Some while back I posted that I thought that the OP was "unprepared", and unsurprisingly some have felt this was unfair, and that I was blaming the victim. Simply not true. Without further knowledge, I take the OP to be a nice, intelligent person who shares our dream of cruising. When he left I assume that he thought he was prepared, or otherwise he wouldn't have left. And yes, we are all
learning, all of the time, if we have any hope of mastering this craft, and we have all made, and will continue to make,
mistakes. A certain amount of humility is needed for anyone who goes to sea. In the cold light of day it is clear to all who will see that he was not prepared. He was not prepared to deal with
water in the
diesel, operating the boat without the
engine, and navigating without the 12V system. That doesn't make him a bad guy, but it does call into question his judgement of his own preparedness for cruising. It is his lack of humility that is the question here, and not of those who would comment about his
mistakes.
Let's look at this another way. My brother flies a Cessna, and a few years back he decided to re-qualify for his lapsed instrument rating. He made a couple of mistakes but the examiner passed him anyway. He then went back to his old instructor, explained the situation, and asked for his candid
advice. He was told that the instructor would not have passed him and that he should stick to visual flying until he brought his instrument skills back up to snuff. Now my brother is not a humble man; in fact he is very proud and some might even say arrogant, so I was surprised that he had told his instructor of his mistakes. His comment to me was that "a
cockpit is too small a space for a big ego". Amen. No matter how proud we are (and a lot of the folks here are very proud indeed) we have an obligation to be brutally honest in assessing our capabilities. Unlike flying there is no well-defined body of knowledge, and no definitive exam, that will assure our competence. The
RYA Yachtmaster comes closest, if you are prepared to spend more than half a year immersed in full-time
training. But for most of us it is a matter of struggling to put our own program together. And without expert guidance that means there is a lot of not knowing what we don't know. And filling those holes is a lot of what this forum is about. Without trying to define what is the minimum expertise required to go cruising, it seems clear that the OP didn't have it. I hope he will buy another boat and continue pursuing his dream, but I also hope he will learn from this that he needs to acquire more skills.
This is particularly relevant to me, as currently I know of 2 40'+
boats nearby that are being readied for trips south in 2 months. The owners are nice individuals, and they share our dream of cruising. They have also never left the
dock since
purchasing their
boats, and neither
skipper has any experience cruising - even locally. One boat is having a new
engine put in at this time. The other has a rotten mizzen
mast and a mainmast with very slack
rigging and the turnbuckles fully tightened. One guy
brushes off any suggestion that he is unprepared to go this year, and the other one gets his back up if I get anywhere near the topic. The idea that either of these two will be ready to safely transit the
Oregon coast this autumn is absurd in the extreme, but neither
skipper is willing to contemplate it. They have bought their boats, and they want to go now before another year passes, so they are going to do it and discussion closed. After all, they are as good as any other man, and, well, they are entitled. Now these are pretty extreme examples, but there is an element of this in all too many new cruisers. What I would hope is that all of us seek humbly to know our limitations as we proceed, and as best as possible live within them.
Greg
At least that's what I was told when first joining CF...........
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