USNA Sailboats

Does sail training make a good officer?

  • Definitely

    Votes: 13 56.5%

  • Not really

    Votes: 4 17.4%

  • No

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • I dont know

    Votes: 6 26.1%
  • Total voters
    23
There is no feeling like sailing offshore on a moonlight night...

I did a sailing cruise my third class summer. Back then it was 2-3 weeks on gray ship in Charleston, then 2-3 weeks sailing. We were supposed to sail from Charleston to Bahamas and Fort Lauderdale, but hurricane (and pretty rough seas) offshore caused us to cancel Bahamas and motor down the intercoastal waterway from Mayport to Ft Lauderdale. We got a week in Ft Lauderdale (tough, but someone has to do it), then sailed Ft Lauderdale direct to USNA ... essentially riding the Gulf Stream. It was amazing, and frankly no better way to learn seamanship, navigation, maintenance, and small team leadership.
 
Capt MJ said:
Ah yes, septic tank management.

Another lesson: If you see a storm coming, and you’re starting to think, “maybe I should reef in the main and put up a storm trysail,” it may well be too late.
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Another: when waves are rough...things starting to go wrong...now is the time the put on life jacket and rig life lines.
 
As I've related before, I raced small boats at USNA for 4 years/8 seasons with some minor time on the 44's of the day (Luders Yawls)
for some bay races. Then graduation came and I was an instructor on the 44's. The USNA Sailing Master took the few small boat racers that were assigned and had us as instructors/demonstrators to the rest of the instructors. I got the top qualification that was available at the time - a D Command which was an overnight/at sea qualification.
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Yes, it was a great precursor to shiphandling, Rules of the road, relative motion, etc. Leadership-wise it is one additional piece and the stress of weather, traffic, etc puts that leadership into a very nautical perspective which does help for many Naval Officers.
 
Capt MJ said:
It’s actually work, physical and mental. It’s not air-conditioned (last I knew). Not a lot of support for entertainment devices. Nowhere to go to get away from people. Lots and lots and lots of face-to-face communications that can’t be off-sourced to texting. Throw in heat and humidity and the joy of marine toilets. 🥵
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YES!! All those things still. But so rewarding. Nothing but good things reported from my Mid. Lots of FaceTiming on his weekend break. In a reallllly cool place. And seeing and talking to famous people.

He isn’t a complainer and is a hard worker. woth a great work ethic. Maybe others would not enjoy as much. Enjoyment from the satisfaction of planning and executing the whole thing. Lots of convos (he reported he hadn’t missed his devices) with new friends. And he is hands on kind of person, so this is in his wheel well.
 
The thing for me about Gibralter was that when I first approached it looked nothing like the famous profile/pictures that are commonly seen but then as one actually gets into the strait, it looks VERY familiar. As a Navigator and shiphandler, it is kind of narrow-ish but I never saw or experienced a traffic problem as one sees in chokepoints like the English Channel or the Entrance to the Chesapeake Bay.
 
Sailing has taught me more about teamwork, grit, communication, and problem solving than anything else at USNA. Add in navigation, ship handling, general seamanship, traffic management, learning to delegate, humility, etc. and you realize it is invaluable.
 
justdoit19 said:
YES!! All those things still. But so rewarding. Nothing but good things reported from my Mid. Lots of FaceTiming on his weekend break. In a reallllly cool place. And seeing and talking to famous people.

He isn’t a complainer and is a hard worker. woth a great work ethic. Maybe others would not enjoy as much. Enjoyment from the satisfaction of planning and executing the whole thing. Lots of convos (he reported he hadn’t missed his devices) with new friends. And he is hands on kind of person, so this is in his wheel well.
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Keep in mind too the loathing of today turns into the fond sea stories of reunions down the road, of recalling the canopy of stars overhead, the fluorescence in the wake, the slap of the rigging, the dolphins joining up, the purr of the water alongside when everything is going well and it’s just the wind making you go.
 
I have sailed on 24-32 feet boats before so it's nothing like these but the idea is the same. To sail a sailboat, everyone has to learn to work together and someone has to lead. Regardless if you lead or not, everyone needs to function together and learn how to follow orders. Whether you give the orders or take them, you learn how to work together. It teaches you how to be responsible for your portion of the work and not only be efficient at it, but how to coordinate with everyone else who has their own job. In the modern Navy, there are probably plenty of other things you need to know to be a good leader but it does teach that regardless of what function you have in sailing, nothing will be accomplish unless everyone follows what they are supposed to do
 
The Navy 44s and YPs wreak havoc on the chesapeake. Always nicely in the middle of the channel meeting deep loaded bulkers bound for the capes.

But yeah, small boat experience makes you a better person and a better big boat person.
 
OldRetSWO said:
The thing for me about Gibralter was that when I first approached it looked nothing like the famous profile/pictures that are commonly seen but then as one actually gets into the strait, it looks VERY familiar. As a Navigator and shiphandler, it is kind of narrow-ish but I never saw or experienced a traffic problem as one sees in chokepoints like the English Channel or the Entrance to the Chesapeake Bay.
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@OldRetSWO the Straits of Gibraltar has a traffic separation scheme that helps to keep things flowing correctly.. and it's fairly wide.. as I recall the straits is somewhere around 10 nm at it's narrowist point. Most of the traffic challenges I've experienced there were generally at the eastern terminus of the TSS. That's where you'll frequently encounter cross traffic going back and forth between Ceuta and Algeciras..

You're right about the 'Rock' not looking like that old Prudential Insurance logo until you see it from a certain angle.. When I first saw it, it didn't look like what I expected it to look like either.. Here's a picture of the 'Rock' my son took when his ship stopped in Algeciras Bay for bunkers back in 2017.. You can just see the Victoria Tower lighthouse at the end of Europa Point..

the Rock.jpg
 
I recall the Singapore Straights having much more traffic. At least the targets were a lot closer.
 
Don't Give Up the Ship said:
I recall the Singapore Straights having much more traffic. At least the targets were a lot closer.
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oh yeah.. Horsburgh Light to Sultan Shoals.. then up in to the Malacca.. you better bring your 'A' game for that stretch..

As to the question.. 'Does sail training make a good officer?' I think to have some rudimentary sail training is beneficial. It'll help sharpen deck seamanship skills, even though it's on a small scale. It also puts you in closer touch with the elements [wind and current] and gives you an appreciation for how they can affect your vessel. That's something you can easily loose sight of while in the protected isolation on a 'state of the art' bridge, with the background hum of air conditioning and the glow from your ECDIS and Radar screens and other various panel LED lighting..

All that said, you can get much of the same experience on small power driven vessels like the YP's; or in my case, the T-Boats we used for Shiphandling class at the School Ship. That training might be more useful and relevant..
 
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OldRetSWO said:
The thing for me about Gibralter was that when I first approached it looked nothing like the famous profile/pictures that are commonly seen but then as one actually gets into the strait, it looks VERY familiar. As a Navigator and shiphandler, it is kind of narrow-ish but I never saw or experienced a traffic problem as one sees in chokepoints like the English Channel or the Entrance to the Chesapeake Bay.
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On our Northern Wedding cruise I had never seen traffic so thick as in the North Sea. Our transit beteween Ireland and England and then to the east of Jutland made for some harrowing watches, especially at night. Our bridge team was working triple time. The poor seaman with the grease pencil could keep up with the designated contacts. We went from A-Z then AA-AZ, then more, with the Captain on the bridge in bedroom slippers screaming "get a bearing drift on that ship!" It was so dark on the bridge we could hear the Captain's loud voice but could not see him. The intensity and pressure on the bridge was incredible like the first week of PS crammed into four hours. As soon as we passed contacts I gave the order "scrub all contacts abaft the beam." The four hour watch passed quickly. Our reliefs were just as busy. As was our practice a few of us would go to the wardroom to decompress and after watch. We were exhausted and giddy. Afterwards our port visit to Brest, France got cancelled but we spent two weeks in Portsmouth, England. It's a great navy town that loves sailors.
 
WT Door said:
On our Northern Wedding cruise I had never seen traffic so thick as in the North Sea. Our transit beteween Ireland and England and then to the east of Jutland made for some harrowing watches, especially at night. Our bridge team was working triple time. The poor seaman with the grease pencil could keep up with the designated contacts. We went from A-Z then AA-AZ, then more, with the Captain on the bridge in bedroom slippers screaming "get a bearing drift on that ship!" It was so dark on the bridge we could hear the Captain's loud voice but could not see him. The intensity and pressure on the bridge was incredible like the first week of PS crammed into four hours. As soon as we passed contacts I gave the order "scrub all contacts abaft the beam." The four hour watch passed quickly. Our reliefs were just as busy. As was our practice a few of us would go to the wardroom to decompress and after watch. We were exhausted and giddy. Afterwards our port visit to Brest, France got cancelled but we spent two weeks in Portsmouth, England. It's a great navy town that loves sailors.
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I did Northern Wedding in 82 and again in the early 90's
 
OK . I can do the seque from Offshore sailing to the Straits of Gibralter (the STROG). My first P3 deployment was to Rota Spain, and (without going into operational details) spent a lot of time in the vicinity of the STROG. My favorite was doing a STROG passage - - pretty low level, away from all the civilian traffic -- just around daybreak after an all night flight. My Sensor Operator calls out heavy Naval Traffic on an eastbound course.. we drop down for a visual, and run right up the stern of the USS Iowa Battlegroup, making full speed through the STROG. It was a very impressive sight.,.. a BB and 2-3 escorts steaming through the low lying fog.
 
my experience with Straits of Gibralter is passing through late at night, and going up to the catwalk on the edge of the flight deck, and looking at the Morrocan coast with NVG's

and almost dropping the NVGs overboard.....

that would have been an uncomfortable conversation with the Skipper, since said NVGs were locked up and were only to be accessed for scheduled NVG missions
 
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