The prevalence of negative experiences among the broader boating public
- Thread starter 2airishuman
- Start date
I don't have enough cash to pay the yard to do everything so I just make my own staff.
This one is learning to fly and happens to have an aptitude for wrenching so I encourage her to help with various tasks about the boat, car, motor scooter. In this case we rebuilt the top end together over the winter, this was reassembly day.
She now knows how Diesels function and is pretty good with gas engines too. Not afraid to dig into an electrical system either. All of this has boosted her confidence a great deal. I have no trouble imagining her in ten years fixing the car by the side of the road while her useless boyfriend tries to get signal.
All this confidence is helpful in the aircraft too it seems
Right now she and her brother are assembling a laser for shits and giggles that came from the scrap yard. The exercise will make them appreciate the boat and it's care far more than their racing peers who are handed fully kitted boats to play on.
Lot's of good little micro lessons for the kids too along the way. "This is a rivet, we need to drill it out, here's how you do that, ok, this is the proper way to secure the work while you do the job...etc."
Incrementally more and more handy they are becoming.
Oh, and she had been entirely turned off sailing by her Sailing School experience. Slowly, by playing with boats, she has come back on board with the entire activity.
This one is learning to fly and happens to have an aptitude for wrenching so I encourage her to help with various tasks about the boat, car, motor scooter. In this case we rebuilt the top end together over the winter, this was reassembly day.
She now knows how Diesels function and is pretty good with gas engines too. Not afraid to dig into an electrical system either. All of this has boosted her confidence a great deal. I have no trouble imagining her in ten years fixing the car by the side of the road while her useless boyfriend tries to get signal.
All this confidence is helpful in the aircraft too it seems
Right now she and her brother are assembling a laser for shits and giggles that came from the scrap yard. The exercise will make them appreciate the boat and it's care far more than their racing peers who are handed fully kitted boats to play on.
Lot's of good little micro lessons for the kids too along the way. "This is a rivet, we need to drill it out, here's how you do that, ok, this is the proper way to secure the work while you do the job...etc."
Incrementally more and more handy they are becoming.
Oh, and she had been entirely turned off sailing by her Sailing School experience. Slowly, by playing with boats, she has come back on board with the entire activity.
Ajax
Super Anarchist
kent_island_sailor
Super Anarchist
She didn't like Opti Concentration Camp?
Russell Brown
Super Anarchist
Not my best yachts.
My point was more that boat owners have no idea how much their boats cost to run per hour, not that airplanes are cheap.
Say I went out sailing for 10 weekends in a year and was underway for 10 hours per weekend. That would be a LOT for most of the boats in my marina. My hourly cost would be $30/hr *just to cover the slip payment*. If you add in insurance, routine maintenance, reserves for a new engine, reserves for new sails, reserves for new canvas, and so on I am sure the cost is well past $100/hr.
Pretty much no one I have ever met calculates things like this out or wants to. I just depressed myself writing it
Sailors are more like new sails and new engines are some far distant event we won't think about until we have to. We also have the enormous advantage that sailboats, or any boat for that matter, doesn't quit being fun once it stops moving. Going one hour up the river, spending 48 hours anchored enjoying the scenery, swimming, cooking on the grill, etc. etc., and coming an hour back is 2 hours on the clock and 50 hours of funProbably at least half the boats in my marina are floating vacation homes, their big Detroit Diesels are enormously expensive to feed and care for, but since they never run no one notices
I assume those were the pilots that were not sailors. At least I’m hoping so.
hopsaddict
New member
Luckily, her first outing on the Sanderling went well. It was Labor Day and I was wary of going out. But the weather was too good that morning not to go. She helped us get out of dock. The winds were too light to sail. So we just anchored in the cove. She helped me set the anchor. She watched the ospreys and the terns. She took a little nap in the shade of the boom. Nothing went awry. We made it back into dock with minimal fuss and no arguments.
Lucky for me as I basically have no idea what I'm doing.
But it will still take a few more turns to get her comfortable going out. But as long as that outboard starts on the second pull and I never ask her to scrub the boat, I should be OK. The eye-rolling will stop one day.
But to the OPs original point, there are a lot of people out there not cut out for adversity. Any time you step away from suburbia, and Starbucks, and grocery stores, and Interstate highways, you are in the unknown. Nine times out of ten, things will go fine. But that one out of ten is where you learn what you can handle. Things will go wrong. Almost never is it catastrophic. You just need to take a deep breath, calm down, deal with it, incur the costs, and learn something from it.
I'm an avid backpacker. I've taken the wifey backpacking exactly once. She isn't made for it. As many great hikes as I've had, I also had days where nothing went right and I had no idea if I was going to make it out intact. Life goes on. There is no other choice.
Also, @Ajax is right, that Yamaha 6HP is reliable. Best $500 I've spent on this boating adventure.
Ajax
Super Anarchist
She doesn't need to know that.
Not my experience. The best boats I've ever seen were always the ones who were owned by someone who is an engineer or craftsman that meticulously looks after their boat. Doubly true if they're the one who built it (or rebuilt it).
slug zitski
Super Anarchist
no way , most boat owners do not live next to thier boat
on Sailing anarchy this week is a boat owner preparing for a cruise..he lives a long way from his boat and needs to have the boats fuel tanks cleaned.
no problem if the boat is at a good boatyard..they clean tanks all the time and have the barrels, pump, cleaning equipment ..just give them a call
I don’t care how much mechanical ability you have you can’t disassemble the piece of equipment in the galley sink or on your hands and knees on the dock ……..you need a workbench…every shipyard has a maintenance shed for thier travel lift , cradles , jackstand …with a big steel workbench and a vise…
at closing time you zip over , ask , then breakdown the equipment on the bench
Paint ? Yikes ..you need to touch up a few chips with awlgrip flag blue …that is an expensive can of paint …so you go to the paint department , ask if they have any open cans of flag blue , get your tablespoon full , then get to work
the best boats are based out of a quality boatyard…
To the comment that using sails and engines isn’t free: in my family, sails have lifespans in the 10-15 year range for racing sails, 30+ for cruising sails. We don’t go out if it’s snotty and we don’t leave the sails on the poles. The boats have engines that have been running like a top for 30 and 40 years because of fanatical maintenance. Our “new” boat is a 1994 bought new. The “old” boat is 1958 bought in 1959. They have so long ago been amortized that they may not be literally free, but the costs are so insignificant when spread out over their lifespans that a trip on the water may as well be free.
It is possible to sail without spending a fortune.
This isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and I’m sure people have some snark about this approach! That’s fine. It works for us.
Needless to say almost all work is done by ourselves.
It is possible to sail without spending a fortune.
This isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and I’m sure people have some snark about this approach! That’s fine. It works for us.
Needless to say almost all work is done by ourselves.
Last edited:
TwoLegged
Super Anarchist
- 5,891
- 2,254
If you can afford to fly somewhere and charter a sailboat, then you are part of the elite.I'm inclined to say Fuck You! But this is CA and that would be rude. Suffice it to say that my bareboat experience with my family in the San Juan Islands was one of a handful of "trips of a lifetime" Without all three of the above it never would have happened. (I guess I could have used a paper chart but in unfamiliar waters I'm thinking that's less than optimal) Anyhow, your post comes off as a bit elitist, even for here. I'm sure that's not the case but just sayin'
slug zitski
Super Anarchist
A boat in good condition is not too expense to maintain
sailing it and having fun is very expensive
on the road everything is double price , including your insurance
Alright, I'm not sure how you're getting the lifespans you do out of sails, after six years of regular use even a mainsail is starting to look "pretty rough" for club use, and a jib is falling apart.
In any case, you bring up a good point - a lot of the money isn't really necessary. If you aren't one of those people who lives 1000 miles from their boat, don't pay someone else for absolutely everything that needs to be done to it, take care to prolong the life of expensive things, and avoid buying everything new, it can be a remarkably economical hobby.
A lot of very boats can be raced effectively at the local level, and even at smaller regattas, for under $500/year on sails.
I think that the mistake a lot of people make is that they expect the $/fun curve to be linear... and it isn't.
Do you own a recreational sailboat?
Kris Cringle
Super Anarchist
- 3,261
- 2,895
I think this works broadly. I have a neighbor with a house that was 80% renovated 20 years ago. He used the best builder in the area (a friend) and went soup to nuts on the project. It's impossible to tell that some of the original structure is still there.
Every year I help him install some winter storm panels on a couple doors. It gets tougher each time. The doors are starting to sag out of square and the wood is spongy. These were the top of the line by the best window builder.
I sat down and chatted with he and his wife for a bit.
They've got a stuffed toilet, one of 4-5 highest end toilets of circa 2000. The kitchen faucet (one of two or three, kitchen faucets,..) is shot. The problem isn't $$, they have plenty of that. They can't get a plumber (I can't either right now). The oven stopped working, no appliance repair people available(you probably can't fix it anyway). Good thing they have two ovens, all the rage in high end kitchens, c. 2000 and beyond.
. He has several solid wood panel doors, coming apart, at the joints. Having seen the '20 year' phase of new construction many times now, this was a new one on me. These doors were the best available at the time (they're out of business now).
He's getting old, quickly. He's maintained this house to the enth over the 20 years. He chuckled and said "Everything is falling apart in this house".
"Not everything, the original doors they saved upstairs are still fine", his wife chimed in. I know the old doors have full mortise and tenon corner joints but I kept that to myself.
It's hard to say if 20 years with the new architecture, state of the art parts and systems, etc. enhanced their past 20 years. Tough call.
On The Hard
Super Anarchist
If you take the care to read the whole thing, the word "elitist" was used to describe a minimum standard for sailing experience, and people like me are just like bubblegum on the bottom of your shoe. I love sailing but it has not been my life's work. But I can afford a nice vacation. In the context of the world's economies, that does make me "elite", though hardly rich. But that "elitist" comment refers to something else entirely. Just trying to be understood
A good yard helps, as long as they leave you alone and let you do your own work. I really struggle finding good electricity supplies and usually end up having to fix the yard‘s electrics first, but then if I am running my welder, I need a good supply. However then you become a magnet for everyone and their small welding jobs that always seem to be a ‘5 min job’ that turns into 2 hours…
I spent a fair few years working on my boat whilst on a buoy. A good inverter, a vice and bench onboard really makes a difference.
