Learn the only real essentials for success
Issue 48 : May/Jun 2006
I recently read a prediction that it only a matter of time before anyone who is so brave and presumptuous as to command a sailboat will be required to take tests and get a license which permits such. Lacking the license, you may not. That sort of thing already exists in Europe and other countries, and marine safety authorities are considering bringing the practice to the USA.
I’m all for safety and, in the case of sailing boats, I enthusiastically recommend that skippers and crews study their art, learning navigation, rules of the road, weather, and the other relevant skills. The study and the learning make the hobby not only safer but also more enjoyable.
I do not, however, believe that regulators and the regulations they require will make sailing safer. Such things will just make sailing more complicated, bureaucratic, expensive, and less fun.
There are some rules that I recommend, however. I say “rules” in an effort to make a sort of peremptory strike. Actually, I have no more right to make rules than anyone else does and even less right than the regulators who would make sailors safe . . . if only they could.
These are the cruising rules that Karen and I derived during one of our early cruises. It was a happy time when we were learning about our boat, our cruising grounds, and ourselves. We have never seen the need to modify the rules nor add to them, although Rule Four came a bit later than the others.
I offer them here in the hope that regulators will consider these as the necessary and sufficient knowledge needed to cruise successfully . . . all other matters being minor.
Rule One
Eat the muffins when they are hot.
Rule Two
Use the smallest hose clamp that will work.
Rule Three
Never sail downwind with more sail than you can carry upwind.
Rule Four
In the morning, at anchor, tea should be served in bed before any other activity, no matter how pleasurable, is contemplated.
There now. I can only hope that when the regulators come to make us all safe from our hobby they will consider these rules as the basis for testing and licensing a skipper to command his own boat.
Independent of these well-meaning regulators, the real tests are, of course, administered on the water. The tests are not devised by mortals. No two tests are exactly alike, and you must take one every time you uncleat your docklines. All grades are pass or fail. However, the skipper is given extra credit if the crew is smiling when the boat returns to her berth.
Ever thus.
New products page
We have created a new regular column which will allow us to share some new marine products with you as they come to our attention and if they seem relevant to the sort of cruising done by good old boaters.
We’re calling the column Product Launchings. This makes sense to us since new products, like boats, must be launched to some acclaim.
To be featured on this page, the items must be brand-new products. But all products, like boats and even people, had to start out new before they could earn their due respect with the title of “good old.” We’re going to keep an eye on those we select as being worthy of mention.
Our first effort in this direction is on Page 79. Please let us know what you think. As always, if you contact a marine supplier mentioned in our pages (anywhere in our pages), please tell the folks there that Good Old Boat sent you. That’s the best thing you can do on our behalf. It reminds the marine suppliers and our advertisers that good old boaters are indeed a force to be reckoned with.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
