Ready about!
Oh there's noting to be worried about at all, nothing.
Your shoes are fine, you were right to leave the Manolo Blahniks at home.
And, yes, I did ask George to leave the suitcase he brought in his car, because generally the
stuff you bring onto a sailboat, it's better to have it's better to have something that'll
fold up, you know, rather than a steamer trunk.
Well--
I wouldn't mind asking an 800-pound sea lion to go sailing, but perhaps not today. We'll be crowded enough, don't you know.
Since we're the first folks on board you can put your stuff down here anywhere you'd like.
On a boat with a cabin it's a good idea to take your, you know, your jacket and stuff
and put it somewhere well to the side on a shelf or something, so that when the boat heels over
it isn't your material that goes spilling across the floor. And you can tell other folks
who come aboard to do the same thing. While we're down here we can talk about the marine head, the toilet.
They're all pretty much the same, there's usually a toilet compartment, called the head, and some kind of a pump mechanism.
This one is on the side here, and in some cases a foot pedal --
and you just pump the waste out and pump some water in. I have instructions for this particular
brand of head, which are easy enough to read. But I think most of your friends are going
to want to use the facilities ashore before they go on the boat, because, well, we won't
be gone that long.
I was glad when you said you would come that you you wanted to be put to work, you didn't want to be just a supernumerary sitting there.
A good point, a good attribute of a crew. But if you look at it from the perspective of the skipper, there are some additional
uh clever points. One is that there'll be a lot of people on board today, and there isn't
much room to move from one workstation to another in the cockpit of a boat like this.
So probably the most important attribute of a guest on a sailboat in a crowded cockpit
is to keep one corner of one eye on the skipper most of the time, even though you're engaged
in in a fun conversation with others and laughter, so that you can see when a maneuver
is about to take place--or if he wishes to communicate with you to grab a line. I think
the most useful thing that guests can do is to help with three things --the "traveler" and the
"mainsheet"-- they both control the big sail -- and the winches, the things that we turn to
tighten up lines. And since we're here first, I'll show you how to take the sail cover off,
which is one job that a guest can always help with.
Yeah, the sail cover is just there to protect the sail when it's lowered
from the elements -- rain and wind and dirt and so on,
and to take it off it's just a process of undoing certain snaps.
So you just take these guys off, and when you're finished with all that
the sail cover just gets stored somewhere, because we don't use it while sailing.
I usually make some remarks about this point so we'll know what to expect.
Here we are in a 38-foot-long, medium-sized sailboat and we're going to go for a sail. This boat like all
sailboats tends to heel over a little bit-- tilt on its side--when sailing to windward
and to counteract that we have a 6,000-pound lead keel under us, which will bring us right
back upright whenever the wind eases or whenever we want to. I used to tell the kids,
"Weebles wobble but they don't fall down." It's a beautiful day, so I think what we'll do is we'll just
we'll just head off through Marina Del Rey for a mile or two and in the cut that admits
us to Santa Monica Bay we'll raise the mainsail. Now there are lots of people on the boat today
and this cockpit typically seats only six or seven people comfortably, so the whole idea
is to be encouraged to move around the boat as much as you're comfortable. It's quite safe
especially if you use the ancient rule, "one hand for you and one hand for the ship."
So follow me up to the bow and I'll show you what I mean.
We can go all the way up here with perfect comfort and safety.
Nothing to it at all.
It's a good place to be.
[handholds sounds]
[diesel engine sounds]
It's great, isn't it, up here on the bow? Even motoring, we're just out of the way of everybody
in the cockpit -- and you know, Marina Del Rey is one of the largest artificial harbors
in the world, there are 4,600 boats moored here.
Ah yes, the matter of seasickness. If it's a worry consider that nobody in this video got sick despite lots of private concern.
I think we should all have a proven remedy off the drugstore shelf -- Dramamine or Bonine or the rest.
Try each on a work day -- not before heading into a gale -- to test the personal side effects.
The winner is a remedy for life and a powerful psychological weapon.
Say, why is nobody wearing a life jacket? Well, there's one available for everybody on board,
but to me it's a personal choice.
I believe much more in holding on. Kids do need life jackets because they don't hold on.
The truth is that falling off a sailboat into the water is a disaster, life jacket or not. It's difficult to retrieve a man overboard. It must not happen.
And if you hold on, it won't. Life's all about holding on, but the choice is ours. My experienced friend Max, seen here
at the helm, always wears one. It isn't bulky, it inflates only in the water.
I have two of those and they're yours to put on for the asking.
[conversation]
A crowded cockpit is great fun it means everybody's
having a good time and we're all sharing things together but it also means that the best attribute
of a crew is the ability to make itself unexpectedly small on short notice and to deal with the
fact that the skipper can't reach anything, so he'll probably be asking for help
"Ready about!"
"Hard alee!"
[winch grinding]
Tracy -- will you lower the traveler two feet.
"Traveler, two feet!"
[Helicopter passing]
[conversation]
And if you'd like to steer, by all means ask -- nothing gives a skipper more pleasure than to turn
over the helm. You know, you really can't make a mistake as a guest on a sailboat.
I guess being on your cell phone and receiving calls is a mistake.
But there's only one terrible crime to be committed, and that's blocking the companionway.
The perpetrator is often a garrulous type quite unaware of the needs of others--
"So I said to this guy, are you talking to me? And he said, who you think I'm talking to? and
I said, well if you're talking to me then you wouldn't be talking to somebody like me, probably
somebody like him, are there two of you? or only one" So he says to me, look who you think you're
talking to? and I said, the question isn't whether I'm talking to you or whether he's talking
to him, it's who's talking to me, if you keep this up it's going to be a question of whether
you're talking to yourself or whether you're talking to me. So I said to myself that's really the way it has to be....
It's said that a sailor never sees his own. It means that we're on a boat --
-- it's only when another yacht goes by that we see what it's all about.
They're going to windward, they're racing and they're going
to windward and so to make the uh boat most efficient, you get the crew up on the windward rail --
Hey, guys.
[conversation]
I have a friend with a low handicap in golf and one day I said, Ken -- will you take me for
a round at the Riviera Country Club, just so I can see what it's all about?
Ken said, do you play golf?
I said, oh no, not at all -- never once!
That won't be possible, he said.
But with sailing
it always is.