A Life On The Ocean Waves

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If you’re anything like me you’re a fairweather sailor, and there’s nothing wrong at all about that. However, as any experienced sailor will know, you can set out in the finest weather you could imagine and it can suddenly get very, very adventurous indeed.

I can remember all too well fifty years ago setting off from Tresco in the Scilly Isles to the main island of St Mary’s. Once we reached the open channel, or road as it is sometimes called, separating the two islands, things suddenly took a turn for the worse. The waves were disturbingly massive, especially scary for a small six-man open fishing boat.

Suddenly I realised that the captain kept cutting the engine, then just as rapidly powering it right back on. When I asked him for an explanation he told me that every time the boat crested a wave, the rear end of the boat would come out of the water, with the prop now free to spin as fast as it wanted due to the lower density of the air compared to the water. He told me that if he just let the prop spin, as soon as it dipped back into the water on the downside of the wave we had crested, there was a risk that the force of re-entering the denser water could break up the boat.

For the remainder of the trip, he set up a rhythm of unfailingly cutting the power at the top of every wave, only to ease the power back on and power up the next wave once the prop was back in the water. It is that sort of seamanship that can come in very handy when you’re out sailing your own beautiful yacht.

Another time, another place, Corfu to be exact, I learned yet another valuable lesson in sailing. My wife and I had hired a motorboat for the day, and although the weather was fine, we were advised that it could easily kick up a storm later on in the afternoon. We were told that if things get a bit rough to stay well away from the coastline where due to the shallower water, it was usually a lot more turbulent. Far better to go out to calmer water than along the coast and come back in when nearing our destination.

It is for the very same reason that experienced boatmen me know that if a tsunami is coming in, it is a lot safer to head out to meet it and ride over it than to try to make land and get caught up in an ever-worsening situation.

Another pearl of wisdom is that none swimmers make for better mariners as they tend not to fool themselves that they can always swim their way out of trouble. For this reason, they take less risks. It is always good to remember that the vast majority of people who drown can swim. None swimmers usually give water a wide berth.