Cruising Low | Bronze Gem

[SwanR]

Enjoyed the video as always. I could well identify with how Shiela felt ... I'm usually at the helm when we arrive and when we depart the moorings. My biggest fear is leaving with hubby still on the bank!! So I do think that Shiela was very brave to let you stay on the bank Robin while filming her turning the boat. That's not happening in this house!! ;)

[Hylander]

12 hours ago, SwanR said:

. My biggest fear is leaving with hubby still on the bank!! So I do think that Sheila was very brave to let you stay on the bank Robin while filming her turning the boat. That's not happening in this house!! ;)

Snap.!!!

[LondonRascal]

Part of the reason I just asked her out of the blue to do the turn was because if she accepted then it would capture the moment that worry and fear of doing it wrong or getting in a pickle which is so needless.  I also picked this location as it so often comes up about ‘can we turn a boat there’ not to mention it is a quiet location with no current running.

I hope what she showed now to many people (perhaps especially those of the fairer sex) that this is not hard and does not always need a man about to do it.  That was her first time, imagine if she did it a second and third then the confidence is there and would no longer need me to say how to do things.

I’ve got to be honest, I am surprised and a little worried people are concerned about leaving a loved on a bank because to me that means should that happen – for example a rope is let go prematurely, a gust of wind, the boat drifts away I would guess than instead of a calm measured response of “I’ll grab the rope and come back for you (laughing)” it would be a panic and full of worry from the bank and on the boat on what to do, how to and rushing things.

When I have people with me, be that Shiela and I on a hire boat or guests on a Broad Ambition, I always have a good idea in my mind of what to do if something happened.  Sure you might still feel that shock, worry hit you but if you have already gone over things in your mind it is a case of putting that plan to action.

Let us suppose Shiela has a ‘break down’ says she just can’t do it and is too scared but by now the boat is 6 feet from the bank, then with a soft grass edge all along you would throw the rule book away and just get her to motor to the bank bow first so I could then get on and take over.  But in the end she did very well and I think it was me who was doing more badly with instructions like ‘a bit of forward’ while off camera showing my index figure and thumb about an inch apart as if to say a pinch of salt. Further, Bronze Gem’s old Morse control has seen so many years of use the ‘positive detent’ between forward, neutral and astern has worn to be very much less of a detent, causing Shiela to be unsure if the boat was in neutral or not.

I guess the next natural evolution would be to see her moor the boat up but on this point she has always said no because she is worried she will cause damage – to which I have said, if you want to see an extreme mooring with me going loopy shouting ‘slow down slow down’ then it would be if my mother is at the helm. All is fine for the first few seconds then it all goes bonkers with full astern and full forward. She now prefers to just sit back and sip on a G&T while this is all going on saying ‘ladies at my age have younger men to do this for us’.

 

[SwanR]

Thing is that I know that I can do it but having hubby there gives me confidence. So yes, if I left him behind I would probably have immense anxiety about getting him back. We come as a pair after all these years together.