Aspiring yacht crew would be well advised to bone-up on their sailing skills before their first sailing gigs.
Here though are a few tips the courses might have missed.
You’ve practiced your knots, you’ve revised the lingo and you’ve bought all those bits of overpriced nautical kit the books say you’ll need for your first yachting trip.
You’re ready and raring right?
Well, maybe. But just in case here are a few lessons I learned in the early days that I don’t remembering the books or the courses covering…
Pack light
A sailing instructor of my acquaintance has a favourite tale about a lady turning up for a sailing weekend aboard his forty-foot (13 metre) sailboat dressed in high-heels and a fur stole. Unless you happen to be crewing for Roman Abramovich chances are that space will be tight – think of it as an aquatic Max and Paddy. You’ll either be living out of your kitbag or cramming your belongings into an assortment of odd-shaped lockers and cupboards. Bring casual, practical clothes in a bag you can squash-up and leave anything you don’t need at home.
Leave the aerosols at home
Gas detectors detect gas. Most boats have a gas system for the oven and therefore will have a gas detector fitted. Aerosol deodorants and body sprays contain gas. If you use them down below there’s a good chance you’ll set off the alarm. Roll-on or pump-action are better, but if you must bring aerosols use them up on deck.
Get a car charger for your phone
If being without your mobile gives you the DTs make sure you can charge it. Most boats have a 12-volt electrical system and there’ll be at least one car-charger socket you’ll be able to fight over. I can personally attest to both how easy it is to crack a smartphone screen when it’s between your body and a winch and also to how totally bloody useless it’ll be to you afterwards. If you must pocket your precious mobile when on-deck, keep the screen towards your body.
Never waste the chance to take a shore-based shit
Plans change so don’t presume there’ll be porcelain at the end of the day. Nautical loos have an unjustly fearsome reputation but nonetheless you can’t call out Dyno Rod when you block one. The heads on most boats are pretty crammed anyway so not a conducive venue for a contemplative crap for you or for your boat-mates sat on the other side of that thin marine-ply door. Pubs, restaurants, public toilets, coffee-shops, anywhere that has a toilet – if you’ve got something to drop in it, do it!
Bin the bins
Not a problem in fair weather but if you’re expecting it rough then glasses wearers beware! Salt spray leaves a foggy smear on eyeglass lenses that will make them next to useless and murder to clean. If you can’t manage without your specs, you might want to consider contact lenses, otherwise be ready to pocket them if it gets a bit lively out there. Salt is great for scouring plastic lenses too so you might want to rinse your gigs before polishing them otherwise you’ll be off to SpecSavers when you get home.
Do what the skipper does, not what the course said
If you’ve got a twisted sense of humour it can be quite entertaining to watch the skipper re-coil every rope you’ve just tidied, or redo every knot you’ve just made, but as the days go by you’ll totally wipe out your chances of being invited back. The books and courses showed you “the” way of doing things, but there are dozens of others in practice and skippers tend to be more than a little OCD about their own favourites. Nowhere does this seem more prevalent than in rope-work, in every way from how they tie their fenders on to how they tidy their loose rigging lines. Go with the flow, or you might find yourself going overboard.
Pack some earplugs
Light sleepers might imagine themselves being gently rocked to a peaceful night’s kip in the serene silence of an idyllic anchorage. Hey, you might get lucky, but there’s every chance you won’t. Slatting halyards (rigging rhythmically banging against the hollow aluminium mast), anchor chains bumping against the hull, ropes creaking as they stretch and strain, noisy marina bars, big ships nearby, drunken crewmates, snoring crewmates and the heads being pumped in the middle of the night are just the start – boats are a haven for untraceable creaks, groans, buzzes and bangs. If noises keep you awake, come prepared.
Remember where you parked
Have you heard the one about the guys returning by dinghy to their mooring after a few beers in the local pub, who’d clambered aboard and were nicely settled in down below before they realised it wasn’t their boat? Tracking down a forgotten marina berth can be tricky enough, but the view from a dinghy when returning to a mooring won’t even stretch to the cabin windows, let alone deck-level or the boats beyond. Worse still, if you forgot to switch the anchor light on before you went ashore from your solitary, secluded anchorage, finding any boat on a pitch black night can be nigh impossible. In your rush for a few hours shore-leave, make sure you know how to get back.
Getting your land-legs back
Even in the most sheltered spots, boats are constantly moving with the wind and the waves. It takes your body a couple of days aboard to get used to this constant motion. What may surprise you is that it’ll take a couple of days for you to get used to its absence when you get home. Affectionately known as “The Bends”, expect to feel a little dizzy and light headed from time-to-time. Showers with vertical tiles are a particularly good spot to experience this. Hey, it’s all part of the fun.
Bring booze
I’ve seldom met a skipper who doesn’t appreciate a bottle or two “for the boat” and it’ll come in useful for those nights at anchor or for a nightcap or three when you roll back from the bar. Stick to what you can carry though – I’ve seen a crewmate turn up with a case of wine in the past and while we (easily) disposed of it all it was a bugger to stow in the meantime. Yes, all the best sailing trips involve prodigious alcohol consumption, so at the very least your contribution will stave off the first restocking trip to the off-licence.
And above all else, as with most things in life, if you leave your pride at home and bring your sense of humour along you’re pretty much guaranteed a good time.
