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(joe_323) wrote:

As both a sailing and a flying instructor I deal with these issues
quite a bit. You don't want people doing stupid macho stunts and
killing themselves, but there is also such a thing as being too
chicken. Beyond a certain limit you have to wonder at a person's basic
ability. A pilot with little short field experience passing up a 1200
foot strip is a smart pilot. If he is unsure of getting a Skyhawk into
a 2500 fot strip then I would wonder if he had the required aircraft
control skills to be flying AT ALL. You can sit in "chicken harbour"
because you aren't in a hurry, have been in storms and bad weather
before, and would like a relaxing trip. If you are waiting because you
are unsure of being able to handle anything but the calmest weather
you are accident waiting to happen. Forecasts are not perfect and you
WILL be caught out sooner or later. Iknew a guy who passed on going
to the Bahamas in a large trawler because they didn't get a weather
window in 4 MONTHS! I can't imagine there was weather THAT bad for
that long in Florida.

Well a trawler is quite a bit different from a sailboat. Not much
faster, and quite a bit more uncomfortable in a seaway. I'm assuming
that he was there in the winter, and I have seen quite a bit of bad
weather pretty close together with really small weather windows. It
also might be that when a weather windows did arrive, the boat wasn't
provisioned (it's hard to stay 'ready' for 4 months) or they were
having some problem with the dinghy motor or any one of a number of
other things..

Of course he may really be chicken-little. In that case, it's just as
well that he didn't go. Wouldn't it be worse for him to go if he's
not capable of handling it just because of the scorn of people like
you?

If you've never done it before, it can be scary. That's why people
try to band into groups - as if that would really help much.

I have to say that the first time we went down the ICW (and we did not
travel with anyone) and over to the Bahamas, I was always a little
nauseated especially in the morning, but it wasn't seasickness - it
was tension. And after Bob's heart attack, getting back on the boat
and bringing it back home was also difficult for me.

grandma Rosalie