bavaria berthed in Chichester Marina on a sunny Light wind day last weekend, A 45ft UKSA yacht approached the empty berth on the other side of our pontoon - it became obvious that something was going to go wrong when it was 30mtr from the berth - TOO FAST, Wrong approach angle and everyone on deck was fussing around with ropes and fenders at the last minute. The person at the helm panicked and pushed the throttle the wrong way, the bow fender bounced the bow off the finger veered across the berth and made a glancing blow on the side of a small cabin cruiser then buried its self on the corner of their finger pontoon. and I wasn't for lack of experience on board - the Skipper/instructor had 2 qualified crew and 4 disabled persons and they had been onboard for a week sailing to several south coast marinas...
Take you eye off the ball for a second and it goes pear shaped !!!!

DG

[TrentePieds]

Quote: " TOO FAST, Wrong approach angle and everyone on deck was fussing around with ropes and fenders at the last minute. The person at the helm panicked and pushed the throttle the wrong way, the bow fender bounced the bow off the finger veered across the berth and made a glancing blow on the side of a small cabin cruiser then buried its self on the corner of their finger pontoon. "

Just so!! The TRACK of a boat approaching a dock is determined as a vector of a diagram involving the drift (effect of wind), the set (effect of current) and reach (effect of vessels momentum). You have to be able to calculate that vector in your head and modify it as necessay by varying the vessel's reach. That variation is achieved through adjusting the vessels SPEED and HEADING.

It sounds more complicated in theory than it really is in practice, but we all misjudge (screw up) at times. Here is a quite wonderful youtube of a professional skipper screwing up, let alone the deckhand! All because of excess speed and lack of preparation. Novices who are less than confident in their docking technique might like to spend a few minutes analysing just what all the things were that went wrong here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s_H-FhEvAc

Old hands will be glad to discuss that topic :-)!

TrentePieds

[bmonteiro]

Hello all,

Just as a closure note to this thread, I would like to again thank everyone that stopped by and shared their views and motivation words. A lot of good advise to taking into consideration.

My week in Croatia bareboat chartering was amazing. I had a relatively inexperienced crew + my two young daughters aboard. I probably took more responsibility than I should have but the good news is that we had a hassle free week, I managed to relax, I learned stern to docking, we did plenty of anchoring (including taking lines ashore on a desert bay). And I am very pleased that all my preparation worked well.

Everyone was friendly and I now know that all I have to do is to ignore any insensible comments that might come about.

Thanks again for the support!
Bruno

[Andycbriggs]

Originally Posted by surf_km55

Semantics.

P.S.
Accidental gybes? One and done. I will go to my grave, never to experience an accidental gybe ever again. In the name of Neptune, this I declare.
Apologies for the thread highjack

Indeed, dead downwind sailing still makes me uncomfortable after a similar experienace (though in lesser winds) but I do have a permanent scar from the main track whacking my shin (it wasn't secured on the lee side).


To OP as well, glad you had a great holiday, in the spirit of the thread I'll share a recent experience, I have a reasonable amount of experience as crew and recently bought an old, small and cheerful 25 footer to learn to make mistakes on. One such happened coming into Port Solent marina which is locked in and we've been in a few times with text book moorings. On this occassion the lock was open just after entering free flow and our berth was near the entrance so had a nasty current flowing towards the dock that I wasn't expecting (nor did I notice). Cue us at 45 degrees at a dead stop slowly drifting towards our new neighbour who jumped out of his motor boat and grabbed our stern line to haul us away from his pride and joy and safely into the dock. I had a completely novice crew on-board and felt quite embarrased to call myself "skipper". A short time later a 40+footer with a grey bearded salty dog skipper passed our mooring and I said to our crew "watch it, this guy is going to nail it". Not long after we heard that "skipper tone" and much shouting, ran down the dock only to find him in exactly the same akward 45 degree position we found ourselves in. We grabbed their lines, hauled them in and held the bow of their lovely Hallberg-Rassy off the dock until they got tied off - interestingly their engine was cut by this point which I thought was a bit of a rookie move .


Moral of the story - I always think I'm making a mess of it, but it seems that even the most salty of old dogs also cocks it up from time to time! Since then I haven't worried too much and just focussed on having fun, learning and being safe, forget the egos !