wrote in message
...
On Feb 21, 6:04 am, "Sir Thomas of Cannondale"
wrote:
... If I follow ............. then no one should post anything here
because our
opinion isn't of value.

I don't think you follow or perhaps you're indulging in a bit of
hyperbole. Please keep posting.

... Cruising in the way I think of it, is long trips across open ocean.
Coastal
sailing, which is
what I do, is not in the same category. ...

I don't really follow this. If I sail to Vava'u from New Zealand on
my boat and then spend a month or two bobbing around in the anchorages
(many of them just a few tens of yards apart) am I cruising? Is the
person who flies in and charters a boat and bobs around the same
anchorages for the same amount of time not cruising? If I deliver a
boat from New Zealand to Vava'u and then fly back am I cruising? To
me cases one and two are probably cruising and three probably isn't...

Why shouldn't I "dare" to call what Skip is doing Coastal Sailing and
what
folks who sail across
the open ocean Cruising? ..

Dare, dare! Seems to me though that the essence of cruising isn't
particularly about a person's or boat's ability to go offshore.
Certainly, there is a distinction between coastal sailing and ocean
passage making, but you can do both without cruising and either can be
cruising...

-- Tom.


Tom ,, let's see if I can make this clear. In the first posting, Skip
talks about a channel [Hawk Channel] he
had to deal with that is according to him very narrow ..

This posting is followed by Wilbur, saying he knows the channel and Wilbur
calls Skip
a liar and writes ..

"Hawk Channel is anything but narrow. You obviously weren't even IN Hawk
Channel if you make such a stupid claim. For everybody's information, Hawk
Channel is anything from three to five miles wide the entire way from Miami
to Key West"

So Skip calls Wilbur a non cruiser and writes "As before, I invite you to
tell us of where you've cruised in the last
- say - year...We're out doing it...".

Like most folks on this newsgroup, I have followed Skip's adventures. His
build, sinking, repair, and then his trip up
the coast, a few medical and mental issues,, and now his trip down the
coast...

My input,, Skip hasn't really gone Cruising yet. He has done some coastal
sailing, but not really gone off, over the
horizon .. and that is what I feel is a true Cruiser.

I don't think Skip can rely on his experience living on his boat and doing
some coastal sailing as an answer to
someone who questions his veracity about a certain channel. My feeling is
until he actually goes off on an open
ocean passage, until he sets out for that island over the horizon, and then
returns, or at the very least accomplishes
some trip that is more than a day sail, then he must answer the question
with facts, his experience in the channel,
etc rather than to say "We're out doing it". For example, if the Pardey's
wrote that the channel was narrow, and someone
posted that it wasn't .. I would side with the Pardey's since they have
years of experience cruising to all kinds of different
anchorages.

In my opinion, Skip needs to show me more in the way of sailing trips before
he gets my "Yup, Skip knows what he is
talking about and Wilbur is a jerk"

I am a coastal sailor. If I wrote that the channel into Portland, Maine was
XXXXX and someone said I was a liar,
I couldn't just say "I've been sailing longer than you so take that"..

I would need to explain. Tell why I though the channel was narrow. Maybe
for me it was. Maybe Skip is
cautious and what he thinks is narrow is a big open ocean to another.

I hope this clears up what I meant.

Now .. maybe Skip will explain the difference between his view of Hawk
Channel from Wilbur's view of the same channel.