What qualifies as “advanced”; when rating sailing ability?

[DrJudyB]

3x 365=1,095, so, 1,095 days (24hr days) at sea should be a minimum time for one to start claiming an "advanced" claim for their skills on a boat.

I will be dead and gone long before I accumulate enough hours to meet this standard, LOL.
And there’s lots of “advanced” stuff I can’t do. For example, I don’t know anything about radar.

but that hasn’t stopped me from completing multi-day coastal voyages on the west coast, in the waters between Washington and Southern California.
....

 

[jon hansen]

sailing to me is like playing the game of chess. no two days have ever been the same. the learning curve is endless.

 

[DrJudyB]

Part of being a competent skipper is being able to fix your own boat when something breaks.

The most valuable person in a lot of flotillas is somebody who can jury rig broken engines with nothing more than a screwdriver and a beer opener and inventiveness. my boat partner is a master at that.

Or someone who carries the most complete set of tools and weird spare parts. . I always carry too many repair materials and spare of every possible part on a trip...except the part that breaks, of course!

ps. The outer diameter of a bic pen fits The inside diameter of my fuel hose perfectly. Make your own hose clamp from some SS wire and you’re good to go.

 

[jon hansen]

michael davis's answer is my favorite so far. clearly a skilled sailor

 

[capta]

I would think that asking the "What Ifs" is a sign of mental pre planning. Considering the issues to evaluate your boat and your crew's capabilities in consideration of participation. I would be a little more leery of the individual who just jumped up and said "Let's go" than one who started checking off a list of go no go considerations, as in "Not during Hurricane Season".

Someone who would happily jump aboard their boat and go is most likely someone who's boat is prepared for the voyage (except for provisioning) and has the experience and confidence to understand all the potential difficulties a voyage like that might entail. That same person would know before accepting that hurricane season isn't the time he'd want to make the trip, and decline.
Perhaps my thinking is a bit skewed by the fact we are sitting in the Windwards in the hurricane season and our boat is prepared and provisioned for a trip of almost any length at a few hour's notice?

 

[Charlie Jones s/v Tehani]

I’ve been sailing for quite a while (66yrs). In the four years we’ve owned this boat we’ve cruised for 17 1/2 months, Victoria to Alaska and twice around Vancouver Island. Still learning everyday, not advanced yet!

LOL- I first stepped onto sailboat in 1957 as a teen. Since then I've sailed and cruised many many miles- and I STILL am learning

 

[Kings Gambit]

If you are organizing a flotilla, tell would-be participants that they must be self sufficient and cannot rely on being rescued by others In the flotillla. They have to judge their own competency.

Ideally this would be a good approach, but telling them so does not insure heedance. Also, under maritime rules, in certain situations, the rendering of assistance could be obligatory. Once again, folks may not know what they do not know, and explicitly or implicitly “agree“ to be self sufficient, etc. Nowadays as a “responsible party” you’d have to identify and explain every risk if you required a person to agree to something. Otherwise you might encounter something like: “I didn’t know that gelatinous zooplankton (whatever that is) could clog my water in-take strainer, causing my diesel to overheat and sputter out in zero wind” [while rounding a rocky prominence lying a few hundred ft down-current of me]. Just about anyone seeing this hypothetical happening I think would be expected to render assistance rather than watch the vessel fetch up on the rocks, if it could be done w/o putting the rescue vessel at high risk, etc.

“If you want to set standards for who is competent to make the voyage, you’re assuming a lot of liability. Unless you taught the sailors yourself, there is no way you can evaluate if they are competent to make the voyage as planned.“

Maybe that’s why “Advanced“ is a “made-up term“. Unless you have a test score or an amount of time in service, perhaps there’s no saying what it really is.

 

[rgranger]

This has been a great read and somewhat enlightening. I think I would have to self-identify as an advanced gunkholler and down grade to intermediate cruiser by the standards you outlined in the OP. I know what I am insecure about.

1) I know very little about diesels
2) I know very little about clearing into a foreign port
3) I've never sailed in anything above 40 mph.


I know how to make my boat do what I want it to do...I think I have better than average navigation skills .. I still mostly use paper charts and I've taken the NAVY ROTC nav. course. etc.

So you might consider just asking people a set of questions to gauge their preparedness based on the skills you think they should have. For example, you might ask potential candidates what their comfort level is with various aspects of the trip you are planning. Maybe a survey of the type--- on a scale of 1 to 5 with
1 = very uncomfortable
2= somewhat uncomfortable
3 = neutral
4= somewhat comfortable
5 = very comfortable

Then ask them to rate their comfort level for

1) How comfortable are you setting a reef while underway in heavy seas?
2) How comfortable are you setting an anchor in an unfamiliar anchorage?
3) How comfortable are you standing a night watch?
4) How comfortable are you with basic VHF radio protocols?
5) How comfortable are you riding out a gale hove-to?
6) How comfortable are you performing basic trouble shooting on your auxiliary propulsion
7) etc.

Then have a minimum score in mind before you are willing to have a more advanced conversation with the applicant. The survey could help you cut the cafe from the grain.

 

[DrJudyB]

@Kings Gambit
Every organized sailing event has a disclaimer of liability. For example, every race has an article similar to the below paragraph.

Sailing is an activity that has an inherent risk of damage and injury. Competitors in this event are participating entirely at their own risk. See RRS 4, Decision to Race. The race organizers, Nantucket Race Week LLC, the Nantucket Yacht Club, Great Harbor Yacht Club, Nantucket Community Sailing, NIODFA, Race Committee, Protest Committee, Technical Committee, volunteers, sponsors, agents, employees, or any other organization or official providing services at the request of any of the foregoing in connection with the events will not be responsible for damage to any boat or other property or the injury to any person sustained as a result of participation in this event. By participating in this event, each competitor (owners, skippers, crews, and support persons) agrees to release the race organizers and all persons and groups listed above from any and all liability associated with such competitor’s participation in this event to the fullest extent permitted by law.

 

[Kings Gambit]

Rgranger, I tend to get more directly to the point, as in.

1) Can you or have you set a reef in Force 6 conditions or near there?
2) How do you pick an anchor spot in a new anchorage? What is your preferred scope?
3) What watch schedules have you worked, and for how long? (ex 4 on/off-three crew; 3 on/off-two crew, etc., for three 24-hr periods).
4) Give an example of a MAYDAY and one of a PAN-PAN. Have you ever issued one or the other? What was the outcome?
5) What is the minimum sea room you would accept heaving-to in your boat in a Force 8 gale for 6 hr?
6) How would you stop a run-away diesel?

 

[DrJudyB]

5) What is the minimum sea room you would accept heaving-to in your boat in a Force 8 gale for 6 hr?

Yikes!
Y'all can set sail without me in those conditions. I'm staying in my nice, cozy, safe anchorage. I'll wait for a better weather window.

I thought this hypothetical adventure was supposed to be a pleasure cruise, not a forced voyage to be completed under duress.

 

[Davidasailor26]

A couple of the responses got me thinking - Does the criteria need to be limited to skipper themself, or could it be considered for the crew as a whole? As an example - If the skipper has extensive coastal cruising experience, without much nighttime watch standing, could they still be an acceptable participant if they’ll be with crew who does have extensive nighttime watch standing experience but less overall experience in other areas?

 

[Michael Davis]

Yikes!
Y'all can set sail without me in those conditions. I'm staying in my nice, cozy, safe anchorage. I'll wait for a better weather window.

I’m with you Judy! I’ve sailed for a couple of hours in force 10 and it’s not something I’m looking forward to doing again

 

[dlochner]

Humans seem to have this innate drive to put things into boxes and categories. I've spent my professional career both fighting that drive and being part of the system that does put things (Kid behavior and learning) into boxes.

A better approach is to look at the task, sailing a long distance, and ask if the crew and boat have the skills and equipment to meet the task demands. There are sailors I know who have great skills at getting their boats sailing fast that I would not want to sail with off shore and some with less go fast sailing skills that I would gladly sail with offshore.

Thus, for any given journey what are the likely conditions and are the boats and skippers prepared for those conditions. The requirements for a a spring sail from NO to Dry Tortugas is going to be very different from the requirement for a summer sail from Ushuaia to Punta Arenas.

There will always be a weak link in the chain. The question is about risk and what is a reasonable amount of risk to take.

 

[Kings Gambit]

Yikes!
Y'all can set sail without me in those conditions. I'm staying in my nice, cozy, safe anchorage. I'll wait for a better weather window.

I thought this hypothetical adventure was supposed to be a pleasure cruise, not a forced voyage to be completed under duress.

The question is about sea room along a lee coast. So, one could pick any force. rgranger said “riding out a gale hove-to.” Beaufort Force 8 is a gale; so, that’s where I got it. Hardly anybody would leave a cozy anchorage to go into a gale just to heave-to and get battered. Unless maybe you’re signing on to one of Kretschmer’s heavy-weather sailing charters. Pick Force 5, Fresh Breeze. Same question. What’s the minimum sea room for 6 hr of heaving-to? Maybe you’re seasick and need to get some rest, and your crew doesn’t want to stand watch alone, etc. It’s an academic exercise to test the skipper‘s understanding of what’s going on--situational awareness—and how to predict drift/set, hove-to. The safety margin. Or, you could make it 4 hr, whatever. You don’t want a 50-question questionnaire. Every single question has to test the synthesis of a few mini ones.

That said, Force 7 and 8 near gales and gales, respectively, are not uncommon along the CA coast. You could encounter one traveling between SF and San Diego in summer. Last summer when I was at Morro Bay a crew in a Catalina 36 traveling down from Half Moon Bay stopped there. Had reached much of the night under gale conditions off Monterey and Pt Sur where it gets real nasty they tell me. So, a “fun“ trip for a band of hearties from the Bay Area to say the Channel Islands, you might elect to be with folks who can safely sail into Cuyler Harbor on a 40-kt broad reach, b/c that’s what you may well get. Yes. Could or should stay in Morro Bay or Port San Luis until better weather appears, you might be there a couple of weeks waiting. But, what spots!!

 

[DArcy]

Offshore racers go through this all the time. For the capability of the boat, you could point to the World Sailing Offshore Special Regulations for an example of minimum equipment. For what you are preparing for you might get away with category 4, but you might want to bump it up to category 3 if you want to be more stringent.
For capability of the captain and/or crew, you may want to require a minimum length of passage completed in the past 5 years. Choose a number commensurate with the expected longest passage of your trip, accounting for changes in weather. Many offshore races require at least one, sometimes a certain percentage, of the crew have completed a safety at sea seminar. People here are knocking formal training but these courses are well recognized.

 

[jon hansen]

i like doc's term "competent skipper" more than i like the term "advanced" sailing ability. never heard of the 'advanced sailing ability' term. is 'advanced' above or below 'competent' on the scale of sailing skills. i know lots of competent captains, on all different size vessels.


still, i just have not grabbed the definition of 'advanced sailing ability'
that said, i'm enjoying trying to figure it out while reading yawl's opinions. LOL

a competent skipper will know, i think, what/how vessel and gear to use for any given area/destinatin to be sailed.

'advanced' just does not mean much to me

 

[JK_Boston_Catalina310]

Personally I think you are crazy excepting racing experience as valid for cruising. I have met way too many experienced racing crews that are worthless on a cruising boat. Two months ago I was called to a boat to deal with an electrical issue on a boat with a 15 year experienced racer and licensed captain. He had spent 3 days trying to get the inverter to work and was convinced it was broken. He hadn't turned on the remote switch on a Victron Multiplus. But he knew how to grind a winch and sit on a rail.

"Licensed Captain" when dealing with USCG certifications would also go on my list of things to disregard.

Recently here in the USVI we had an interesting experiment in assessing skills and knowledge. With the global lockdown due to Covid we had well over 600 transient boats. Most had been cruising the Caribbean for 1-5 years but due to the lockdown could not go to Grenada for hurricane season. So they were staged in the USVI and were looking at a 7-12 day nonstop trip back to the US mainland in May before they would loose their insurance. Now many of these skippers, who I had personally heard brag about their sailing and cruising skills, were looking for captains and/or crew with actual multiday passage experience to help them take the boat back to the mainland. And many of these would have bragged that they were "advanced" and met all the criteria before this situation where now you really couldn't stop if the weather changed or something broke.

From my own personal experience, doing numerous deliveries from the Caribbean to the US mainland with owners and their friends as crew, I will tell you there is no way to judge until you actually see them perform on a boat. I personally love doing owner's training deliveries. I let owners take their family and friends along as crew all the time and even encourage it. Many other delivery captains I know will charge extra for it. Over a drink or two while preparing the boat I'll get all their stated experience and start to get a feel for each crew member. But after being two hours out you really get an understanding for who is competent. And experience is not always the best indicator. I was on one delivery and one crew member had some bay sailing experience and really wanted to learn, had read a bunch of books and stuff on the internet. After the first night I never worried about him on watch. But I would often get "experienced racers" who would try to trim sail or change course because he knew better and mess up the passage.

So in my opinion I don't think there is a true way to make this determination before you set out. Just part of the gamble.

One time I remember being in Turks and Caicos with a large group of boats. We were nearing our 7-day so we had the choice of pushing a weather window or paying. So a bunch of us pushed the weather window and headed out. One boat I advised not to because of lack of experience and the boat was not prepared well in my opinion. They went anyways and wouldn't you know it that we were responding to a Pan-Pan with a possibility of abandoning ship. They didn't end up abandoning but had to be walked through how to deal with one hull of a catamaran 3/4 filled with water. They made 4 of us miss the light to go over the bank and have to pound into the wind and seas to make the DR. My point being that people are never good at assessing their own skills.

Good luck with your flotilla.

 

[sailme88]

making up definitions for made up terms is fun.

3x 365=1,095, so, 1,095 days (24hr days) at sea should be a minimum time for one to start claiming an "advanced" claim for their skills on a boat.
LOL, jon

2x 365.... that way it aligns with the book.... Two Years before the Mast..... ~~(\_~~

 

[sailme88]

Suppose you’re wishing to organize a sailing adventure for a few boats (not a big rally), such as a cruise to Haida Gwaii from Vancouver. Or, a cruise from New Orleans to the Dry Tortugas, then on to Key West. You wish only “advanced cruisers“ as in the principle “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” But what are the criteria? It’s not like having completed “advanced” coursework confers anything regarding actual ability. The number of years of boat ownership, or the number of weekend trips per year to a popular destination, would also seem to offer little proof of “advanced“ ability. Where to start? Say we start with a look at the boat. What would we take as suggestive of an “advanced” ability of its skipper?

Your weakest link might also be the slowest link.. Were I looking to assemble a flotilla I guess the first step would be to set a cutoff for boat size. This means on both sides of size. Boats should be able to attain similar speed and course holding.. Stragglers will always cause some animosity. Next, how many boats?
Now that you've established the boats minimums, you can move on to the skipper minimums. I would suggest that the advanced term be changed for experience, else you may get " experienced" skippers that have never traveled with a group over a long distance... So, " experienced passage makers" would be the best starting point. Put out a notice for a planning meeting.. Get an idea of the way their jib is cut over the course of several meetings...you should be able to sort out the landlubbers...