1 THE SKIPPER

Skippering a yacht is one of the most satisfactory recreations known. For many of us, it grows into more than a mere pastime, with our jobs becoming only the means to finance our boating lives.

Yachting is uniquely satisfying because, if it is practised to the full, it engages every facet of our being. It can be as physical as we care to make it. It is intellectual, with the problems posed by navigation often requiring solutions of great accuracy. It is also aesthetic: there are few more beautiful human creations than a sailboat carving her way through the sea. Lastly, and probably most important of all, there are times when it asks serious questions about the core of our characters. The net result is that the captain’s role becomes so absorbing as an end in itself that it leaves little time for worrying about other things.

This only works, though, if you are at one with the whole boating environment. The sort of skipper who gets the balance of his duties wrong tends to find his own performance less than satisfactory. Poor results, especially if they seem inexplicable, lead to a general lack of well-being, and before long the business of yachting begins to lose its lustre, not only for the skipper, but also for those who have chosen to sail with him.

A glance at the chapter headings of this book gives a rough idea of the number of definable skills that must be at the disposal of the Yachtmaster. These subjects are not individual streams of learning. Each spills over into the others, by varying amounts under different circumstances. The good skipper is not only master of every discipline, he is able to evaluate the amount of time that should be devoted to each in a given situation. This sense of proportion comes best with experience, but education and a degree of self-training in the objective assessment of a task can be an enormous help.

On an average passage in coastal waters, even if the area is unfamiliar to the skipper, the amount of time spent navigating should be small. After all, what is there to do? You have only to ascertain your position from time to time, make sure that you are on track for your destination, or if not, then at least that you are making satisfactory progress to windward, and that your yacht is maintaining an adequate clearance from any dangers. That is all there is to it. So long as you are at home with the simple techniques required to achieve this end, you should have to spend only a few minutes each hour at the chart table. The remainder of your time is then available for other chores such as getting the best from the boat, making sure the crew are fed, watered and happy, cheering up cousin Bert who is turning green in the aft lee corner of the cockpit, noting the squall galloping down out of the wind’s eye, and avoiding the supertanker trying to expunge you and your team from the face of the ocean blue. So it is with a skipper who is comfort able with the job.

Sadly, life isn’t always like that. There is a strong tendency for sailors who are less than perfectly sure of themselves to spend far too much time at the navigation station. To say that they ‘over-navigate’ is not strictly true because, often, 20 minutes of effort result only in a spidery mess of indeterminate lines on the chart, followed by an undignified scurry to the lee rail. The skipper who falls into this trap isn’t lacking in a sense of responsibility, he is indicating a shortage of competence in extracting the essence of his navigational requirements.

At sea, the skipper’s place may be in the cockpit, in the galley, or even in his bunk. The one place where he is not required for anything but the minimum of time is in the navigatorium. Numerous people fail their hands-on Yachtmaster examination for making this mistake. To come back at the examiner and say, ‘But I thought that is what you would have expected of me,’ indicates a dangerously low degree of self-confidence. The real seaman says to himself, ‘I know what I’m doing, and if this character doesn’t like it, the whole system is out of order.’ In fact, the system is in a fair state of health, so a capable person with such an approach will probably get the ticket, always provided there is no shortfall in sailing skills.

There is more to good skippering than maintaining a sense of proportion at sea. Even at the planning stage, one area of knowledge integrates with others to produce a smooth-running result. You can’t think out a ten-day cruise, or even a 12-hour beat to windward, without the tactical capacity to make the most of any projected weather changes. A mathematic ally accurate tidal height calculation can be a dangerous item of data if no allowance is made for sea state, while a difficult piece of night pilotage is often rendered less traumatic by noting the time of moonrise and making use of the light available an hour or so later.

Staying relaxed can help create an atmosphere of confidence on board.

There are some skippers with whom people come back to sail over and over again. Others have constant problems persuading their victims to return on board. The difference is never coincidence, though it may occasionally result from a genuine personality clash. Far more often, disharmony on board a small vessel is the direct fault of the person in charge.

Where a skipper is of marginal technical competence, his best chance of maintaining the morale of his team lies in a ‘let’s tackle this problem together’ approach.

It pays to involve the children. These lads are ‘passing tools’ to the author, who is fixing something in the bilge. After the job’s done, there will be a debrief and they’ll feel part of the crew.

If the sea spares him and he possesses interpersonal skills of a high order, he and his crew may yet have an enjoyable time. Even an able autocrat who delegates few of his duties is liable to finish up with a crew whose only function aboard is to further his ends, rather than a group working under his overall guidance towards a goal they all seek. So long as the skipper knows his business, the success and the happiness of the crew depend largely upon thoughtful delegation and calm, positive communication. If all hands are clear about what is expected of them and no one is asked to perform a task that is unsuitable to his ability, morale starts out on a sound footing. The skipper can then work with the crew to sort out watch systems, apportion the less pleasant duties, and ensure that the food and drink departments are running smartly.

A capable navigator, or even a trainee, can be detailed to keep an eye on the yacht’s position. Given that his appointment is not then repeatedly compromised by an insecure skipper, the navigator’s sense of achievement will make him a better companion than if he had been used merely as an autopilot and winch-winder.

A skilled leader can pass a surprising amount of responsibility to people of limited qualification. He does this by being well on top of the task himself, assigning a function that may be demanding to the person concerned, but over which he can keep a controlling eye. If all goes well, a word of praise will work wonders for the atmosphere aboard. If things begin to go awry, the situation can be nipped in the bud by a deft, tactful intervention, after which the delegate can continue, better informed, but not chastened. Even small children can have their active place in the ship’s company; taking charge of fenders and flags makes an excellent start to a sea faring career. Pride in a task, however small, needs encouraging. It results in a happy ship whose objectives are successfully achieved with no fuss at all.

The inherent, quiet authority of an able skipper often places him in the position of a father-figure with the family that his crew rapidly becomes. Age does not enter into this, nor does sex. I have seen 25-year-olds slip smoothly into this role when some of their crew have been twice their years. This state of affairs is natural and entirely beneficial to the well-being of all on board. It is also widely precedented. Arguably the most successful skippers the sea has ever known were on the China clippers of the 1850s. One imagines such men as being hoary greybeards gazing aloft with eyes left bloody by half a century of wind-burn. In fact, many were under 30. But every one of them was referred to by his crew as ‘The Old Man’.