[Public-List] leadership afloat

[gordon white]

    I find that the skipper needs to take into account the concerns of 
those aboard with less experience, to the point that a panicked crew 
member/passenger, even if that panic is badly misplaced, can not only 
make the experience unpleasant for them, but for everyone on board, be 
that two or four or whatever.

     And the crewmember who does not understand the whole situation may 
on the other hand be over-confident.

     Last season we were on our way into an anchorage in a Chesapeake 
Bay creek, beating into an increasing wind that put us on a lee shore. 
Eventually we had to drop sail and motor hard into the wind and chop. My 
passenger thought it was great fun, but I realized that if the engine 
failed - and the diesel faltered once until I switched fuel tanks - 
probably some gunk had been stirred up in the first tank - we would be 
in real trouble. Maybe a hastily dropped anchor would hold, but it would 
at the least have been unpleasant, with darkness coming on. I exuded 
confidence as best I could, but was calculating whether if the engine 
quit we could run out the roller-furl jib and bear away well enough not 
to go ashore. - in the face of "isn't this fun" from my crew.

     The engine ran just fine after switching tanks and we got in to our 
anchorage in good shape and I was relieved.

  - Gordon White, Brigadoon II