Sailboats are evil...

[preacherman]

I have managed charter companies for allmost two decades.
In the mid 80s, my bare boat sailers usually came up with 150 engine hours in a season.

Now they register no less than 300 engine hours.

Are sailors getting really so lazy, not taking the sails out of the bag (not even rolling the main and genoa out) as Thunderhead so truly remarks?

Isn't that a pity "SailDesign" ?
What do we do wrong ??

Hey, Mr. Preacherman: what you don't realize is that those are stinkpotters not sailors putting engine time on your boats!
At least they're ON a sailboat-hope flames eternal....

[SailDesign]

Doug is right, they are stinkpotters.
Our local harbourmaster had a call one day, someone drifting ouit of the harbour mouth, out of gas/petrol, PLEASE help me! Goes cahrging out at top speed to see a couple of Lasers, and a ketch with its sails all furled, no motor boat. Eventually the ketch starts waving at the HM, so he goes over, thinking they might be able to tell him what happened to the powerboat. Turns out it is the ketch that called for help. He had owned the boat for 2 years, had never learnt to sail, or even unrolled a sail in all that time, just motored down to twon and went out to the bars. Motored home the next day.
Stinkpotters!

Steve

[Bidule P.Q.]

You know, this thing people have about being better than the next person because he/she is not in the same group, is only the expression of one's fear...
Take United Staters for example, they will crush anyone in order not to loose thier...comfort! Let's say Christians and thier crusades so they don't have to change! Or Dumbells and Angels whom all must rattle thier testicals on an archaic machine to give themselves the sense of owning a pair...
All this to say I am no better than thee because I prefer the wind to petrol! On this forum (to keep things simple) we have one thing in common........., H2O, the big cup, deep blue, water..........
Let's have fun and help one another. One is not better because he/she spit on thier neighbor; it will eventualy fall back in thy face.

Well said! Of course that doesn't apply to Stinkpotters because they are unclassifiable...

[Thunderhead19]

This thread has generated a healthy amount of discussion and storytelling, since I started it in a vodka-induced stupor. I do sincerely thank all of you for your stories, input and advice. We, as professionals and afficionados (my spelling is getting bad..) are certainly nothing if not passionate (and entertaining).

I'm starting to realize that the people that sailboaters have a beef with, aren't really serious powerboaters, and the people that I had such a problem with aren't true sailboaters.

Today I met a reverend of a local church. She was, astoundingly, the most ill mannered, rudest, bossiest person I have met in the last thirty years. It made me realize that there is a difference between a passion and a mere play-thing. A difference between a way of life and the simple facilitation of ones own ego. None of the people who use this forum are the ill mannered clods we all want to tell off. Let's put them in the category of "wanna-be".

I admit that for a long time I really thought that all sailboat people burned a liter of diesel for every fifty liters of water they consumed, that they all cruised non stop for a month in the same pair of undergarments, and that they would always finish up their cruises by using up the communal hot water, blocking up our dock and flushing the aformentioned undergarments down our toilet (clogging our macerator pump and causing poor Robbie to go diving in our holding tank to fix it). Some people don't care what kind of effect they have on others. They show up everywhere.

Some of the responses here I have found rather dark and unsettling. These must be people who are as jaded as I was. I hope they too can put their bad experiences behind them.

As for my career, I ponder frequently on the idea that I'm facilitating peoples' egos. And that I run into more people like the reverend than people like Saildesign-Steve, Fast Fred and Gonzo. What does this thread have to do with design? Lots! It's the side of design that we gripe about to our collegues in bars and to our spouses behind closed doors. Let's keep it going.

[Skippy]

Hi Stinky! Excellent post, I agree. Thanks for being so open and so open-minded. I see the vodka must have worn off.


In the 1960's, Bernard Smith, an engineer working for the US Navy, wrote a book called "The 40-Knot Sailboat". He's into hydrofoils, and he likes the Pacific flying proa, but the overriding goal is to make a sailboat go as fast as possible. When a friend of his asked if he really wanted to go fast why didn't he just put an engine on the boat, Smith says in the book, "I could feel the foundation of our friendship slipping away before he finished asking the question."

My personal approach to getting through both life and water mostly requires subletly and patience, but like some guys in fishing boats said to me once as I was launching my boat, "That's too much work!" To each his own.

I feel the need to explain my perverse sensibilities and their possible origin.
Once upon a time many years ago in New Orleans at the age of 8 I was sailing our families Dyer Dyow in a small harbor in New Orleans. My father was there working on our new(old) 47' power boat -it was in rough shape and Dad, my brother and I would spend much of the next 10 years fixing it up. Anyway, he was down below installing a gas engine to get the boat from New Orleans to Pensacola. Later we installed twin diesels.
Well, I decided to sail up to the boat and look in the porthole at the engine room. As a looked in BANG! At that very moment Dad had turned the engine over and it fired once with my head only inches away from the end of the exhaust which I didn't know he had placed in the porthole.
You might say that had a profound effect on me......

[Thunderhead19]

....I just gave a prospective client a tour of our shop. I think he is the devil....when you have money like that, I think that ones ego gets nursed by everyone he comes in contact with.

[FAST FRED]

In Oyster Bay in NY , a couple of years ago we had a "problem marine motorist".

Seems the ONLY time he ever wanted to leave the mooring was when the Junior race fleet was having fun in 8 or 10 ft trainers.

He would start up & barge the chanel , right thru the kids a number of times 55ft at speed!.

One Sat AM he couldn't resist , started the engines , dropped the mooring and Slamed into FWD.

Horrible noise for 2 seconds , and BOTH engines stopped dead.

After a $$$$ tow to the travel lift , it was discovered that both Props were chained together & padlocked!

No problem , the insurance "would " buy a new set op props , shafts & struts.

NOT SO !! said the ins company , no "Vandalism" insurance in his policy.

Not ALL marine motorists are IMBECILES , but there seem to be as many that are ,
as sailors that are CHEAP!

No problem , the hobby of messing around with boats is still GREAT!

FAST FRED

[asathor]

I guess you missed a major "teaching/learning" opportunity there. I don't think he learned anything positive from that.

Talking to people is not that difficult, since you already knew you didn't like him there wasn't much to loose.

We just got pulled of the dock by a power yacht owner when we were pinned in a "parrallel parking" spot by a 30MpH wind. He was a serious cruiser in a different (and larger) boat but his liquor and stories (the night before) were great just the same.

Asathor

[OrionsSword]

Originally Posted by FAST FRED

In Oyster Bay in NY , a couple of years ago we had a "problem marine motorist".

Seems the ONLY time he ever wanted to leave the mooring was when the Junior race fleet was having fun in 8 or 10 ft trainers.

He would start up & barge the chanel , right thru the kids a number of times 55ft at speed!.

One Sat AM he couldn't resist , started the engines , dropped the mooring and Slamed into FWD.

Horrible noise for 2 seconds , and BOTH engines stopped dead.

After a $$$$ tow to the travel lift , it was discovered that both Props were chained together & padlocked!

No problem , the insurance "would " buy a new set op props , shafts & struts.

NOT SO !! said the ins company , no "Vandalism" insurance in his policy.

Not ALL marine motorists are IMBECILES , but there seem to be as many that are ,
as sailors that are CHEAP!

No problem , the hobby of messing around with boats is still GREAT!

FAST FRED

congratulations to whomever padlocked his props i think that from the many stories here and my personal experiance i can see that the true evil is not in the kind of boat but more the price of the boat (sail or power) i think that we can adopt the quote "absolute power corrupts absolutly" to "to much money corrupts boating people"
this being said there is nothing wrong with having a nice boat and taking pride in maintaining it

orion
339 days till volvo ocean

[SailDesign]

Originally Posted by OrionsSword

i can see that the true evil is not in the kind of boat but more the price of the boat

It's not the size of the bank account, but the size of the ego. They do not always relate.

Steve

[OrionsSword]

maybe steve but big money seems to do a damn good job of creating a big ego

Orion

[Thunderhead19]

What about customers who are buying a yacht worth millions and appoint the dashboard with the cheapest marine radio available, the cheapest spotlights, the cheapest controls set, the cheapest radar, Lavishly appointed staterooms, twin heads (his and hers) with marble lined jacuzzis and a galley that a chef could produce a seven couse meal for thirty people in. You know this guy intends to stay parked. I'm thinking that they could get a pretty nice luxury condo for much less and rent a boat for the three days a year that they actually cast-off lines. These people are making a fashion statement, and some builder some where has to produce a crappy boat to satisfy this guy. I know I don't like putting my name on lousy things. I'm older and wiser now, and I have learned to delicately reject requests like that, but at the beginning, I would tear my hair out.