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Catalina/Capri 25/250 Sailor's Forums

General Sailing Forum

Difference between sailors and motorboaters

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OJ
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
4382 Posts

Initially Posted - 06/06/2002 : 17:01:38

A sailor goes to a boatshow and spends all day carefully surveying sailboats, listing wants verses needs. He asks a lot of thoughtful questions regarding hull and sail design, construction techniques and materials, stroking his beard all the while. He leaves the show, notebook in hand, head swimming with information, goes home and sifts through it all. He visits the dealer 4 months later with yet more questions, he may then buy or he may return home yet again, still pondering and more calculating.
In contrast, a motorboater goes to a boatshow, sees a boat he thinks he likes, goes to lunch, gets drunk, goes back and buys the boat <img src=icon_smile_cool.gif border=0 align=middle> !

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jellyfish
Navigator

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USA
171 Posts

Response Posted - 06/06/2002 : 17:06:03

<img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle><img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle>that is about right! too bad they think you can "drive" a boat like you drive a car, although too many of them do!

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Tray
Navigator

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Namibia
224 Posts

Response Posted - 06/06/2002 : 17:21:40

What's wrong with getting drunk?<img src=icon_smile_approve.gif border=0 align=middle>

Tray
C-250WB #554
"Weeny Bean"
<img src="http://members.sailnet.com/profile/uploads/weenybean/2002_0602AT.JPG" border=0>

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coldducks
Captain

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USA
342 Posts

Response Posted - 06/06/2002 : 23:24:23

we had a 19 foot WEST WHIGHT POTTER that i am sure none of you have EVER heard of...great boat. sails like nothing you have ever sailed...but tooooo small. we went to the boston boat show and bought our new C250...best place to buy a boat...they throw in all the extras....next time you go to a boat show, look into it...dont think about it.. just do it.. if you think about it you won't do it.. (its less than a car payment!!)

COLDDUCKS
FANTASY #409 C250WK

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jm
Captain

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Canada
290 Posts

Response Posted - 06/07/2002 : 09:41:35

Another difference - sailors would have the courtesy not to let a big honkin' diesel engine spew nauseating fumes throughout the marina, just to let it 'warm up'.. I have a big hate on for some 40' stink-pot that thinks he needs to run his diesel engine for 30 minutes before he casts off. I've watched him - starts the big ole nasty engine, takes his hairy-mop of a dog out for a crap, doesn't stoop and scoop, then comes back and smokes a cigarette on the dock because his wife doesn't like him smoking on the boat !
Fire, torpedo 1 ! !

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Doug
Captain

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USA
457 Posts

Response Posted - 06/07/2002 : 11:15:14

Last weekend I had three different stink potters cut very closely across my bow at full speed. All three were close enough that I grabbed the air horn just in case they didn't actually realize the giant white things in front of them were my sails and boat. Then they'd blow by me and just give me this "whose the jerk in the sailboat" look. I come from a family with a long line of both sail and power boats, and I hate to generalize, but there sure seems to be some sort of a Horsepower:Jerk law at work, and it appears to be expotential:
8hp: 6 microjerks
10hp: 10 microjerks
Normal Boater Basline
50hp: 65 microjerks
250hp: 750 microjerks
Twin V8s cranking 450hp each: 5,0000 Microjerks...

Doug - #1913 Noeta

Edited by - Doug on 06/07/2002 11:18:01

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Derek Crawford
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
3324 Posts

Response Posted - 06/07/2002 : 11:40:24

Doug - I think you'd be more accurate if you dropped the "micro"!<img src=icon_smile_approve.gif border=0 align=middle>
Derek

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jellyfish
Navigator

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USA
171 Posts

Response Posted - 06/07/2002 : 11:55:07

Tray, nothing wrong with getting drunk!

I always sum of the difference this way and this is a general statement that doesnt apply to all but to most: sailors are in love with thier boats and the water, stink pots are in love with themselves!

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LOREN SOUERS
Navigator

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USA
100 Posts

Response Posted - 06/07/2002 : 15:03:34

Guys,
Dare I get philosophical here. (I guess I'll dare.) I first got acquainted with sailing when I was 16. That was almost 40 years ago. In the mean time, I have owned various boats, including several sailboats, but also a 40 hp runabout. When we owned the runabout, we anjoyed waterskiing mostly, but just cruising around was fun too.
Obviously the nature of the boat doesn't determine the nature of the person. The question is "What kind of a person buys this or that kind of a boat." No generality is going to fit every case, but I am going to generalize.
(1) Operating a sailboat requires something which a motorboat does not require, some SAILING KNOWLEDGE. You pretty much have to get that knowledge before you buy the boat. This takes EFFORT. But if you don't care to expend the effort, you can get a motorboat, which just requires MONEY.
(2) Another thing which is quite different is that operating a sailboat is ARTISTIC. How many pictures to you see painted of motorboats. Sailboats are photogenic. People love to see them. Of course, if you want to participate in this art form, you have to develope the skill mentioned in (1).
(3) Then there is the issue of NOISE. Sailboats make none. They are very unassuming and quiet. Some would say they suggest an introverted person. (Those reading might not agree with this.) On the contrary, motorboats come in varying sizes and with varying amounts of noise. Noise is certainly an attention getter, and, I believe, the people who buy huge cigarette boats and run around at top speed breaking our eardrums with over 100 decibels of sound want attention and want to show off. (Think of the verious ideas about a man who drives a fance sports car.)
(4) Finally, I guess, because I can't think right now of any more ideas although I am sure there are some, there is the matter of the VOYAGE. We sailboaters laughingly speak of sailing as being the art of going nowhere slowly and at great expense. This certainly can not be said about the motorboater. He wants to be there (whereever) right now. The VOYAGE means nothing to him. He wants to get there quickly, "park" the boat and start partying.
I am interested in what other ideas you readers might have on this. Obviously, from my comments, I feel that sailboaters are generally much more interesting people. But I certainly have met some very nice people who have power boats too.
I better get back to work now...

Loren Souers, aboard
Nimue,
The Lady of the Lake

P.S. I think sailboaters name their boats much more interesting names. I liked the name written in Ojibway I read yesterday. Do you think you would find that on a cigarette boat?

Edited by - on

Derek Crawford
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
3324 Posts

Response Posted - 06/07/2002 : 16:11:33

"I think sailboaters name their boats much more interesting names."
I'm inclined to agree!
Loren - we have a C22 on the lake called "Gaoth Amhrain" - it's Gaelic for "Wind Song".
Derek

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jellyfish
Navigator

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USA
171 Posts

Response Posted - 06/07/2002 : 17:29:25

Loren, very well put!

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Dave Bristle
Master Marine Consultant

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Djibouti
10005 Posts

Response Posted - 06/07/2002 : 20:27:07

"You can get there faster on a power boat... On a sailboat, you're already there."

At our boat club, it's the twin-250 outboards that start with a gigantic plume of smoke that engulfs the dock and several down-wind boats, and a screaming roar that continues at least until the excess fuel burns off. And from our house, which is about a mile from Long Island Sound, we hear the Cigarette/Fountain/Donzi "real men's boats" another mile or so out, from our deck. "The sounds of summer" that remind us that the water is somewhere over there past the trees...

As for learning to sail, I've taught many people, but I'm not exactly sure how I learned... My first sailing was at about age 6 in a flat-bottomed rowboat with a square rig made with a beach towel, a pair of pine leeboards clamped to the sides, and an oar lock on the transom. I couldn't sail up wind, but my dad would tow me a couple of miles up the lake, and I'd zig and zag home. From that time forward, I have been in love with the wind!

I guess it's a different breed that craves the feeling of being on the flying bridge 20' above the water, throttling up twin Caterpiller diesels, setting up a five-foot wake, feeling like the lion on the plains. I believe it's symbolic of a life that has a lot of stress points--between husband and wife, between parents and children, between them and the world at large. The big stinkpot is their escape; their finger to the world... When they cross our bows way too close, they're giving it to us. I don't give them the satisfaction of a reply.

All of that said, as a kid, I also got a kick out of screaming 35 mph down the lake in my dad's 14' Alumicraft with a 30hp Johnson--the largest of its time.

I guess there's a little of the dark side in me, as well.

Dave Bristle - 1985 C-25 #5032 SR-FK-Dinette "Passage" in SW CT

Edited by - Dave Bristle on 06/07/2002 20:30:03

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Gary
1st Mate

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58 Posts

Response Posted - 06/08/2002 : 22:31:41

Hey, don't be too, hard on the power boaters. After all, who else would come by just to show you their BiG WaKe when you're sailing in the middle of the bay. Want to exceed hull speed? Just find the point where to powerboat wakes converge in a narrow channel on the Intracoastal Wakeway. Where do you get the torpedos?

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Dennis Pierce
1st Mate

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USA
59 Posts

Response Posted - 06/13/2002 : 08:43:59

I sail Monday thru Friday, thus I have no problems with weekend powerboaters or inept sailors.

This is a tedious string that proves nothing nor solves a problem. It's Ford vs. Chevy....Import vs. Domestic and so on.

Let's move on to something productive.

Dennis Pierce
Gypsy Witch #1719

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OJ
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
4382 Posts

Response Posted - 06/13/2002 : 09:29:52

We Catalina owners have been known to go-off on tangents (and powerboaters <img src=icon_smile_wink.gif border=0 align=middle> .)

Edited by - OJ on 06/13/2002 09:30:59

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jm
Captain

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Canada
290 Posts

Response Posted - 06/13/2002 : 09:35:42

"inept sailors" Isn't that an oxymoron ?

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dlucier
Master Marine Consultant

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Virgin Islands (United Kingdom)
7583 Posts

Response Posted - 06/13/2002 : 09:39:52

<b>"This is a tedious string that proves nothing nor solves a problem...Let's move on to something productive." - Dennis Pierce</b>

Uh, Dennis,...we have moved on...The last response to this topic, before yours, was 5 days ago on the 8th. This topic would have sailed off into the sunset, but you have magically resurrected it. Thanks.

Don Lucier, North Star
C25 SR/FK

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RichardG
Admiral

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USA
990 Posts

Response Posted - 06/13/2002 : 14:29:32

Chrysler!

And vote Independent!<img src=icon_smile.gif border=0 align=middle>

RichardG 81 C25 SR/FK "Sanity"

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Champipple
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
6855 Posts

Response Posted - 06/13/2002 : 14:53:44

Why does every thread have to be productive. The act of sailing is hugely unproductive, especially when you consider we could get there quicker in a powerboat.....

We come to this website because we enjoy sailing and want to keep current with our boats. Its kind of like an online 24-7 Catalina 25 convention. Every once in a while there is a good speaker that you want to listen to, otherwise, you hang out in the lobby and shoot the breeze with the other owners....

DW

Duane Wolff
"The Flying Wasp"
C-25, #401 std,sk
Chief Measurer C-25/250 National Assn.
<img src="http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b1ce23b3127cce9b043565af3d0000004010" border=0>

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JesseSmith
1st Mate

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USA
37 Posts

Response Posted - 06/13/2002 : 15:49:02

Duane,
I want to give you the "best quote on the website" award for your summation of the group's purpose.

"We come to this website because we enjoy sailing and want to keep current with our boats. Its kind of like an online 24-7 Catalina 25 convention. Every once in a while there is a good speaker that you want to listen to, otherwise, you hang out in the lobby and shoot the breeze with the other owners...."

Couldnt have said it better myself.
Jesse

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jellyfish
Navigator

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USA
171 Posts

Response Posted - 06/13/2002 : 15:56:19

"inept sailor"? I resemble that remark! see you in the lobby!

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MattL
Admiral

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USA
990 Posts

Response Posted - 06/14/2002 : 03:08:38

Hey, isn't this the same thread as the one about the MacGrerrorrrrrrr

Matt Loeffler
E.C. Rider
Cat 25 86'
FK/SR _/)

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