"Bart Senior" .@. wrote in message

In that particular case I would have had to muzzle my girlfriend
as it took three verbal reprimands to get her to shut up. She was
very new to sailing, did not understand the situation, read it
completely wrong, and made a serious error in judgement. BTW,
we have not sailed together since.

I wasn't going to mention particulars.. but I believe in this case she
assumed she had the ear of the king. In other words she believed her
relationship with you provided her with rank. Her mistake.

In any event I agree with your suggestion to keep people
busy doing something else as it deflects the whole situation
and re-establishes control better than explainations or harsh
words--which I don't like to use.




You mentioned busy work. There are plenty of things
on a boat that could be classified as busy work like coiling
line that keep someone occupied

Why don't you give us some examples from your experience.

That is more difficult to do than I initially imagined since there are so
many scenarios possible and such variety in situations,vessel and crew etc.
One example was when we returning from a sail in a good breeze. It was 30+
kts but steady and the boat was properly reefed. 3 new people on board that
were friends of a sailing buddy.
These folks had all just passed their sailing course.
My friend is a very good sailor, his skills and abilities beyond reproach.
I would trust him to command at anytime.

Anyway... we decided to "impress" the newbies, who had wanted some heavy
weather time sailing, during our return to a well populated mooring field.
We approached the mooring field under full press [having done this on many
occasions]. This of course scared the hell out of the newbies. The woman
demanded we slow down. I directed her to quickly break out the fenders as
the vessel was out of control and requested the remaining crew to stand by
along the rails to fend off while my buddy and I handled the sails. They
didn't even see us laughing at them they were so busy. We tacked through
that mooring field at full speed going around, in, out and about all the
vessels for the next 15 minutes without a hitch... then before they realized
what was happening... the vessel was brought into the wind.... I requested
the newbie at the bow to hook up to the mooring and once secure we dropped
canvas.

We all had a good laugh over drinks in the cockpit.

I spoke to the woman 2 years later and she was still impressed at the ease
with which I not only ignored her objections with fake panic..... but the
surgical ease at which my buddy and I negotiated the mooring field and
vessels until the newbies began to realize we were having it on at their
expense. She has her own vessel now and uses the same tactic. :-)

CM