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gordon1277 View Drop Down
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Posts: 665 		Post Options Post Options   Quote gordon1277 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Swimming = need for education
    Posted: 27 Nov 14 at 9:38am
Hi Fab
In general I agree with what you say swimming is very much best avoided, but being large I have a tendency to be sitting out hard one minute breathing water the next especially on stupid puddles like yours! I know I have done it a few times. As for stepping over via mast etc my concern has been putting extra strain on a mast about to be stuck in the mud especially on the Solent which is shallow and has short snappy waves.
Totally agree with hang onto the main sheet at all costs but not the tiller extension.
Just remember front crawl is much quicker than breast stroke.
You may have to allow people a few swims while finding the edge in new boats.
Pie eater would have agreed with you though every time.
Gordon
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Null View Drop Down
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Posts: 745 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Null Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Nov 14 at 9:47am
Surely capsizing is part of the sport isnt it?  Sailing is a water sport after all.  I do get your point though Clive. From a racing perspective its dog slow when the helm enters the water, but not unavoidable.  I actually find that when i enter the water I'm rarely swimming in its purist sense more flapping round to reach the board.  The good thing about the current choice of craft we have is that you dont have to sail a boat that involves swimming or even gettign wet.  The K1 as an example.  I do however worry about what would happen if you missed the straps on one of those in the salty stuff.  Would it stop before it reached Calais?? 
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fab100 View Drop Down
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Posts: 1005 		Post Options Post Options   Quote fab100 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Nov 14 at 9:49am
Originally posted by iGRF

 blah blah blah if you read my book you wouldn't have to swim
 

So I wrote a book (that lots of people like and find helpful). Get over it. But thanks for the plug anyway.

However, the catalyst for this topic was only the fuss on the Aero thread, nothing else. We are not all as cynical as you.

Let's also reverse things. Even If I spent the next 5 years trying to master sailboards (ain't gonna happen) I'd still be falling in the water left right and centre. If you then saw me in action, you'd wonder (probably vociferously) why all the splashing about. Which would be fair enough - you'd diagnose that I was reacting the wrong way. aka Swimming = need for education
Great book for Club Sailors here
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fab100 View Drop Down
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Posts: 1005 		Post Options Post Options   Quote fab100 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Nov 14 at 9:56am
Originally posted by Null

Surely capsizing is part of the sport isnt it?  

 Absolutely. if you don't capsize now and then, you are not pushing hard enough. 

But staying out of the oggin in the process, if you possibly can, is part of the sport too.
Great book for Club Sailors here
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iGRF View Drop Down
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Posts: 6499 		Post Options Post Options   Quote iGRF Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Nov 14 at 9:57am
Personally I wouldn't think anything of it, swimming? Folk go swimming for sport, it's all they do, they even have competitions, aren't we lucky that we have both?

I get what you mean having gone back to the Aero thread, not that I think the issue there is anything to do with swimming, capsizing, it's just a bit of partisan bollox gone a tad too far off the reservation, they need to stop, they know they need to stop, everyone wants them to stop, maybe teaching them to swim better would be a useful diversion, how about that?

Edited by iGRF - 27 Nov 14 at 9:58am
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Medway Maniac View Drop Down
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Posts: 2788 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Medway Maniac Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Nov 14 at 10:05am
Much easier to go straight over onto the board in a singlehander than in a two-man boat where the crew is in the way.  My crew occasionally surprises, nay, delights me by getting over there, but mostly not.

Both on the Medway and on the lake where I spent a lot of my formative years, inverting means getting stuck in the mud and needing RIB assistance, at least often enough (30%?) that by the time you've blown a couple of races through it, you really don't want to be doing it.

So, unless one of us gets lucky, we tend to end up, I won't say swimming, more floating.  Luckily, with the sealed mast, the 3k doesn't invert unless you make it do so. I usually brave the bridle and arrive at the board cursing the superfluous side-tank buoyancy (the board's not that high in reality, but if my arms are in a puny, untrained phase...) and we fumble the boat upright and ourselves back into it.  

It ain't fast, and it's not pretty, but it is fairly rare and much better than blowing the entire race (and in one case regatta) by waiting for rescue with the mast firmly in the mud.
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iGRF View Drop Down
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Posts: 6499 		Post Options Post Options   Quote iGRF Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Nov 14 at 10:23am
The time before the footstrap, I just had a senior moment down the lake not particularly windy sailing by the lee, I slipped off the side fell into the scuppers, letting go of everything in surprise, not having shrouds the EPS chinese gybed then went in clew first, inverted and dug in, that took some swimming to unwind i can tell you..
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Chris 249 View Drop Down
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Posts: 2041 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Chris 249 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Nov 14 at 10:59am
Now fab, I'll normally go along with the stuff you say, but not on this occasion.

There are classes where if you try to stay dry the boat will normally invert, and (in the alternative) will come up with a gutfull of water instead of a dry cockpit - the Tasar is one. Hanging onto a Tasar in a capsize is extremely slow (in my experience). I held onto our cat (copy of a Hurrican 5.9) in our last capsize because I was in an odd position, and that drove the mast into the mud.

Secondly, a lot of the time swimming is the fastest way to get from where you end up in a big stack, to where you need to be- and that time can be vital.

Thirdly, .... something. Something that would really clinch the argument. Something I've now forgotten, and pizza's coming out of the oven.

Fourthly*, even when you don't have to pretend there are hungry sharks in there, motivation is not always enough to keep you out of the water. When it all goes pear shaped and you end up swimming, it's good if it's familiar.

Of course, all this is assuming reasonable gear and water temperatures. But even in our puddle in winter (8 degrees water temp) I'd rather have the option of really knowing how to use swimming as a tool in recovery, even if it wasn't a tool that was normally used.

* yep, it really was fourth - I'd just parked idea No 3 for a while in the hope that I could remember what it was. I'm sure it was worth saying, even if no one else would.

Cheers
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Medway Maniac View Drop Down
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Posts: 2788 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Medway Maniac Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Nov 14 at 11:08am
Truly, all is not easy down-under:
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Chris 249 View Drop Down
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Posts: 2041 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Chris 249 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Nov 14 at 8:31pm
It looks to me as if his perch on the hull may have driven the stick into the mud in the first place, causing a simply capsize to become a long one. YMMV.
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