Hello:

To bring this thread back to the start of this post................

I have met over the years people who say they have 45 years experience
and hundreds of thousands of miles under their keel. We are lead to
believe that experience and miles equals ability and knowledge.
However, I have learned that "experienced " skippers may simply
have repeated mistakes made their first year 30 times. The skipper of
the cat in his own words:

"....However, in 45 years of sailing and around 70,000 of offshore
sailing, I have never had to stop sailing because of bad weather. So it
had all been theory for me, until now...."

Sounds as though the skipper of the cat has 45 years of very limited
experiences and also learned little along the way. At least he was
honest. I was reading an interesting account of the 1979 Fastnet fiasco
a few years back. Read the quote below and ask yourself does experience
equal skill?

The following quote is from an interview with Bill Burrows, Chief
Engineer Royal Navy Lifeboat Institution. He retrieved three disabled
sailboats in a 21 hour rescue during the fatal 1979 Fastnet Storm.
"... Look, you get 300 Yachats in poor weather and you're going to
have some trouble, almost certainly. But the majority of the trouble
was hysteria created by the situation and by inexperienced crews. And
that it was. They were blaming rudders and such, but none of those
rudders would have snapped if they had put drogues out and storm jibs
and run before the weather. They were under bare poles, most of them,
and they were getting up on the seas. And the seas were about 45 feet.
NOT WHAT WE AROUND HERE CALL BIG. They got up on these seas and they
were running. When the boats were starting to broach, what the helmsmen
were doing was hauling on the rudders to stop them from broaching. They
were putting too much bloody strain on the rudders, and they had to go.
Yes, I know they were racing sailors, not cruising men, but that's no
excuse. WE WENT OUT THAT NIGHT AND WE PASSED A LITTLE OLD HOOKER SORT
OF THING WITH A FAMILY OF KIDS ABOARD AND THEY WERE GOING AWAY TO
IRELAND WITH NO TROUBLE AT ALL...."

Which brings me back to the topic of FREAK waves........... Some people
actually learn something in their 45 years sailing others are only
doomed to repeat their same mistakes until they get caught. The problem
is that some skippers hide behind their "sea service" in hopes to
sound important and knowledgeable. Its not how long you do
something......Its what you learn along the way.

Bob