Jon,

I would not call this off topic. 50% of sailing are skills, and
50% is about people and getting them to work together
smoothly. I'm sure you will agree with that.

I've had five students with similar problems. I don't have a
solution.

Two were students I had at OCSC--an older couple, who
at first I thought were taking advantage of the club which
offered unlimited extra days to reach BK level. I thought
they were faking to get more sailing and instruction in.
My conclusion was this couple were both exposed to, or
consumed, some chemical that damaged their memory.
Or possibly people with probelms like this tend to find each
other.

Other instructors I know have reported similar problems.

I've taught three women with identical problems to your student.
These women seemed normal on the surface, but sailing revealed
they were clueless. Even with reinforcement lost new skills just
minutes later. I tried extra reinforcement without success.

These women on the surface seemed normal and intelligent.
One of them, Sandy, was a woman I dated for a while and
tried to introduce to sailing. I tried for a long time. She had
difficulty with simple knots, and could not remember how to
tack or anything else unless she'd just done it ten times. 20
minutes later I'd have to start all over again. Knot tying
seems to be the obvious clue that these people have memory
problems.

Sandy got lost constantly, even when driving to my house. This
was a familiar place, she'd been to many times and was
ridiculously easy to find. She had difficulty holding a job, and
worked as a temp employee. She had work related problems
that I suspect were also related to her memory. She was unable
to hold a permanent position.

At first I thought Sandy and my other students had attention
deficiency disorder. However, the women did seem to stay
focused, and they did make an huge effort to learn.

My conclusion again, was it is a memory issue. The analogy is
this--an IBM PC with 128k of memory. Without memory, they
can't load the big programs. Or rather, the lack of memory,
or storage means even simple tasks must be relearned constantly.
Perhaps the processor is too slow to relearn quickly? Whatever
it is, it's a physical limitation.

I spend a few minutes with each student after teaching them,
to ask them how they felt they did. In cases with memory
problems I've found the people rush away after class like they
are on fire. They don't want to confront the underlying issues
because it threatens their self esteem.

I witnessed one of the three women in a crisis situation was
unable to cope, panicked, and became a burden for the rest
of the crew.

I reluctantly came to the conclusion that people who cannot
develop their skills do not belong on a boat where they endanger
their own life and the lives of others. San Francisco Bay is no
place for such people.

My recommendation. Test her memory with something unrelated
to sailing. Give her a number to memorize and then randomly say
other numbers while sailing. This would not confuse a normal
person, but it would someone with memory problems.

At the end of the lesson ask "what was the number" [you asked
her to remember]. If she has memory problems, she will not
be able to remember. She will also be the type that will often
get lost often while driving. Ask about that.

Such discussion will allow you to segue into dissuading her from
sailing. And give her valid reasons why, without hurting feelings,
and hopefully help them recognize and deal with this as a medical
issue.

Bart


Jonathan Ganz wrote
I had a student yesterday who just does not seem to get
it at all. She spent nearly 2 hours rigging a very simple
Holder 20. Literally, a main, a jib, and that's about it.
Most students take 30 minutes tops the first time out. It
seemed like everything was a struggle for her.

I'm not sure how to proceed. When we finally got out on
the water, she did ok, but was very hesitant with almost
zero self-confidence, especially about gybing, even though
the wind was very light on the lake.

I hate to dissuade her completely from sailing, but I also
hate having her waste her money on lessons. She's had
two other instructors prior to me, and took the full basic
sailing class. Obviously, she's trying really hard... said
she wants some independence from her husband, her
own hobby, etc. I talked to one of the other instructors,
and he said basically the same thing... doesn't know
why she's having problems like this... didn't know what
to do.

She's got the basic book, she can usually tie a bowline
the first time in about 5-10 seconds, but then she gets
totally stuck on a stopper knot (fig 8). I saw her take
3-4 minutes to do it right, even with me talking her
through it and showing her countless times.

Has anyone had a student like this? What did you do?

10 NG pts for a workable solution.

Jonathan