Sailing & Boating Advice

If I can just prevent one catastrophe with my sailing and boating advice, it will be worth it.

As you read my posts I’m sure you will note my tendency to be opinionated.  I have to admit that my opinions have been shaped by my own experiences.  I offer my advice to you to serve only as a guide to hopefully help you steer around the bumps in the road of  the nautical experience.

My suggestion is that you study, I mean really study boating.

The more books you read,

the more videos you watch,

the more experts you listen to,

the better prepared you will be to think for yourself when the time comes to make an important decision which may affect the safety or the enjoyment of yourself or others.

If  my advice helps you to have a better boating experience, then I have done what I set out to do.  I will always try to send you down the road on the safest course so you can enjoy the cruise.  Real adventures begin when we alter our course and choose the path less traveled.  In boating, the safe course can present unimagined challenges.  The freak storm that comes out of nowhere, the uncharted reef or rock, sickness or injury,  gear failure,  disorientation, fear, boredom…the list goes on and on.  Don’t worry about finding adventure and challenge in boating.  Adventure and challenge will find you! When I am at sea, my morning prayer is always the same.

GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY DISASTER, BUT PLEASE GIVE IT TO US EARLY SO WE CAN DEAL WITH IT BEFORE DARK!

“Us”  is me and my boat  even if no crew or passengers are aboard.  “We” is the same.

When your sailing vessel has brought you through tempest and calm and everything in between, it is very difficult not to think of that composite of wood and glass and wires and fiberglass and paint and cloth and all the other stuff as a being.