Dealing with BSers

[mesquaukee]

Originally Posted by captmick39

OUCH!
& thought I Was "harsh";

Mesquaukee...have Your name remembered
(now filed under "Takes no F'ing Prisoners")

-Mick

I suppose I was a little harsh. I guess as I get older I am less tolerant to the “Trust Me” or “I have been doing it this way for years” BS no matter where it comes from.

I hate BS whether it comes from Boat Brokers or their cousins the Real Estate Agents. One of them kicked our dog when we where in the process of interviewing them when we were selling our house to go cruising. We got rid of the whole lot of them due to that and sold it ourselves for 20% more than they suggested plus saved the 7% commission.

My dad, an old old school engineer, impressed upon me at a very very young age to examine and question everything and don’t ever forget to talk to the guy sweeping the shop floor for he sees a lot. Careful examination and thought based on a background of experience and education is what it takes.

Don't get me going about Politicians.

[Pblais]

With all due respect Paul,and I might be reading it wrong, but there seems to be a lot of patronizing anger in your post.

No, the otherside of things is usually interesting and seemed less represented.

If you learn anything useful here it was perhaps a mistake but certainly intended.

I'll stick with that part. There are no rules for learning anything if you do. We all come to things in differnt ways. It is the differnt ways that always interest me most.

I do believe just because you want to do something bad enough does not mean you can. Wanting alone is never enough. Wanting means you are willing to do what it requires. We can all learn what it requires. After that it's only a choice even if not an easy one.

[Tellie]

Originally Posted by Tellie

With all due respect Paul,and I might be reading it wrong, but there seems to be a lot of patronizing anger in your post.

After I posted this I had second thoughts as to how it might be recieved by Paul. I raised my daughter to understand that it is not always the way people say things that matter. But rather it is far more important to know what the persons intent was when they said it. My intent was not meant to insult.

[captain58sailin]

Do you know the difference between a fairy tale and a fishing story? The fairy tale starts "Once upon a time..." and a fishing story starts "This ain't no sh*t..."

[captmick39]

Originally Posted by captain58sailin

Do you know the difference between a fairy tale and a fishing story? The fairy tale starts "Once upon a time..." and a fishing story starts "This ain't no sh*t..."

& the worst outcome stories (fishing, boating, just general stupidity) start with....

"Wait, Wait, Wait,
You Just Gotta Check this out:
You just ain't gonna Believe this....Watch me...."

Next comes it being on America's Funniest Home Video's if fortunate,
ER Visits (or worse) if not(<to wit the attending MD's usually say "You were DOING WHAT?...nurse, can You call the PSYCH WARD Please?)

Another reason to ignore & avoid BS "Artiste's"

[cantxsailor]

The folks that read the magazines and think they are all up to speed are the worst fun.

I'm a gunsmith. Not a custom builder or a box store parts changer but an old style fixer of firearms. I do primarily repairs and restorations.

I have a gift(or curse) of being able to look at a simple machine and see, with a little studying, how it works. I can't fix everything but my average is way up there. Many of the things I work on have no directions or schematics available anymore but I still manage to make most of them function again safely and efficiently. This translates to many, many other pieces of machinery boats systems amongst them.

There are a few really strange things that happen in my shop so often as to be almost predictable. Comically so.

Every time they show Dirty Harry on TV I get 4-5 calls for a Model29 S&W.

I have a standing rule that if a guy comes into the shop an tells me he took his gun apart and can't put it back together I will do it for free.
In almost 20yrs I have had only 1 MAN tell me that.
I will regularly have women who will tell me they took it apart to clean it and can't put it back together and would I help, but almost never a guy.
In America it's always "My stupid brother in law" or "my kid took this apart".
My friend Len who was a gunsmith in Africa tells me it's the same there except it's "my stupid cousin" did it.

I and most of my old gunsmith buddies refer to the glossy mags as comic books.

There were no cooks or truck drivers in Vietnam because everybody was a SEAL, a LURP or a sniper. If you think boaters are full of sh1t you would drown in it at my gunshop. Why someone would come onto the shop of someone who is expected to be at least knowledgable if not an expert in all things that go bang and proceed to tell the most outrageous piles of dung, I can't explain.

When I started in business in Denver I was dead set against almost all but the most basic of gun control laws. Now, after seeing the dumb stuff people can do to a machine that is designed to kill I'm not so sure.

To top all this rambling off I have to say, a firearm, even the most complicated of them, are pretty simple machines, no where near as complicated as a boat or a car or most toasters for that matter.

Almost everything I have learned about machines of ALL sorts I learned from reading.

The truth is I can't tell someone how to do something even if I've done it a hundred times but I can show you.

Just not here at the bar or while I'm on a day off........please......m

[Tellie]

Cantaxsailor, it is a gift. I know several people who have that gift. I almost hate people that have it, they make it appear so easy when for us mere mortals at times it can be quit frustrating. I wish I had it.

[captmick39]

Originally Posted by Tellie

Cantaxsailor, it is a gift. I know several people who have that gift. I almost hate people that have it, they make it appear so easy when for us mere mortals at times it can be quit frustrating. I wish I had it.

Cantx & me have more in common than known before that posting. Cantx...guessing like You, never been "called" a BS'er(at least not to face, probably behind the back...whatever) exclusively because when folks ask
"How do I do such & such?"
"where's Your boat" (as we walk...) "why do You want to do this?"
"Because....fill in the blank" (rule 1, made sense, good answer)

Sometimes the STUPIDEST things (like drilling holes thru the cabintop using predrilled BACKING PLATE as template, TAPING IT IN PLACE so it won't move once situated EXACTLY where it needs to be...)
until, like Cantx, I'm looking at it, not the wealth of information some people "expect". When I See "it" Curing their dilemma usually(not always, just most times)becomes easy.

Showing is always easier than telling.
In scenario above, drilled exactly 1 hole & was gone.
(He had 300+ to do...knew "where" just not "how") Also pointed out to measure & mark so as to not damage BULKHEADS, or other interior items, cabintop mounted. It was completely misunderstood what he initially asked for...almost gave him really bad info; LQQKING fixed that. When somebody's about to punch 300+ holes in deck/cabintop, I'd rather not be the guy later called a "BS Artiste" for having given bad info. When leaving he KNEW how to properly Bed, add cap/crown nuts on inside, Reason for "fender/flat/lock washers in order, cut off flush & have a crackerjack installation (read=LOOKS as GOOD as it IS).

Sure, it takes a little time, (plenty invested it, in me, formerly) dealing w/the "stupid" stuff like wire slap inside masts is always fun, the "engineer" commentary when close is usually the best of all...."but, what about"...."good question, hadn't gotten that far yet, remember what we're doing is probably going to be unaccessible for the next 10-15-20 years, so the longest term quality option is always my choice (nobody ever argues/questions that).

IF/WHEN a newer/better mousetrap comes along (from Shamwow to that "windshield washer squeegee Dealybob for inside auto windows being advertised on TV now ), It's not out of bounds & I'll try it. Just won't bank on "newfangled" taking place of tried & True for a pretty good while.

Working on 4th GPS, now chartplotter, interfaces w/AH & even tells You water TEMP. & Depth.....
Still keep the sextant on the same boat(along w/charts for where we are, and where we're going).
Latter requires no electricity, satellites, can't be re-programmed to give "dis-information" in a time of war, etc., only an understanding operator.
That's just me.

Until You've completely salvaged a boat, mast, rebuilt pumps, winches, in the case of whole boats cutting it to pieces as it was beyond saving, many things done by marine engineers make no sense to the common/layman looking at the design(from the outside). When You've looked at the pieces and HOW (&WHY) they put it together, by taking it apart...
well, it's enlightening. Nothing takes its place.
(as Walter Brennan in "the guns of Will Sonnet" Used to say:
"No brag...just fact"; read=no "bs" allowed)
-Mick

[Roaring Girl]

A really interesting thread - and leaves me (again) with the importance of telling the BS from the real deal, because I/we can't do everything that may need to be done on the boat - for example we didn't make our new mainsail ourselves. We do a lot of our engine work and quite a bit of electrical work but neither of us are engineers and sometimes we like or need some help. But we're good at other things - Pip rebuilt a third of our skeg when we hauled out and found it badly damaged!

We have found other cruisers often to be great sources of help - though some of them are BS artists! We try to help other cruisers too, with the stuff we're good at. And we've sometimes paid for that help from sailmakers or mechanics.

And (say it very quietly!) sometimes we've made mistakes. That's what amazes me on this thread. Are we the only ones who ever got suckered, or made the wrong decision, or didn't really understand what we were being told or what we'd really need? Sometimes - you get it wrong and you just have to live with it.

A final thought - very few if any boats ever sunk from osmosis. We have a chronic problem in the rudder (though not the rest of the hull) and every couple of years we drain out the blisters and fill them with epoxy. Roaring Girl was launched in 1977 and yes her moisture readings are high, but the hull is sound and we keep sailing.

[zeehag]

"trust me" always means run like hell for the first exit and do not return........one of the biggest bs stories i was given was regarding osmotic blisters on my 26 islander a few years back----the incoming saline water was due to the swiss cheese effects of the OMC saildrive and i was being told the blisters were absorbing water into the hull and i NEEDED a 23000 dollar hull-tek job done on my hull ---on a boat worthy of 8k!!!! LOL----i have researched the subject well and have found those same blisters do absolutely nothing to the integrity of the hull----but if wet, should be addressed---so i do that with some splash zone if i find any----is a big difference from the original story told......there are waaaay too many bs stories in boating--too many folks out to get all the money they are able to squeeze, con, scam outta boaters just because boating is a rich man's sport......

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by Roaring Girl

Are we the only ones who ever got suckered, or made the wrong decision, or didn't really understand what we were being told or what we'd really need? Sometimes - you get it wrong and you just have to live with it.

There is a certain pathology with most sailors and I would further stereotype males. Independent, self confident with an expectation to be "expert" in many things. Pilots are like this and many engineers that I know. I screw up all the time and while I don't always like to admit it I have learned that it is OK to admit.

What drives me nuts is reading contributed Sailing Stories in magazines. They are always the same.

"There I was, invited on my friends boat. He is an idiot but I went sailing with him anyway. He made 700 mistakes in only one short sail but I kept my mouth shut until we were about to go over the waterfall. Then I did all kinds of heroic stuff demonstrating my superior intellect and seamanship. Due to my superior efforts the day was saved. PS - I am not sailing with that guy any more because most every one who is not me is not worth sailing with."

or better yet - "I gotta relate to you how we almost died when my wife was on watch but how my 6th sense woke me up after which I immediately smelled a storm coming. I raced to the cockpit, lashed her to the galley where she belongs and wouldn't get hurt and then proceeded to single-handedly fight a force 12 gale for 3 days straight. Many sailors might have handled a force 12 gale for 3 days straight but I also had to handle multiple whale attacks during this period where fortuitously my ability to speak whale managed to negate this aspect of the problem. When I finally reached harbor and anchored the boat I realized as she brought me food and hot coffee that it is high time for my wife to get a sailing course or two under her belt."

[s/v Beth]

Holy Mackerel, How did you read my mind for my next two stories? Were you there as a Alien mind reader???

[Bash]

Originally Posted by Ex-Calif

T
or better yet - "I gotta relate to you how we almost died when my wife was on watch but how my 6th sense woke me up after which I immediately smelled a storm coming. I raced to the cockpit, lashed her to the galley where she belongs and wouldn't get hurt and then proceeded to single-handedly fight a force 12 gale for 3 days straight. Many sailors might have handled a force 12 gale for 3 days straight but I also had to handle multiple whale attacks during this period where fortuitously my ability to speak whale managed to negate this aspect of the problem. When I finally reached harbor and anchored the boat I realized as she brought me food and hot coffee that it is high time for my wife to get a sailing course or two under her belt."

Well, okay, it was only Force 10, and the gale only lasted 48 hours, and the multiple whale attacks ended up being a pod of dolphins playing in the bow wake, but otherwise, the wife part is totally accurate.

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by s/v Beth

Holy Mackerel, How did you read my mind for my next two stories? Were you there as a Alien mind reader???

Plagarism is the sincerest form of flattery.

(In case you are wondering - I stole that line too)

[tartansailor]

Fact and truth, that is what I want. Extremely rare indeed.
I do not have the time nor the patience to listen to
anyone who does not do professionally, what I want accomplished.
If you seek information, search the literature first.
Richard Papp N