ANOTHER VIEW
How many of us share this vision: Heading out early from a peaceful anchorage, spending a relaxing day under sail, and arriving at another peaceful anchorage in time to crank up the Buffett on the tape deck, quaff a few ‘adult’ beverages and relax while watching the sun go down. Great dream, isn’t it? In reality, how many times does that REALLY happen?
If you’re like me, it’s a little more like this: Get a late start the night before, run against the tide, get anchored in the dead of night, an early wakening to get you to the line on time, and the weather completely disregards the desire for a quiet sail. By the time you arrive at the other end, the sun has already gone down, dinner is late, and everyone is bone tired from the run, and the anchor drill looks more like a Keystone Kops episode rather than the perfect execution envisioned..
If you’re more often finding the first description, you’re VERY lucky. If you’re more often finding the second description, welcome to the large percentage of us that don’t quite fit into the mold as described by the national sailing magazines.
There’s something you need to remember about that second scenario. There’s no need for EVERYONE in the crew to be that tired at the end of the run. If you arrive at an anchorage with the entire crew wiped out, then as a skipper, you’re not doing your job correctly. It’s your responsibility to insure the safety of your vessel and your crew. If the crew isn’t fully responsive, it’s a dangerous situation. I can hear it now: "How am I supposed to make sure the crew is properly rested?", or "It’s only 28 miles to St. Augustine, we’ll be fine.".
It takes a bit of common sense, as well as invoking the skipper’s powers. When I first started sailing offshore, there was a LOT of excitement involved in an ocean race. Everyone on board is keyed up, and there’s no way to release the energy. One of the things I noticed on those early races was that the more experienced of the crew often went below and crashed while the rest of us took the boat through the early phases of the race. I used to think those guys were slugs. Now I realize that they were merely setting themselves up for the later parts of the race. By the time the rest of us on deck were dropping like flies, the ‘slugs’ would bop on deck, fresh, and ready to deal with whatever we came across. The rest of us would have barely looked up if the boat rammed an aircraft carrier (definitely BUBBA material.....). As for it being a short run offshore, I can tell you about times that we forecast arrival from Mayport to St. Augustine in a six to seven hour span, and ended up taking fourteen hours before we got anywhere close to the St. Augustine entrance.
The point to all this is we’re in this for fun AND relaxation. If we’re pushing too hard on too little sleep, we do a disservice to ourselves, our crew, not to mention contradicting the original purpose..... Think about that.