5 things men should know about sailing with women

billy backstay

Backstay, never bought a suit, never went to Vegas
I remember watching some chap bring a very sporty boat with a full crew into the marina without an engine.  It's was pretty fresh and we were all watching because it had cluster fuck written all over it.  In the event he came in better than you can imagine.  Bang on position with the way coming off perfectly.  Every other fucker on the boat jumped off and not one of the useless twats held onto anything.  I think they were so surprised they just completely forgot why they were there.  Boat and driver drifted off into the previously expected cluster fuck on the other side of the marina. Sometimes the help doesn't.


One of best examples of Seamanship was in Tortola, or another island nearby, around 35 years ago. Solo guy short tacking a Swan 57 into a very narrow harbor chock a block full of boats at anchor or on moorings.  It was blowing at least 20, and he short tacked that boat, like it was big Laser, it was amazing sight!!

 
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Alcatraz5768

Super Anarchist
I approach this whole topic quite differently it seems. My wife has never been on a boat fancier than ours, which is camping on a race boat, and I will discourage it til the end. Also I encourage her to take charge as often as possible "but what if I crash it", to which I reply, "you'll look like an idiot, but I've wadded up my fair share of boats so it's your turn". She's seen enough to realise everyone gets it wrong occasionally, and she takes it slow as my dad reminds her all the time " don't approach a dock any faster than you're willing to hit it". 

And she knows it's insured and I can fix it. 

 

Santanasailor

Charter Member. Scow Mafia
1,363
719
North Louisiana
So...is that a sailboat or a hair salon?   ;)
A little background.  Always grew up around boats but also lived in the country with horses.  During the 70’s 80’s and 90’s Brenda Lea and I trained horses, even to the point where we were granted a level 1 trainers license.  (Accept money to train but less than 50% of your income comes from training). (Actually our training amounted to a MINUS 25% of our income.   Still Wondering why we still don’t work with horses???). The fashion is for Tennessee Walking horses had ribbons braided in their mane and forelock when they show.  The highlight of my training career was constantly being asked by others to braid the ribbons into their horses manes and forelocks.  

My point...Since I am so good at braiding and I am NOT present in the picture, Obviously it is a sailboat and not a hair saloon or horse show warmup area.  

 

toddster

Super Anarchist
4,459
1,144
The Gorge
1 woman = 1 roll of toilet paper, per day.

2 or more women = plumbing repairs every 48 hours or less.  

Forget about "respectful" briefings, or providing sanitary waste cans.  It just doesn't compute.  

 

NORBowGirl

Super Anarchist
1,674
160
So...is that a sailboat or a hair salon?   ;)


Hehehe :)    Braiding long hair is a security thing, you know ;)    I love it when my fellow girl in the team braids our hair same fancy style. Great team feeling. 

And btw, we can do without toilet paper if we're just on a w/l race day. I don't think we even HAVE toilet paper on the boat. For a longer race I'll bring wet wipes which are nice to also use to clean hands, and it's more obvious for everybody that it doesn't get tossed in the head but in the discrete little plastic bag nearby. But then again we're a racing team, I guess it's more of a challenge when cruising or bringing inexperienced people on board. 

 

12345

Super Anarchist
2,798
37
Chicago
I love racing with my wife.

We have raced together on the Great Lakes, Cowes, Newport and she is a huge contributor to the crew. 

 

ryley

Super Anarchist
5,569
703
Boston, MA
I've been racing with women on my boat since I started racing my own boats. The ratio changes but it's generally somewhere around 20 - 40% of the team. We do everything from 90 mile overnights to full days of w/l.

I've never had a plumbing issue. I've never run out of TP.

I've never had a "staring" issue.

I've rarely had a "mansplaining" issue, and the few that have happened have mostly self-corrected.

The guys still pee off the back because we're all adults and we're there to race a boat, not to stare at each others' privates like a bunch of junior highschoolers.

One of the women - a great tactician, spinnaker trimmer, accomplished J24 sailor - clipped in and peed off the back during an overnighter. The drama on the boat went immediately from 0 to... 0.

ymmv, but if it varies too much maybe it's not the women on the boat that are the problem.

 

Omer

Anarchist
902
30
6017a530608e83487af37718babe4101.jpg


This photo of a book cover popped up on Pinterest and I thought I should take a closer look at the website that it was promoting. 

     I glanced through the gallery there and thought I should add a 6th very important to the wisdom they are providing.

#6 Be sure to have plenty of provisions on board otherwise your crew might EAT you!

As evidenced by this photo from the site...

2000_5bd816a9d7a9c.jpg
Forget about the women. What kind of a boat is that. Is that a mizzen mast or the companionway hatch put the wrong way, facing the bow. 

If it is a ketch, I wonder how they steer it. As there is no wheel or tiller in sight.

 
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