Roger Long wrote:
"Rosalie B." wrote in message
...


This is YOUR fault. You need to explain IN ADVANCE exactly what you
are going to do and what the line handler is going to do, and have
their hand on the line that you want them to be doing something
with -
make them repeat it back to you, or whatever it takes.


I agree 100%. This is the part I trying to learn. I do try to brief
and explain in advance but my crew is on the cusp of impatient,
know-it-all, teenagerhood . Their eyes roll long before I get through
a full explanation and they get that, "can't we just go sailing?"
look. Their mother breaks in and says, "Don't lecture them, just tell
them what you want them to do."

I do put their hand and the cleat and tell them to unwrap it and let
it go. Then I look up and find them fumbling with the end looped fast
into the other cleat that can't be undone because of the tension.
There is a fine line somewhere between boredom and conveying enough
information to cover all possible mix ups that I haven't found yet.

Strange thing is that I used to be a sailing instructor and was
considered a very good one. I used to take people (girls) who had
never been in a boat before in their life out in Solings on Sunday
afternoons in Boston Harbor and talk them through setting the
spinnaker (yes, I was young and dumb then). Everything seems to work
better with non-family members. A lot of this is normal family
dynamics spilling over onto the boat.

That's interesting- I'm finding that teaching seamanship on Tropic Bird
to my normally (previously) hugely recalcitrant and uncommunicative 16
year old son has given us common ground and is forging a new bond
between us. He's listening and learning and we're both enjoying the
process.

I can still rememeber in my teenagehood, before I turned human, that Dad
and I found the same common ground. And on the same boat, too...
JM