What percentage of sailors can't think ahead?

[Zed]

I'm sorry, but I just don't get it. You do remember that sailing is probably the SAFEST sport there is, right?
Please explain what these danger situations are and how one could have a plan that would encompass every weather and sea condition or every interaction with any one of a hundred different sorts of vessels that one might encounter on a sail.
I would think that after all that detailed planning for potential danger situations, one might just be too exhausted to actually go sailing.

I'm pretty sure I cannot explain this to you. It would ruin your sense of "come what may adventure".

You don't have to plan for everything that could happen, only the important ones: like knowing that you cannot put ethanol in an outboard, because you won't like what happens next.

 

[Zed]

i commend you on the starch in your shirt sir .....but you really should spend a night in jail some time it might loosen you up and give you a softer perspective or at least take away that need for total power...we always perform at our best when the chips are down with no back up plan at all ...and you based on your portrait of you self have never maxed out your potential .....

Oh my god!

 

[Kestle]

We no longer put chlorine in the gene pool.

Today I had to put my car in park in the fast lane of a six lane non-divided toad. A young woman felt traffic was too slow, so she just started driving in my lane, into a head on collision position.

I was in a protest Weds night where a driver took a 90 turn away from a starboard boat to avoid him and give him room. He turned to port and hit her.

I figured if I tried to get out of her way, it was more likely I'd get hit and some ass would sue me.

At least if I died, and the car was in park, she would have no case.

 

[Kestle]

I forgot to add, she drove for five blocks on the wrong side of the road. Traffic was at a dead stop on her side. Mind you, there are two parallel roads she had access to and could have used.

You can't fix stupid.

We no longer put chlorine in the gene pool. Today I had to put my car in park in the fast lane of a six lane non-divided toad. A young woman felt traffic was too slow, so she just started driving in my lane, into a head on collision position. I was in a protest Weds night where a driver took a 90 turn away from a starboard boat to avoid him and give him room. He turned to port and hit her. I figured if I tried to get out of her way, it was more likely I'd get hit and some ass would sue me. At least if I died, and the car was in park, she would have no case.

 

[capta]

It would ruin your sense of "come what may adventure". .

Adventure? Isn't that the point?
Oh, I see, you're talking about, "come what may adventure". Funny thing about that. I've done the maintenance to be fairly confident that the rig won't come crashing down in my lap next time I go sailing. The engine should run, because it's running on the same tank it's been running on for some time, and I haven't taken aboard any contaminated fuel (ethanol or not cause I really don't have a choice, so I don't bother to plan for that). We actually grease the steering quadrant and cables twice each year, so there's a pretty good chance we can avoid some fool on the water, if necessary.
All the bilge pumps are working just fine, but all the underwater hoses and clamps have been checked and changed if needed over the last year or so. And on and on Ad nauseam.
So, after resting from all that maintenance, I just want to go out on the water and have fun, fairly secure in the knowledge that I'm probably not going to have to make lots of plans for "come what may adventures".

 

[MattM83]

i'm trying to figure out how falling in is overtly dangerous. hilarious to watch but if you cant handle a little water its probably time to sell the boat and get a nice retirement suite. there is some risk in all aspects of life. hell i could get electricuted by my keyboard right now with the right series of unfortunate events. it could be worse, he could have grabbed your halyard and tried to swing over to his dinghy, then there might be an arguement for not thinking ahead.

 

[Indysailor]

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

I've always liked this quote, it captures the essence of the issue for me. It's never possible to prepare for every contingency, but only fools don't engage in the act of thinking about them. Somewhere along the line, I think Eisenhower may have been the one who also said "No plan survives contact with the enemy."

 

[Doc_holiday]

I have a few friends who won't do anything beyond basic life functions because they don't like the risks. All I can say is enjoy your bubble. I'm going sailing, skydiving, rock climbing whatever and stuff happens. That's not to say I don't prepare and sometimes not well enough but I guess it depends on the risk.

Now to the OP's point I struggle with folks not being able to anticipate trouble. It shouldn't be over analyzed but I have to believe we all have the ability (whether we use it or not) to anticipate.

I see a lot of technicians in the field that have no clue how something works yet they change a bunch of parts and get lucky sometimes and because now it works, they think they knew what they were doing. If you don't know how something works and can't anticipate the sequence of operation, how can you possibly know that you've fixed it?

 

[Zed]

Sailing is always about some risk, you cannot mitigate all of it. Shat happens; things break; winds can knock you down, winds can disappear;thunderstorms can come up. But going out without proper equipment(like cell phones AND your base VHF AND your portable VHF) is just dumb. But this is all about planning.

But, IMO, winging it is not the way to go. I've always gone with the Eisenhower. You may make plans and then you see what will actually happen.

But you need plans for eventualities, particularly those that are critical. For example, if your only propulsion besides wind dies and won't start, you don't head out into ocean looking for more wind. Thinking ahead tells you that if the wind dies completely you will find yourself becalmed drifting. In that case, you forget about adventure and head for shore. This particular dude(because he was way more experienced that us) forced us out into the deep bay looking for better wind, and then the wind died completely. Eventually the adventure turned into a disaster that required rescue by the COAST Guard, and even that was touch and go since we were out of range of the CG.

Now.... I would not let that happen and we would sail for shore with what little wind we have. Plans for possibilities.

Another possibility which while remote, could be very very difficult to deal with on a little boat is man overboard. It will not be an adventure and fun up here if that happens since the warmest the water ever gets is 55 degrees. That's hyperthermia in a very very short time. And on a little boat, it can be very difficult to get a wet person who has been in the water at 55 degrees for 15 minutes back into the boat. They wont be able to help much. And what is a little swim for a 25 year old, can be seriously life threatening very very fast for a 70 year old. This dude is 76. His wife slipped into the water at the dock and while not life threatening was very scary for her in 55 degree water.

All kinds of pulleys and life lines are possible, but the easiest is actually a 2 ton hand winch connected to the baby stays. With a wide banded sling, you just crank them up to the gunwale.

And the added benefit is that if you can't get your 400 lb dagger board up at the ramp, a potentially impossible situation, without a lot of fun adventurous options, you can rig the winch to bring it up by-passing the internal winch.

Its always about plans: Sailing plans, overboard plans, launching plans, etc. If you have the plan, then you can implement it, and improvise around it.

If you never made any plan and are just looking for adventure everywhere, then sooner or later you will run into an adventure that scares you shatless. If that's what you want, great. For me, being scared is not part of fun---and scar's are part of scared.

I don't like things that cause scars, healing is always a pain.

 

[Daveinet]

What percentage of sailors can't think ahead?

I'd be more concerned with those who don't learn from their mistakes.

When I switched to a monohull, it made me a much better skipper, and much more prepared for things that could go wrong, much of it due to the poor sailing characteristics of the boat. I wonder if I would have learned as much if I had my current boat.

 

[capta]

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

I've always liked this quote, it captures the essence of the issue for me. It's never possible to prepare for every contingency, but only fools don't engage in the act of thinking about them. Somewhere along the line, I think Eisenhower may have been the one who also said "No plan survives contact with the enemy."

Ike also had a beautiful lil schooner called "If and When". Unfortunately, he never had the when so he didn't get much iffing in.

 

[capta]

But going out without proper equipment(like cell phones AND your base VHF AND your portable VHF) is just dumb. But this is all about planning.

if your only propulsion besides wind dies and won't start, you don't head out into ocean looking for more wind.

Again, I'm really sorry, but I just don't see your points here.
On the first point, how could I, my friend Bernard, the Hiscocks and good old Joshua Slocum, just to name a very few, have been so "dumb" as to sail around the world without your idea of "proper equipment (like cell phones AND your base VHF AND your portable VHF)"? We all did just fine. Honest! So did thousands and thousands of others throughout history. A sound vessel, operated by a competent seaman, in a seamanship like manner, are the basics of 'proper equipment', not a whole bunch of stuff that relies on batteries and a signal to accomplish their purpose.
On your second point, rocks sink vessels, not a lack of wind. If I do not intend to call for a tow, I am going to work myself as far offshore as I can, if I've lost propulsion and the wind, NOT turn toward the rocks and danger. Where's the sense in that?

 

[Zed]

On your second point, rocks sink vessels, not a lack of wind. If I do not intend to call for a tow, I am going to work myself as far offshore as I can, if I've lost propulsion and the wind, NOT turn toward the rocks and danger. Where's the sense in that?

You live on 53 foot boat rigged for ocean sailing, with a 7 foot draft, and a beam that is almost the LWL of my boat's LOA, and displaces 22 tons? Would you honestly do that in a 19 foot sailboat with a 7 foot beam? How about a small sailboat that only has a 4 foot draft and and only weighs in at 1200 pounds total(2% of the displacement of your boat), with the 370 pound dagger board? How about a boat that when the daggerboard is cranked up can float in 6 inches of water, and if the tide goes out, can sit flat on the sea bed waiting for the tide to lift it back up. How about a boat that only had a gallon of water and some breakfast snacks?

If I was on an off-shore prepared boat, in no particular hurry because I actually live on the boat, fully equipped, then I too, would have no idea what I was talking about---either.

I don't believe that you live in my world.

 

[capta]

You live on 53 foot boat rigged for ocean sailing, with a 7 foot draft, and a beam that is almost the LWL of my boat's LOA, and displaces 22 tons? Would you honestly do that in a 19 foot sailboat with a 7 foot beam? How about a small sailboat that only has a 4 foot draft and and only weighs in at 1200 pounds total(2% of the displacement of your boat), with the 370 pound dagger board? How about a boat that when the daggerboard is cranked up can float in 6 inches of water, and if the tide goes out, can sit flat on the sea bed waiting for the tide to lift it back up.
I don't believe that you live in my world.

More like 10' of sailing draft and 37 tons, but who's counting?
If I was on one of those boats you described and lost ALL motivating power, I'd probably PADDLE back to wherever I sailed from. If I didn't have a paddle (missed that one in the planning did we?) then I'd use my hands, the rudder to scull or even the boom if necessary. Hell, I've even been known to jump in the water and swim a small boat to where it needed to go, or at least out of trouble.
Sorry, I may not live in your world, but my first boat wasn't 50 odd feet and my training ground was San Francisco Bay. In 45 years of sailing the world, there's been no place more challenging to sail a big boat or small.
Just because I sail a bigger boats now, why would you think I know nothing about small boats? I didn't begin my career at sea as a USCG paper captain.