Poll-Sailing Experience

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by CaptForce

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.

I'll agree with that.. have always said the hardest part of a crossing is the departure and the arrival the other side... the middle bits a doodle...

[atoll]

Originally Posted by CaptForce

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.

+1 inshore cruising in tidal waters requires nerve's of steel,technical skill and a lot of luck in a deep draught yacht!

i have met circumnavigators that have never experinced tides above 3 ft apart from briefly in panama,darwin and gibraltar

long distance cruising is more about stamina and endurance than real skill

[Wrong]

Twice Mexico to Marqueses, about 2,400 n.m. each passage. First 32 days. Second 42 days. Then whatever distances between Islands on the Milk Run to Australia. Longest passages in terms of n.m.. Twice across Atlantic - S.A. to St. Helena, St. Helena to Fernandez de Nora first time. St. Helena to Trinidad on second. Island hops up Caribbean to Galveston.

[Ocean Girl]

I have always been surprised, when meeting a coastal cruiser, how they down play their experience. The above posts are spot on. The easy part is in the middle. First couple days out and making landfall have always been a drag to me. Land is disquieting, open ocean easy. Coastal cruising is where the rubber meet the road.

[Wrong]

Originally Posted by Ocean Girl

I have always been surprised, when meeting a coastal cruiser, how they down play their experience. The above posts are spot on. The easy part is in the middle. First couple days out and making landfall have always been a drag to me. Land is disquieting, open ocean easy. Coastal cruising is where the rubber meet the road.

Coastal cruising is something one must do, like it or not. I believe most singlehanders probably agree approaching one's destination, in as much as it requires sailing near land, is not something to be desired. Can't sleep, vessel traffic increases and underwater hazards are more of a concern. I'll take open water over 'coastal cruising' anytime.

[rebel heart]

On the sport fisher that I was one of the skippers on we would often joke that we got paid for the first and last twenty minutes of the day or two. Everything else was pretty basic, but backing a 50' single screw pig into a tight slip is no joke.

[svmariane]

Oceanic, mostly because my wife and I did that Vancouver Island to Mexico to the Marquesas to where-not to New Zealand thing.

BUT I prefer coastal - that's where the pubs are!

James

[MarkJ]

I dont understand the poll too well... but someone could be oceaninc if they went straight out 274 nms and came back in?

Thats about Key West to Nassau....

Might need to be a bit longer or clearer than that.

A circumnavigators option would be cool