How do you know the limits of your boat

[blaze]

Seems a stupid question I suppose.
But
How do others work out the limits of their boats or maybe a better question is what are your personel limits.

For myself
I dont suppose I have ever found the limit of my own abilities as a skipper or the vessels I have been incharge of as they have always come back to the port of departure or the port I have nominated as an alernate. Have I been concerned on occassion, damm right. So the limited for me must be at the point failure occurs.

Have you taken your vessel beyond your normal comfort zone to test your skill as a skipper and your boats ability if not how do you inprove your skills.

Interested in others point of view
cheers
blaze

[Spaniard_King]

Blaze,

I recon if you get your rig home in one peice you are a goiod skipper and if you don't you are somewhat of a lesser Skipper

I don't think anyone can say they know the limit of their boat as you would have to make it fail to say you new the limit

Evryone must have an idea of what they will put there boat through and what they would take on. For me I don't like to venture out in 20+ knots of wind and 1.5m+ swell.

Also a runnout tide with over 1.5m of swell is a no no on our local Bar (Tweed)

Cheers

Garry

[dnej]

Blaze, this is an interesting question. I know myself, I am a fair weather sailer, only because I have never ventured out in a stiff breeze, so to speak. I have told myself, I need to get some practice, when I know the breeze is up.
I have a great spot to do this, where I can venture out from a protected bay, and go around the point to " practice" in some heavier stuff. I dont recon I should wait untill, I do get caught one day, and learn the hard way
David

[MulletMan]

That's a good topic Blaze!

I don't believe that a responsible Boatie should ever have to know his limits because the idea is never to reach that situation in the first place - theoretically!

A well equipped boat in terms of safety gear, communications, matched vessel and motor, sound working knowledge of the weather and tides and a sensible amount of pre-trip preparation will nine times out of ten ensure that the white-knuckle situation never happens.

When I used to flog jets about the skys in another life and back in the early days of that industry, we were taught to "take her to limit son". Exciting as that was, the modern concept is to prevent the dangerous situations from ever occurring so whilst the thrill of a fully stalled 4-engined Boeing in a terrifying spiral towards the hard stuff was pretty exhilerating, now it just the APPROACH to the stall that is taught!!

Same in boats and maybe cars to some extent.

Having said that, I guess it is inevitable that one day you will be put to the test on the water and the best way to prepare for it is to join VMR or AVCG as they are always "going out when others are coming home" and that means you tend to do many jobs in the worst of weathers, seas and winds!

When you are mucking about at night in a 30-40 knot wind looking for some guy in the middle of the Bay, you embark on a steep learning curve when it comes to handling a boat.

Old John Palermo taught me a lot on Bar crossings and we thundered over all the shallows in a Haines 680 I used to own. With bowels rumbling, John made me get in amongst the rough stuff and take the "sets" head on.

I still don't think I am God's gift to boating and there are lots of members and readers here who would run rings about me in vessel handling, but as I said, prevention is better than cure!

[banshee]

Experience,the only problem with experience is you get it about a minute after you realy need it.I've had an early morning "face wash" that pushed the bow of one of my previous boats in,total misjudgment and inexperience on my part but at the same time probably the best thing that happened to me.

[mirage]

Like The Pink Panther Says:- A superior skipper is one who never has to call upon his superior skills to save his ship. I'm in the flying game too!

[MulletMan]

Hey Mirage, what sort of model aircraft do you fly???

[mirage]

Hi Pink Panther,
767. Used to fly 4 haulers in another life and pointy things in a much much earlier life!
Scotty.

[kilo11]

quote clint eastwood dirty harry (70s) a man has too know his limitations.....sorry coldnt resist

[seatime]

One way of determining limits for your boat or yourself would be to look at similar rigs and understand how they reached their limits. In other words, learn from other's mistakes, you don't need to make the mistakes yourself, not if someone else has already made them. It's probably easier to appreciate a boat's limits this way, but personal limits have a lot to do with confidence, experience and training, IMO.
regards

[fishingrod]

Have you taken your vessel beyond your normal comfort zone to test your skill as a skipper and your boats ability if not how do you inprove your skills.

blaze

I used to spend a fair bit of time as a VMR skipper (im still a member but to a lesser extent now) I was happy to take our 2 rescue boats out in the rough stuff to challenge myself. I would never do it if it endangered any of my crew or passangers. Its good to know the limits off yourself and the charactistics of each boat as situations do arise occasionally where you need to respond. If on a rescue id make sure my crew was happy with the conditions and that no one had second thoughts about going out.

Testing your limits doesnt have to mean rough weather. Night navigation and bushfire smoke/fog are also challenges that test your skill. Can you get from point A - B in confidence in any level of visability ?

Knowing how to NIGHT navigate shoals and oyster leases in local creeks without channel markers is another competencey.

Personally, in my own private boat (was a 5m Cruise Craft) i was happy to push the boundries in the rough provided i was the only one on board. My personal limits were when waves wash over the bow or break over the stern quarter while underway meant that it was too rough

cheers
Rod

[charleville]

My limitation is that because of my really solid legs (known as "tree trunks" to some ) I swim like a well polished sinker. So I know that if I do something stupid that sees me ending up in the drink then I will drown.

Hence, whilst I am more than happy to go out into Moreton bay in my 4.75m runabout in the middle of the night on my own with no concerns a coupl eof times each week, I do set my own rules which I follow without fail;-

1. I never go out into a forecast of greater than 15 knots

2. All of my safety gear is spot on and indeed more than legally required and at departure I usually check to remind myself as to where it all is and that it is not encumbered by other stuff if I have to get it out quickly. I leave notes as to where I am going and/or log on to the Coastguard/VMR.

3. I wear a safety jacket when I am travelling in the boat at night irrespective of how good the conditions might be. Sometimes I attach the dead man's strap from the ignition to my clothing but that can be a bit of a nuisance so I don't do that as often as I should.

4. When there is lightning coming close, I come home as quickly as I can.

Other than that, no real limitations. I don't go 'outside' because in my runabout it is such a long way to go and I get plenty of pleasure in Moreton Bay.

I 'overtrain' a little because although I am mature in years, I have only had a boat for 4 years so I am always learning. By overtrrain, I mean for example that I have done the Bill Corten bar crossing course even though I don't cross bars and I have done the MROCP certificate even though all that I have on my boat is a 27MHz marine radio.

By nature, I am a bit arrogant which has the advantage of giving me a lot of confidence to do things that people have been telling me all my life that I cannot do BUT when it comes to my boating, I take all of the precautions.

[seatime]

Sounds like a very prudent approach to your boating escapades charleville.
regards

[seabug]

When the sea wins

[Phoenix]

It's a lot more to do with the limits of the skipper than the limits of the boat. Most Australian made boats will survive in conditions unimaginable to most - the fact is that the vast majority of boat operators do not have the experience or skills to go even half that distance.