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Do you sail?

Do you like being on the ocean?  If so what is the smallest boat you will consider for ocean sailing?

Posted - April 3, 2021

Responses


  • 52954

     

      As a hobby, pastime, or sport, I have never been aboard an actual sailing vessel. I was aboard many US Navy ships during my active duty years in the Marines. Even though not technically accurate, we referred to our shipboard overseas deployments as “sailing”, it’s a nautical term leftover from the days of sail. We also referred to it as “steaming”, and as being “on float”.












    ~

      April 3, 2021 7:41 PM MDT
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  • 52954

    P.S. I absolutely loved being aboard ship and being out to sea. I enjoyed it more than some sailors did, which is kind of rare for a Marine. Granted, back then, Marines boarded the Navy ships for a six-month deployment, and very few of our daily duties had anything to do with maintaining or sailing the ship, that’s the Navy’s job. The sailors, however, were stationed aboard the ship full time, not just those six months. Their lives aboard ship was vastly different than a Marine’s life aboard ship, but the trade-off came during amphibious operations when we Marines would “hit the beach”, or on military parlance, attack. Being peacetime and in a training status, our amphibious landings put about 5,000 Marines ashore from four or five or six ships, which we‘d accomplish in numerous types of landing crafts as in the above photos, or helicopters flown from the flight deck of the ships, or smaller ships that moved into the beach and opened up right there, expelling their Marines. Once ashore, we‘d live in the field for however long the exercise lasted, anywhere from a couple of days to a month, living on land. All the creature comforts of shipboard life were left behind (hot meals, showers, real toilets, etc,).  

      Of course, I loved every minute of it, and I truly miss those days of my youth.
    ~

      April 3, 2021 7:54 PM MDT
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  • 7352
    Very interesting. and sounds like a lot of fun. 
      April 4, 2021 1:41 AM MDT
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  • 17404
    No.  I've had many opportunities to go on a sail boat but I don't want to be out in the ocean or even in the harbor.  I enjoy  fresh water boating.  I just can't stand the thought of being out on the water where, if I needed to, could not swim to shore.  I would not survive being where I could not see land.  It's unimaginable.
      April 3, 2021 8:57 PM MDT
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  • 7352
    You must be a good swimmer. 
      April 4, 2021 1:42 AM MDT
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  • 17404
    I am, but I know to not use fast swim if swimming to shore.  It is always much farther than it looks.  So pacing and doing resting floats is the way to keep from becoming exhausted. 
      April 4, 2021 3:44 PM MDT
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  • 52954

     

      I was only good at panic-swimming. It’s a technique that I perfected myself.
    ~

      April 4, 2021 6:36 PM MDT
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  • 10049
    I've never been on a sail boat. I've been on a pretty small speedboat (maybe 10 feet?) in the ocean and it was pretty crazy. 
      April 3, 2021 8:58 PM MDT
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  • 7352
    That is a small boat for the ocean. 
      April 4, 2021 1:42 AM MDT
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  • 10049
    It was technically the Gulf of Mexico, but it was still crazy. It might have been 15 feet or even 20. I'm not good with measurements and distances. 
      April 4, 2021 9:13 AM MDT
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  • 52954

     

    Hey, wait . . . that last line either explains a lot, or it’s a crying shame.




    :|

      April 4, 2021 2:44 PM MDT
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  • 10049
    It's in the same part of the brain as the internal GPS, I'm sure of it. So I suppose it explains a lot. 
      April 4, 2021 9:56 PM MDT
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  • 44238
    Like Randy, I have logged in many thousand of miles on the three Naval ships I was a crew member of. I loved being at sea and miss it. I have never been on a vessel with sails.
      April 4, 2021 8:54 AM MDT
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  • 7352
    It is very quiet and relaxing in the harbor. 
      April 4, 2021 9:35 AM MDT
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