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Training for sailboats/yachts
A bigger anchor is "not" the solution to anchoring problems. Rode, Warp,
Chain, Anchor type are many of the considerations that must be taken into account when anchoring. Not to mention swing, tidal increases/decreases, other boats. Anchor watches. Transits. Doing it on the water with an instructor the right way to do it. Not grabbing a book and hoping for the best. All of the topics you mention about anchoring are more than adequately covered in any number of books. Just saying "doing it in the water is the right way to do it" doesn't make it true. I practiced anchoring exactly once with an instructor, read some books, and then successfully anchored every night for a year without once dragging. You can not learn a proper MOB recovery from a book. It has to be done on the water. The information learned while with an instructor is invaluable. Sunlight, wave action, leeway, headsails, drift, short-handedness are all things that can not be experienced in a book and can only be experienced in a proper drill. I read some books about MOB recovery and then my wife and I practiced a few times. I can't see how an instructor's guidance would have added anything significant. By the way, we actually did recover a MOB without incident (though he fell off a freighter, not our boat). Radio use cannot be learned from books. Proper courses must be used to ensure the person knows the proper procedures and fully understands their obligations when on VHF or MF/HF. I find this assertion strange. The books I read explained VHF procedures more than adequately. Picking up moorings and sailing on and off jetties can be read about in books too. But it needs to be done under the supervision of a good instructor for the safety of the boat at least. The book doesn't give you a feel for the boat. A feel for the wind and a feel for the wave action. As I mentioned in my original post, pulling a boat up to a dock or slip is the one thing I think you really should practice a lot. Picking up a mooring is pretty self-explanatory. Reefing, sail changes, knots, groundings. That is four more subjects off the top of my head. There are so many others to learn the RIGHT way too. Reefing is pretty easy to figure out from books and a little practice on your own boat. Same with sail changes. Knots are easy to learn from books. Groundings? Are you saying that an instructor is going to ground a boat to teach you how to get it off? If not, then all an instructor can do to teach you about groundings is tell you what to try, which a book can do just as well, if not better since you can get the book out when you run aground but you may have trouble remembering exactly what the instructor said. Books are fine, but as a tool that assists with on water learning. The blasé comment you made about learning from books is ridiculous and dangerous though. Of course one should practice what one learns from books on the water, but to me instruction from a live instructor is not really necessary for anything but basic helmsmanship, basic sail trim, and maneuvering into docks and slips. Andy |
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