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Mayday off coast of Mexico-rescued from catamaran
Hello:
To bring this thread back to the start of this post................ I have met over the years people who say they have 45 years experience and hundreds of thousands of miles under their keel. We are lead to believe that experience and miles equals ability and knowledge. However, I have learned that "experienced " skippers may simply have repeated mistakes made their first year 30 times. The skipper of the cat in his own words: "....However, in 45 years of sailing and around 70,000 of offshore sailing, I have never had to stop sailing because of bad weather. So it had all been theory for me, until now...." Sounds as though the skipper of the cat has 45 years of very limited experiences and also learned little along the way. At least he was honest. I was reading an interesting account of the 1979 Fastnet fiasco a few years back. Read the quote below and ask yourself does experience equal skill? The following quote is from an interview with Bill Burrows, Chief Engineer Royal Navy Lifeboat Institution. He retrieved three disabled sailboats in a 21 hour rescue during the fatal 1979 Fastnet Storm. "... Look, you get 300 Yachats in poor weather and you're going to have some trouble, almost certainly. But the majority of the trouble was hysteria created by the situation and by inexperienced crews. And that it was. They were blaming rudders and such, but none of those rudders would have snapped if they had put drogues out and storm jibs and run before the weather. They were under bare poles, most of them, and they were getting up on the seas. And the seas were about 45 feet. NOT WHAT WE AROUND HERE CALL BIG. They got up on these seas and they were running. When the boats were starting to broach, what the helmsmen were doing was hauling on the rudders to stop them from broaching. They were putting too much bloody strain on the rudders, and they had to go. Yes, I know they were racing sailors, not cruising men, but that's no excuse. WE WENT OUT THAT NIGHT AND WE PASSED A LITTLE OLD HOOKER SORT OF THING WITH A FAMILY OF KIDS ABOARD AND THEY WERE GOING AWAY TO IRELAND WITH NO TROUBLE AT ALL...." Which brings me back to the topic of FREAK waves........... Some people actually learn something in their 45 years sailing others are only doomed to repeat their same mistakes until they get caught. The problem is that some skippers hide behind their "sea service" in hopes to sound important and knowledgeable. Its not how long you do something......Its what you learn along the way. Bob |
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