This post was to be about heads, or toilets if you prefer the non nautical term but it isn't so you'll have to wait for a day or two to read that one. What this post is about is yachting or more properly I suppose what makes a boater. Every year at the Miami boat show I attend a bunch of seminars and at one of the press breakfasts there always seems to be a presentation on how to grow boating, get more people involved in the sport in general, get more folks out on the water and thus sell more boats and stuff. Hell, there is even a organization for it called Discover Boating. But this got me thinking in an idle moment exactly what is a recreational boater exactly? I have been involved in boating almost all my life and was first taken out on a boat before I could walk and at this early stage was but a mere passenger. As years progressed I got more and more interested and involved in boating, one of my earliest memories is going out in a small sailing boat with my dad but even at what must have been three years of age I can have been little but a passenger in the boat. Years passed and I went from taking the family dinghy out on my own, sailing on friends boats to building my first power boat whilst in high school. With each passing year I got more deeply involved in boating. Some years later I moved onto large keel boats, made ocean passages and even raced on Maxi yachts. I got my RYA yacht-master certificate and learned celestial navigation and meteorology. I even made a there and back crossing of the English Channel in a kayak and claimed the world record for the fastest crossing. All of this has given me immense joy and fulfillment and as I look forward to another year of cruising I still wonder if I am a boater. By many peoples estimations I must be but am I any more of a boater than some guy that only goes out once or twice per year? Back in the early days of the large J class yachts owners such as Tommy Sopwith never went forward of the mast and stood steadfastly at the wheel while paid crews did must of the physical work. Many of these owners spent but a few days each year aboard their yachts and never slept aboard yet they are looked upon as great yachtsmen. Yet today if you were to charter a crewed catamaran in the BVI for a week you would hardly call yourself a seasoned sailer.
I like to spend as much time as I can aboard my boat, I also enjoy working on my boat, mending it, maintaining it and finding out everything I can about it and I guess my wife would be fairly quick to call me a fanatic but am I any more of a boater than the chap who gets the yard to do all the winter maintenance, I think not. On the other hand just because someone enjoys going on a boat that does not make them a boater. If I cross the ocean in the Queen Mary I have been on a boat, well ship, but I could hardly be called a boater. Hopefully you may see where I am going with this if you are following my train of thought, and the more that I think about this the more I can't actually decide what a boater is. Can you only call yourself a boater if you own your own boat? Is there a magic amount of days that you have to spend aboard each year to become a boater? If I go and buy a bowrider at the local boat show have I just become a boater? Do I have to use nautical terms and know how to tie a bowline before I can call myself a boater? I can't honestly say that I know the answer to any of these questions. It is interesting though that if you fly a private plane you are most definitely a pilot. You may not own your own plane but even if you fly 15 to 20 hours per year in a rented aircraft you are most certainly a pilot. The only logical explanation that I can think of is that to fly a plane one must be licensed but this is not the case with a boat. If training and licensing ever becomes mandatory to take out a boat then I guess that I will be able to say that I am a boater?
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