Replies

Bet they were so busy trying to start the engine they didn't reef.

All the old hands know better, but a lot of these new guys think that backup is a second GPS. I crewed for my sister and ex-BIL back in the late 70s/early 80s, just up and down the Intracoastal in a little auxiliary sloop, but he was an old sailor and didn't really believe in all that newfangled stuff. I was a private pilot for years, so I can do all the basic navigation stuff . . . smart pilots learn how to manage with a mag compass and a protractor, too.

7 posted on 11/09/2006 4:10:04 PM PST by AnAmericanMother ((Ministrix of Ye Chase, TTGC Ladies' Auxiliary (recess appointment)))

"Bet they were so busy trying to start the engine they didn't reef."

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!! You're probably right! My old Dad, of sainted memory, was an officer in the CG during the war and had grown up on the water before that. He taught me navigation right about the time I was learning to read...and how to follow a compass course before that. He'd go below to his bunk, having given me the helm. Unbeknownst to me, he had a compass mounted on the bulkhead just forward of his bunk. If I got so much as 3 degrees off course, he'd be up and out that companionway hollering, "Mind that compass, helmsman, mind that compass!" Great memories!