SNAKES!

Originally posted by Sam.Spoons Originally posted by 423zero Nice post Peaky +1 Mess about in boats and out, as much fun to be had falling in. plenty of tech and faffing. good group of motivated people on the whole. Yup, that's it. The thing that seem to be lacking in modern training is the simply 'messing about in boats' element that was such a crucial part of my introduction to dinghy sailing. If it had been all formal training in my day I doubt I would be sailing boats now.........

Edited by fab100 - 26 Jan 18 at 11:09am

I'd be fairly suprised if many clubs do the syllabus and only the syllabus without a reasonable mixture of less serious stuff.

There was an old movie reel on BBC4 the other day about folk and boats in the UK in the sixties and half of them were wearing ordinary clothes and some out on the wire. The difference from those days to these is chalk and cheese and we wonder why participation in regimented 'fun' is dropping off. Treating people like idiots, wrapping them in cotton wool, it's bloody embarrassing to watch never mind be a part of, I'm sure if I had to endure all that there is absolutely no way I'd have anything to do with it. All trussed up in Buoyancy vests and God knows what, to go out in the noon day sun, with he assumption that everyone has zero common sense and can't swim a stroke... What do we expect, when our own experiences were so much more adventurous, I don't think I even told my parents I was going to try the sailing dinghy attached to the back of our Broads cruiser, I just hoisted up the rig made my sister sit still and off we went...9 and 6 years old, imagine that today?

Edited by iGRF - 26 Jan 18 at 12:33pm

But I don't want to know how many people died in sailing-related accidents in the 60s compared to now.

I agree with the fun bit on a small lake, but anything like Draycote and larger or the sea, then no, why should the volunteer RNLI have to be called out from their sunday lunch or kids birthday party because some knobs kids have blown out to sea, no buoyancy, ordinary clothes, shoes, no radios etc.