On Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:45:07 GMT, Jere Lull wrote:

On 2008-04-14 13:27:55 -0400, "Wilbur Hubbard"
said:

Because they all ARE! It's a biological fact that the elderly are much
diminished from their mental and physical capacites they embodied in their
prime. It's nothing to be ashamed of but it IS something that should be
taken into consideration. To deny aging equates to diminished capacity is to
deny reality.

But to assert that they are incapable is to deny reality as well.

It's not an either-or, but a "both" solution. My wife can't manhandle
systems on our boat the way I do. She needs winch handles, for
instance, and couldn't easily haul our current anchor and chain by
hand. She's a little girl and never had that sort of strength.

But she can handle a properly set-up 46' cat as easily as our pocket
cruiser once she learns the systems.

All it takes is adapting your systems and techniques to the available skills.

Sometimes the system needed *is* a smaller boat. We have a few people
on our docks who aren't old or particularly incapable, but don't go out
single-handed. They should have smaller boats. (Some got sailing dinks
for knocking around.)

Jere I know a couple sailing a 65 foot sloop. Just the two of them. He
is a retired scientist, I'd guess about 70, and she is a few years
younger. I met them in Phuket and they were on the way to the Med and
then back to the east Coast. No crew, just them.

The boat in the next slip to me is a fifty foot sloop and the couple
that own it sailed it from Seattle.

I knew a chap that was 80, he decided to go to America. Sailed north,
alone, to Japan and turned right. The last I heard from him he had
made Midway Island and the US Navy had a party for him.

Even square riggers with their large crews weren't adverse to making
things easier. There was a "patented" topsail that could be reefed in
two sections. The last of the cargo schooners carrying lumber from
Maine to New York sailed with amazingly small crews by using a
gasoline engine powered windlass to haul the lines.

I can probably go on but the point isn't age it is rigging the boat so
that YOU, or YOURS, can sail it. The much maligned Tristan Jones
sailed a boat with no legs at all.

Bruce-in-Bangkok
(correct email address for reply)