From: EPLUS17@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu (Richard Engelbrecht-Wiggans)
Subject: Inexperienced boaters
Organization: C.C.S.O.
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 16:45:45 GMT

>
>IMHO, there are alot of people out there who don't know what they
>are doing, from the moment they drop the hitch over the ball. I'm
>not saying this to sound elitist, it's just that I see more people
>do stupid things in one day at the lake than I see the rest of the
>week.
>
 
We all got to start somewhere...or has someone figured out how to be
born with boating knowledge and experience?
 
I for one don't know what I am doing, and do lots of "stupid" things
each time that I go sailing.  While I have several years experience
windsurfing, I had essentially no experience sailing a boat alone on
purchasing my first a few weeks ago...an old and very used 13' Banshee.
(To those of you who recommended I get a Laser instead, this boat was
available at the right time, at the right price, and has a big enough
cockpit to hold all my saltwater soaked windsurfing equipment on the
way home from sailing in the ocean.)  At $500 for boat and trailer, it
can hardly turn out to be THAT big of a mistake, and I feel free to tinker
with it--and, hopefully, learn from all my mistakes along the way--to my
heart's content.  ("It" will become a "she" when and if it ever gets named.)
 
Back to my stupidity.  It takes me at least 15 minutes to launch.  While I
have practised backing up my car with trailer in an empty parking lot, I
still launch by walking the trailer and boat into the water, and reverse
the process later.  I only sail on weekdays; this typically means that no
one (absolutely zero) else uses the sailboat launch site that day, and
there very few others--mainly stationary fishing boats near the shores--
out on the water.  So far, I only sail in wind under about 10 knots; more
wind than that, and I windsurf.  Still, I have capsized the boat while
getting in, while jibing, after getting tangled in the main sheet, when
trying to adjust the vang (or whatever that thingy that pulls down on the
boom is called), while getting out, etc. etc..  I still use my daggerboard
as a depth finder--or should it be, a "shallows finder?"--more often than
I would with a more expensive boat (eg. the QEII!).
 
I may be deceiving myself, but I don't think that I am endangering anyone
in all of this stupidity.  I do have some sailing experience on bigger boats
(and quite a bit on sailboards.)  I wear a lifevest and a helmet.  With the
adrenalin pumping, I can swim two miles in just under a hour.  Right-of-way
questions don't even come up.  And the water and air are about 80 degrees.
 
I have tried to improve myself.  In addition to the obvious--reading, courses,
etc.--I have, for example, anchored a couple of empty Clorox (r) bottles
about 50 yards apart and spent a total of more than a dozen hours practising
tacking and jibing around them (1 hour = about 100 turns).  Also, I practised
righting my boat in deep water several times on the pond behind my house
before going out on real water.  But I still qualify as "inexperienced."
 
Repeatedly being told that a REAL boaters don't wear their lifevests (let
alone a helmet), don't walk their boats and trailers to and from the water
(even if it is more than 100 feet to where the water gets knee deep?), or
capsize repeatedly (even when trying to learn to turn right at the mark?)
grates.  OK.  So I am a sissy and a clutz.  But we all had to start somewhere.
And no amount of bashing inexperienced boaters is going to change this.
Newsgroups: rec.boats