I agree with Doug..great story. I really like these stories
posted to the news group. Besides being a good sea story, there
are usually lessons to be learned.

It would seem to be a good idea, if possible, to take a crew
and boat shake-down sail lasting 4 - 6 hours, preferably in sickning
rollers on a broad reach....then decide if one could live
with the crew at hand. I, for one, have sailed for a week at
a time with people I'll never sail with again...mainly the drunks,
and those who don't have much experience and are determined not to learn.
Of course those were sailing classes, and I had no say about shipmates.

A mini-story: A friend and I were to depart a harbor on the California
coast. My friend had been in and out of this harbor several times.
I'd noticed the day before on arrival a red buoy a quarter mile southwest
of the breakwater entrance. Further on was a green buoy. I'd looked at the chart,
and saw that the red buoy was the mate to a green buoy denoting the
prefered channel for a northwest arrival, and the green buoy (with a
corresponding red one further south) marked a channel for a southwest arrival.
It was apparent that either departure route was about the same
distance-wise/time-wise to gain open ocean, odd as that may sound.

I asked my friend what course he liked to depart, and he indicated
he wanted to go between the red buoy to the north, and the green
buoy to the south. That didn't compute too well, and looking at the chart
again showed why. Those two buoys not only helped define the two channels,
but also defined the ends of a long reef, parts of which would dry, since it
was an ebb.

When I pointed this out to my
friend, his response was that he'd seen other boats go that way. On closer
questioning, he admitted he'd only seen local power boats go that way.
I told him that if he was determined to take that route, in a Catalina 36 with its
rock-grabbing keel, he may as well set me ashore, (yep, a mutiny)
because I wouldn't sail across (or into) a reef with him. Things got a bit heated
until it dawned on me that he simply couldn't read a chart!
So I cooled down, gave him the short course in chart reading, and he became
convinced finally. Needless to say, I did the nav work from that point on, and
we got along great for the rest of the cruise. Since I'm a new sailor, I did learn
a lot from him about boat handling in the open ocean. (12 foot swells look HUGE
to a sheltered waters sailor grin)

I'm curious that you had so many preventer problems...how was it rigged,
and what type was it?

Norm B

On Sat, 26 Feb 2005 12:14:50 -0500, DSK wrote:

What a great story! Kirk, thanks for posting this! And congratualtions
on quitting smoking... very tough to do but worth it in the long run.

Kirk van Koeverden wrote:
...snip for brevity...
So he couldn't see and he couldn't swim, couldn't keep his breakfast
without medication, couldn't handle or steer a boat by night, couldn't
set, trim or reef a sail, couldn't bend, hitch, or splice a sheet,
couldn't admit it until he was pressed and didn't want to learn how.
No-good, Lying, Lubberly, Leech.


I get the impression that you don't like this guy.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King

DSK wrote:
What a great story! Kirk, thanks for posting this!

Thank you.
Your account of your delivery trip from Florida inspired me to do the same.
I've been emailing it to so many of my friends that I was worried my ISP
might begin to think I was a spammer!

engsol wrote:
I agree with Doug..great story. I really like these stories
posted to the news group. Besides being a good sea story, there
are usually lessons to be learned.

Thanks.
After rereading it a couple of weeks after I wrote it, I realise that
it's a bit incoherent in places. The story was written over a period of
a week or more, coming back to it, rearranging it, cut and pasting here
and there. I should have proof-read it better, there's alot of
background information that I assumed my friends would know, so I didn't
include it in the account.

Just for the record, the race was the 2004, 60th Sydney to Hobart.
The boat is a Sydney 32' called "Rollercoaster".
You can check it out on;
http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/yacht_d...ceEntryID=4749

And congratualtions on quitting smoking... very tough to do but worth
it in the long run.

After nearly three weeks back on shore, in my "normal" life, I fell back
into the habit. Writing the account kept me preoccupied enough for one
of those weeks.
Ironically John has himself since quit.

So he couldn't see and he couldn't swim, couldn't keep his breakfast
without medication, couldn't handle or steer a boat by night, couldn't
set, trim or reef a sail, couldn't bend, hitch, or splice a sheet,
couldn't admit it until he was pressed and didn't want to learn how.
No-good, Lying, Lubberly, Leech.

That's the most commonly quoted paragraph in the story, and one of my
favourites. Spent hours on that one alone.

I get the impression that you don't like this guy.

It's not that I don't like him, just tired of the garbage that comes out
of his mouth.
I'll admit I took some pleasure in coming up with the curses, with some
inspiration from C.S.Forrester and Patrick O'Brian.

"Of all the useless, slack-arsed, tale-bearing, present-seeking,
double-poxed, lily-livered lubbers to show a hand."

I'm curious that you had so many preventer problems...how was it rigged,
and what type was it?

The boat didn't have a regular preventer as such, it was just a sail tie
that had been looped around the boom, aft of the vang, then attached at
the base of a staunchion.
On a cloudy night, no stars, no moon, no sign of the shore, nothing to
give you any sense of direction, add to that some big rollers coming in
from the rear starboard quarter, pushing the stern over one way as it
approaches, then the other way as it passes. All these things put
together make steering a steady course a little tricky.
Imagine keeping your eyes closed and steer according to the direction of
the wind on the back of yourneck.

I should point out that I myself am no well seasoned sailor, but am
handy with a line, thanks to scouts/venturers, abseiling since I was a
little tacker, and working in theatres for years.
I've been racing with Chris for the last 18 months, aboard a Cape 31',
day-sailing, both inshore and off, on a weekly basis. I'm light and
reasonably agile, so I've become his foredeck man. But I don't get to
steer or trim the sails as often as I'd like.
I do enjoy all the action up on the foredeck though.