Why do i assume people know how to boat?

I am the worst and assume everyone knows how to boat and about boats ? My ex wifes 1,2,and 3 all i tried to teach them boating skills, Wife #1 dumb as a box of rocks but i could show her something on the boat and she knew it and could handle it with out any worry, Twin 8.1's and she could take it from the dock to the inlet or down the ICW, Was very aware of her wake and would hail anyone she was about to slow pass. Wife #2 A Lawyer she would speed up when she was trying to slow down she would jerk the boat out of gear when we were underpower i stopped trying. Wife #3 Nope very smart in 10 years she was able to deploy the anchor along with all 250' of rode i had markings 20 ft from the end That i had explained what they where, Not a clue Gone!!! Current girl friend markers i have a note card laminated showing Red on right south bound on the ICW and North Bound it is on the left. I am looking through the tool box i hear the shallow alarm here we pass on the wrong side of the marker again. 1st wife was awsome show her once and she knew and remembered ? i just assume after someone tells you that you know but i must be the dumb one?

honeybadger said:

i just assume after someone tells you that you know but i must be the dumb one?

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Three wives and a current girl friend? Come on Honeybadger, you don't need to ask us.

LMAO Moonstruck - My dad when i was getting married the third time i ask if he wanted to come his words " ill catch the next one" I said wow your don't think i can make it happen? He smiled and said no i know you can it's your choice of women that make it fail! Still trying to process that i guess looking for all the wrong qualities in women

Now I know why 50% of marriages end in divorce..... Honeybadger artificially pushed the stats higher.

Now, in my situation, my wife (HS Math teacher) sticks to her Kindle/galley while I do most/all the boating tasks. Thank god for my stern thruster, now she doesn't need to leave the cabin......It's better that way (she'll admit that too).

With that said, my mom has been boating for 30 years with my dad, she is amazing.... so go figure.

Oh yea blame the stats on me Current girlfriend ask me a while back if i would ever marry her, I had to tell her i think in most games 3 strikes you out! Also i ask some of my former Unit buddies if i ever said i was getting married catch me alone and pop a cap in the back of my head! I just don't want to see it coming !

By the way, Honeybadger is your Harkers Island boat a Guthrie, Rose Brothers, or something else? Many were one offs built in the front yard.

When I kept a boat at Morehead City Yacht Basin David Styron, whose family owned the marina, would usually build a "juniper strip planked" skiff in the parking lot during winter. Of course "juniper" in downeast Carolina was really cypress. The hull was an interesting process, but very strong. He used monel ring shank nails with epoxy glue. The cypress was ripped to small strips so that it could be formed easily. The strips were glued to the frames and each other. They were also nailed to the frames and each other. It really made an almost monolithic hull.

Greetings,
Oh dear...Wives, girlfriends and SO's. Marry for love and stay for friendship. I am is supposed to be the shortest sentence in the English language whereas I do can be the longest.

"A second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience."

-- Samuel Johnson


3rd & 4th marriage .... ? I have no words to express my dismay.

Yea Moon it was built over on Star Rt 29, Harkers island, It is a white oak framed with NC Juniper the sides of the hull are 1 X 1.5 inch strips of juniper epoxied to each other then ring shank bronze nails down through each piece and into the White Oak Stringer/Ribs, The bottm is 5/4 Juniper. My Builder was Glenn Willis " Clem " his nick name had a backyard company " Clem Craft" my boat was 9 of 9 on that design and the last boat he built so i was told by the locals. Contacted Willis boat works and had the photos and documents they knew it and he was a uncle to the Willis bros of the Yacht company. Great people gave me alot of info as the last owner knew nothing about the boat at all.

RT Firefly said:

Greetings,
Oh dear...Wives, girlfriends and SO's. Marry for love and stay for friendship. I am is supposed to be the shortest sentence in the English language whereas I do can be the longest.

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Wish I could post the video I took from the cabin of our sailboat several years ago. My wife in foul weather gear on the wheel of our Cal 28 in 15-20 knots of wind and rain, tacking a slightly furled 155 genoa and trimming the main all by herself while watching the mast-head indicator.

I think I'll keep her.

Here is a link to some videos to show what downeast Carolina boat building has evolved. Anyone cruising up and down the ICW has probably passed the Jarret Bay Boat Works on Adams Creek Canal. This is what goes on inside. They still use some of the old methods. Albeit in a more sophisticated way.

There are about 3 short videos linked together.

Jarrett Bay Boatworks: World-Class Performance, Carolina Flare - YouTube

Nice !!

I had a good friend, Ben Harker, whose family was from Harkers Island. Ben passed away a couple of years back. He was living in New Bern. His cousin was Capt. "Woo Woo" Harker. It seemed everyone on the island had a nickname.

Willis Brothers built a lot of boats. I think they built the Tripoli that belonged to the Marine Corps. Capt Delmas Willis ran that boat. This brings back a lot of memories.

The original post and resulting relationship comments are so funny!

Cool boat honey badger! Thanks for all the history info Don.

honeybadger said:

I am the worst and assume everyone knows how to boat and about boats ? My ex wifes 1,2,and 3 all i tried to teach them boating skills, Wife #1 dumb as a box of rocks but i could show her something on the boat and she knew it and could handle it with out any worry, Twin 8.1's and she could take it from the dock to the inlet or down the ICW, Was very aware of her wake and would hail anyone she was about to slow pass. Wife #2 A Lawyer she would speed up when she was trying to slow down she would jerk the boat out of gear when we were underpower i stopped trying. Wife #3 Nope very smart in 10 years she was able to deploy the anchor along with all 250' of rode i had markings 20 ft from the end That i had explained what they where, Not a clue Gone!!! Current girl friend markers i have a note card laminated showing Red on right south bound on the ICW and North Bound it is on the left. I am looking through the tool box i hear the shallow alarm here we pass on the wrong side of the marker again. 1st wife was awsome show her once and she knew and remembered ? i just assume after someone tells you that you know but i must be the dumb one?

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Sometimes the problem is with the teacher, not the student.

Me, if my wife has trouble with something, I find another way to get it done. She is not perfect, but neither am I. If boating turns into a fight or an unpleasant time, there will be less boating time.

rwidman said:

Sometimes the problem is with the teacher, not the student.

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Roger that! I have learned to take the aircraft preflight approach. We do a walk-around/walk-thru and discuss the procedures. If my crew screws it up it's my fault. I didn't prepare them properly. There's nothing to be gained by bitchin' at them.

BaltimoreLurker said:

Roger that! I have learned to take the aircraft preflight approach. We do a walk-around/walk-thru and discuss the procedures. If my crew screws it up it's my fault. I didn't prepare them properly. There's nothing to be gained by bitchin' at them.

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this reminds me of something that has been stated before on a thread awhile back--sometimes we don't listen to our spouse / SO but we will listen to the same thing from someone else. There were some great examples of where the guy had told the wife a zillion times to do something a certain way, then they go on their buddy Joe's boat and he tells her the same thing and suddenly she is all "oh wow that is great advice, thanks so much." I think we can probably all admit to some deafness when it comes to listening to our spouse! Luckily Matt and I communicate pretty well and don't drive each other too insane.

HoneyBadger-

Do you have the song "Lookin' For Love in All the Wrong Places" on your iPhone/iPod?

Pineapple Girl said:

this reminds me of something that has been stated before on a thread awhile back--sometimes we don't listen to our spouse / SO but we will listen to the same thing from someone else. There were some great examples of where the guy had told the wife a zillion times to do something a certain way, then they go on their buddy Joe's boat and he tells her the same thing and suddenly she is all "oh wow that is great advice, thanks so much." I think we can probably all admit to some deafness when it comes to listening to our spouse! Luckily Matt and I communicate pretty well and don't drive each other too insane.

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Yeah, like trying to convince the Admiral that she cannot get off the boat until we have cleared customs. However, when a boating buddy told her that as she was stepping off the boat while I was up at customs she listened and got back on the boat. 42 years married and she must think I'm making this stuff up, go figure.

If you marry a woman who was in the Navy and graduated at or near the top of her navigation and ship operations classes it's a big advantage if you later decide to get into boating.

If we ever decide to put a Combat Information Center (CIC) on our GB we'll have a distinct advantage as that's what my wife was trained to do. She can still write backwards as in her day that's how they kept the situation boards updated--- people standing behind them and writing so the people standing in front of the boards could read it.

The irony is that in her day the Navy did not put females on combat ships. So after training her to do all manner of CIC work, she ended up on the Whidbey Island NAS crash crew operating an Oshkosh. I've been flown out to carriers to film several times. She who was trained to crew on one has never even set foot on one, something that still pisses her off.

When we acquired the GB we adapted an operations rule we learned from Bob Hale, the then-publisher of the famous Waggoner Guide, the most popular cruising guide for Puget Sound, BC, and SE Alaska. He told me (and also put it as a sidebar in his guide) that when he and his wife don't agree on some aspect of operating their boat, particularly navigation, they stop the boat and discuss the situation until they reach an agreement. Only then do they proceed.

The example he gave me was an incident in the Gulf Islands when he thought the proper channel to be in was on one side of a small island while his wife was convinced the proper channel was on the other side. If they went down the wrong side, the boat would go aground. At question was exactly where they were in relationship to the island. Rather than Bob simply saying "I'm right," and proceding on the course he was on, they stopped the boat and carefully looked at the situation. In the end, they decided the wife was correct (she was) and that's the way they went without incident.

My wife and I have had several occasions where we have used the Hale's practice and it makes for a much more harmonious boating experience. And, annoying as it may be to me, she has always been right in these situations. Her eyesight is better than mine and her ability to relate what she sees on the water around us to the spatial relationships as depicted on a chart is not only right on the money but she gets the "picture" very fast. Often faster than I do.

Obviously she gets involved in all aspects of our boating, be it fishing on the small boat, running the GB, or maintaining both of them. Not all wives are interested in this sort of thing so I try to keep reminding myself how fortunate I am. Even though she's always right.........

The charter skipper in the slip next to Moonstruck has a really nice S/O. When she heard that we were headed for a month in the Bahamas, she brought a book down for Lou to read while on the trip. The name of the book is Carolina Winds. Lou read it, and loved it. By the way she highly recommends it, Jennifer. It's about a family that moved from Charleston, SC to the Exumas in the early 1700s.

When we got back, Lou gave the book to Capt. Tris. I said, "tell Jocalyn that Lou was so engrossed in the book that she hardly spoke to me for a week".

Capt. Tris said, "do you want me to chew Jocalyn out for that"?

I said, "No. Thank her for it". WRONG!!!

I think Honeybadger and I may become roomies.

My Wife says to me: "when can we go out again?" and also "why do we have to go back again?" and so she is fine by me. She does chores with me and so she is the perfect boating wife.

I`ve a vague recall the honeybadger is an African animal said to have particular liking for part(2 parts actually) of male genitalia.
Can`t wait for posts from wives 1-3, plus current girlfiend (typo but decided to leave it).
It`s said the safest,commonly used words from husbands, are "yes dear". We`d be lost( not necessarily in the navigational sense) without our "better half" on board. BruceK

I have had three major relationships in my life.One was a marriage,if you wanna call it that.It was one sided,all me.If my current relationship of 10.5 years ends,I will sell everything,buy a boat,and move aboard while working when ever and where ever.Heck,I'm already ready to do it now.

LOL , Yea Moonstruck jump on the boat as the great Captain Ron said" if its going to happen it will happen out there" Thanks Pineapple girl its coming together now. Had the wiring inspected this week now i am finishing up the Plumbing and installing the lights in the engine room.another coat of paint in the engine room and i will install all the interior stuff. All electronics are rough wired so tick tock, Yea i guess sometimes after 20+ years as a Explosive Ordnance Disposal Tech in the USMC i expect people to read through the lines and know what i am talking about with minimal explanition. Not so in the real world ! Taking the Center console out tomorow that always lets me burn off some steam some 70 MPH sprints and i feel better about life I think everyone should have 3 ex wives puts things into prespective ! Defusing and IED was alot easier that being married that keeps blowing up in my face

I only need to know 2 words. "YEZ DEAR"

LOL @ SOF Yea the other day my good friends wife told me that the answer to my girlfriend when she pressed me for a time i was returning from boat was " i am a grown damn man when i am ready to come home" was not the proper answer ! So i changed it to " Yes dear i will be home between this afternoon and next week" i sure hope that was better ??

Sailor of Fortune said:

I only need to know 2 words. "YEZ DEAR"

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How did you get so smart, Capt. Jack?