Are you a sailor?

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

. . . Could be. We wouldn't be fussing at all if you hadn't posed the question .

Well, my question had nothing to do with any dichotomy between cruising and sailing.


But I'm delighted with the great conversation which ensued.

[Kettlewell]

You're a sailor if you check the wind direction when you leave your house.

[VChild]

[QUOTE=Dockhead;3903316]What things made you feel like an actual sailor?

When I first sailed offshore at night in total darkness and a calm sea and realized that the faint lights on the horizon were not distant boats but actually rising stars. And then looking back at the gentle wake of the boat which was lit up in phosphorescence like a comet’s tail, all in total silence. It was magical.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by Kettlewell

You're a sailor if you check the wind direction when you leave your house.

Actually, some of us check the wind days in advance of leaving the house to sail.

And the tide.

And that goes double if you are one that races sailboats.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Well, my question had nothing to do with any dichotomy between cruising and sailing.

Well, for at least a few responders here (I'm not the only one), it clearly does.

That's the thing about asking questions; sometimes you get answers you would never expect. And doesn't that make it all the more interesting?

Originally Posted by Dockhead

But I'm delighted with the great conversation which ensued.

Yes, ditto

For the record, I monitor weather reports pretty constantly while on land. Perhaps not as much as when I'm on board, but it's a practice that is hard to shake, even when on terra firma.

[Dr. D]

Four years in the US Navy (most of the time aboard a ship) makes me a sailor of a sort.

The other consideration is that I want to sail!

I race some, mostly to improve my boat handling.

I cruise some, though I don’t like the use of a boat solely to get to a destination.

Being on the water sailing is the end in itself. So I am a sailor.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

. . . That's the thing about asking questions; sometimes you get answers you would never expect. And doesn't that make it all the more interesting? . . .

Indeed!

[Kettlewell]

For the record, I monitor weather reports pretty constantly while on land. Perhaps not as much as when I'm on board, but it's a practice that is hard to shake, even when on terra firma.

Yep. Ask any normal human being what the wind will be doing later in the day and they won't have a clue, but ask any sailor and they can probably tell you the marine forecast for the next few days.

[servus]

Hello fellow sailors,

I am a bit late but stil chip in.

@Dockhead : (I assume with great certainty that you are a good sailor)- when you find your boat undamaged afloat after the 100 year storm and half of the other boats are sunk, your splices held etc. and you now feel a sailor I honestly do respect your feeling. But does that mere fact make the owners of the sunk boats "non-sailors", or just negligent ones...? Or maybe you and the unsunk half were just plain lucky.

What I try to get to is, that qualifications or acceptance in a certain occupation are often linked to the quality of some of their doings. Or:if you are not good at it, you are not qualified to call yourself a whatever.

I think if one owns a sailboat, uses it more or less frequently, has got some experience then regardles how good he works out tide windows, flies a spinnaker, trims his sails, digs in the hook, he is a sailor - though maybe a lousy one.

Now comes what you were possibly aiming at: are you a sailor at heart.
Here @HeinSdL has described very well for me, what brings you into this group.

For me it is the movement of the boat through the water, the movement of the wind over the sails, the ability to use natural forces to one's own purpose without really adding much technology. Compare the dhows that travel between East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula to the "race around the world on water without touching it too often" semi flying machines and their respective crews. Who are more "sailors"?

Maybe I am just romantic or a dreaming purist, but I guess it is the archaic part of sailing and the liking of it, that sort of qualifies us to be called a sailor in the sense of your question.

The amateur, as the word says, loves what he is doing, the professional gets money for it. Both are sailors, the professional is probably better at it, but is he more of a sailor?

Wearing a blue blazer with club insignia, having a beer at this club, sporting a Breitling Navy Timer and wearing deck shoes, that does not make one a sailor. But you will find some of these figures being sailors too.

Cheeers, G.

[sck5]

You are a sailor if you take a sailboat out and arrive where you were aiming to go. It isnt complicated and there is no need to get competitive. Lots of sailors out there!

For me the happy moment comes every time I shut the motor off after getting out of the anchorage and sail on.

[nofacey]

LOL - when I was young, myself and 3 other innocent buddies sailed Vancouver to Hawaii, and were cocks of the walk sure we were SAILORS!

A few decades later - my retired wife & I spent 5 years aboard, sailing around the globe..... despite crossing multiple seas, climbing masts, doing solo night watches including course changes, squall dodging and sail trimming/furling (again solo), she still doesn't consider herself a sailor.

Talk about perception.

[sailorladd]

For me, when I look back and answer this, I would say I think so....

I built my own sea going boat six hundred miles from the nearest ocean, from the keel up, learnt to sail on a small freshwater lake and then trucked her down to the ocean on an eighteen wheeler to Cape Town, some one thousand miles south... Learnt how to navigate using a sextant etc, set sail with two green young landlubbers from South Africa to the West Indies, spent a year sailing around the Caribbean, took on new crew in the form of my twin brother and together we sailed through the Panama canal, down to the Galapagos islands, up to Hawaii (some five thousand miles)

After a year and sailing around Hawaii went south to Palmyra atoll, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Australia, and from there I single handed from Bundaberg to Coffs harbour, then across to New Zealand, Bay of Islands, after six months working I left solo again in the middle of winter en route for the Cook islands ( Rarotonga, Aitutaki and Penrhyn ) and up to Honolulu, some four and a half thousand miles, and finally wrote a book about my adventures..Do I qualify?

[MicHughV]

True definition of a sailer.....like me.......ahem...can notice a sailboat anywhere my eyes can see. My eyes automatically scan the horizon anytime I'm close to or on the ocean.
I can't pass a marina and not look at sailboats.
I can name make and model of pretty much any sailboat in my area.
lemme see here.....I have lived aboard for the better part of 35 years.
Like sailorladd above, I also penned a book about my adventures. However, being a sailor does not necessarily translate to being an author.
There...that should qualify me....I think

[MicHughV]

If the above is not enough, forgot to mention...also built my own sailboat

[Compass790]

Wish I could remember!