Non-swimmers

[LondonGuy]

Morning, virgin boater here!

So are any of you here non-swimmers?

If so, is it wise to go boating?

[Poppy]

Fine - if you wear a life jacket when on deck.

[StillCruising]

I can swim but don't like to, when I'm on deck for whatever reason I always were a life jacket. It just makes sence. 

[MauriceMynah]

I would suspect the inability to swim might be safer qualification that that of being a good swimmer.

I rarely wear a life jacket, and I am a poor swimmer. I have been boating for over 50 years now and haven't been killed once. Perhaps because I'm more careful than a strong swimmer wearing a life jacket might be.

[LondonGuy]

6 minutes ago, MauriceMynah said:

I have been boating for over 50 years now and haven't been killed once. 

Sounds like the clock is ticking! 

(Sorry a tasteless joke!)

[Guest Jayfire]

15 minutes ago, MauriceMynah said:

I rarely wear a life jacket, and I am a poor swimmer.

Do "green" boats become more slippery than c̶l̶e̶a̶n̶ other boats Eminem? Genuine question 

[Poppy]

2 minutes ago, Jayfire said:

Do "green" boats become more slippery than c̶l̶e̶a̶n̶ other boats Eminem? Genuine question 

Ask MM. He'll know

[Guest Jayfire]

Just now, Poppy said:

Ask MM. He'll know

I thought I had 

[Chelsea14Ian]

Many people  are non swimmers on boats.Including my wife.The trick is to stay in the boat.

[annv]

It's all very well being able to swim but can you get out of the water with clothes on or not and without a ladder to ascend the boat or bank to prevent hyperthermia and drowning. John

[NeilB]

47 minutes ago, Jayfire said:

Do "green" boats become more slippery than c̶l̶e̶a̶n̶ other boats Eminem? Genuine question 

Does the green have additional non slip properties? 

My Grandad was in the Navy between 1917 and 1930 and again 1939 to 1945.  Couldn't swim a stroke and he was lucky his destroyer managed to beach itself off Dunkirk after being bombed rather than sinking !!!

[NeilB]

I'm a fairly good swimmer, my wife says like a whale !  I have only fallen in once and while wearing shorts, overalls and trainers.  This was the Thames in summer when I was a lot thinner and healthier and I struggled to reach the bank.

If I couldn't swim or was a poor swimmer I'd have been in trouble as I had no life jacket on.

 

[grendel]

i am a reasonably good swimmer, and when i submarined my dinghy the other year was wearing a life jacket, it is a manual inflate one and i didnt bother to inflate it as the water was warm and i was fine, i still struggled to get out, eventually having to swim to the slipway of an adjacent cottage, where with assistance (they grabbed the straps of the lifejacket) i manage to do a beached whale impersonation and get myself out.

if i had felt it necessary i could have inflated the lifejacket and let the current take me down to the boatyard slipway 200m downstream. but without a slipway or ladder no way was i getting out on my own.

So yes lifejackets. if i do go swimming i make sure i have a route out and a safety rope laid out before i go in. (and also that the water is warm enough.)

[Wussername]

My great Grandfather and my Grandfather were North Sea trawler skippers out of Lowestoft. Neither could swim. Neither wore a life jacket. They certainly did not wish to be in the bobbing up and down stuff, the bitterly cold north sea, waiting for a cold and lingering end.

However they did wear ear rings, as did many fisherman, gold ear rings. Considered somewhat effeminate in their day. Although few would dare to tell them.

Grandad told me that if he was lost at sea and finally cast upon a distant shore his ear rings would pay for a Christian burial.

So the moral me old shipmates is get yourself some earrings.

Old Wussername.

[Guest Jayfire]

39 minutes ago, Wussername said:

Old Wussername.

Gotcha Old Wusser, thanks for the tip.

Unfortunately my ears aren't pierced but I have an alternative....I'll wear my gold earrings...ahem....within my swimming shorts where us men have something to wrap them around 

All I need now is a pair of ruddy swimming shorts 

[Ray]

Can't swim, won't swim!

Trying my absolute best to always wear my LJ, often forget which is frankly pretty stupid of me!

[JennyMorgan]

I grew up both in and out of boats, can swim, sometimes wear a buoyancy aid, am still alive, just. 

[Vaughan]

8 minutes ago, JennyMorgan said:

I grew up both in and out of boats, can swim, sometimes wear a buoyancy aid, am still alive, just.

You and me both!

[ZimbiIV]

Old time mariners didn't learn to swim because in the middle of the North Sea the nearest land is only about a mile away.

Beneath your feet.

Why prolong the agony!

paul

[Timbo]

Can swim and do swim better than most and I still wear a lifejacket. Griff may confirm the training method and pool locations but I learned to swim using the Royal Navy method, as taught by Uncle Albert. My first 'swimming' experience was in the pool at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore. I would have been just months old. I'm told that I discovered that if I rolled from the mat b y the poolside that I was laying on three things would happen.

• I would get cool instantly.
• Mum would shriek
• Lots of Royal Navy officers would dive into the pool after me.

Skip ahead a few years and I'm about eight years old. I'm mad keen on the Saturday Anime 'Marine Boy' with Bolton Piper and Klee Klee. My swimming lessons were conducted by Uncle Albert at the old Grey Friars Pool in Doncaster. An old Edwardian single hall public baths with changing cubicles around the edge of the pool and purple pickling vinegar baths for your feet before entering the water.

Uncle Albert's Royal Navy Swimming Lesson Plan

Lesson One

• Dress child in swimming trunks too large for him.
• Dip his feet in the purple pickling vinegar.
• Walk him to the deep end.
• Throw child in water a couple of strokes away from the edge.
• When child thrashes his way to the edge of the pool in panic...step on his fingers to stop him hanging on.
• When child thrashes further away towards the deep end and makes another grab for the side...step on his fingers again.
• When child works out that he can walk on the bottom of the pool to the shallow end, reward him by saying 'well done just like Marine Boy' and offering him a cup of hot sweet milky tea from the thermos flask you brought.
• When child has climbed out of the water and walks towards the cubicle at the deep end of the pool...throw him in the water again telling child to fetch his swimming trunks back from the bottom of the pool.

Lesson Two

• As lesson one, but throw child further into the pool.

Lesson Three (Same Day)

• Tell child it's time to go home and allow him to get dressed.
• When child is dressed...throw him in the pool.
• Make sure child realizes it's harder to swim with your clothes on.
• Keep child treading water and show him how to trap air in his clothing to stay afloat

Lesson Four (Next Day)

• Repeat lessons one and two but increase distance child is hurled into pool
• Teach child how to float on back
• Teach child how to float on front
• Child will swim four widths before allowed out of pool

Lesson Five (Same Day)

• Repeat lesson Three

Uncle Albert's leave was abruptly cancelled. Before he left he gave me one of his white cloth uniform badges with a dagger on it. When he got back...swimming lessons resumed. Was I terrified?  At first. Did I learn to swim? You bet! Did it put me off swimming? No way...I was Marine Boy! I've found that even now, when I'm in the water I'm far happier and capable than I am out of it. I still wear a life jacket though.

[ExSurveyor]

5 minutes ago, Timbo said:

My first 'swimming' experience was in the pool at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore.

Mine was at RAF Seleta in Singapore. Same method administered by Royal Marine father when I was 4 years old. Then we had plenty of sun lotion applied.

[Timbo]

5 minutes ago, psychicsurveyor said:

when I was 4 years old

Didn't the Japanese invade Singers around then?

[ExSurveyor]

1 minute ago, Timbo said:

Didn't the Japanese invade Singers around then?

No.

[Vaughan]

My grandmother owned an open air public swimming pool in Horley, Surrey and when the pool was closed, she used to dangle me over the edge in a roller towel and walk along the side while I did the breast-stroke swimming motions.

She gradually took less and less weight on the towel until I was swimming on my own.

Living on a boat meant having to wear a horrible old cork and canvas lifejacket, and my mother told me that as soon as I could swim two lengths of Lakenham swimming baths, in Norwich, I could leave off the lifejacket.  I managed that just after my 4th birthday.

I agree with Tim, you get to a point where you are just as comfortable in the water as out of it.

But that shouldn't make us complacent, of course.

[Smoggy]

Of course being able to swim relies of having your lungs full of air, hitting cold water in surprise often changes that to lungs full of water in the first gasp.