The Proper Age Limit to Stop Sailing

[Bill McIndoe]

Although I had sailed most of my life I have also participated in other sports such as rugby and skiing . I played rugby union until I was 26 years old and stopped when I was no longer asked to play! I skied obsessionally until 52 years old and got away without serious or lasting injury. Watching the injuries sustained by my older friends I could see that it was really time for me to give up. Sooner or later I would cop it. There are proper age limits to every sport.
On a perfect winter day, standing on top of Coronet Peak, ready to head down the slope, I realised that I did not want to be there. I really wanted to be back home at Careys Bay working on my yacht, getting it ready for the coming sailing season. I skied down, drove home and never went back.

Maintaining and sailing the various yachts I have owned over the years has been my abiding interest. I have prepared and anti-fouled the bottom of the current boat every year for 48 years. It is a long and dirty job which I have never got to like and at which I have never got any better. That is the cross that yachties must bear; it is the price we pay so we can spend the rest of the year doing all the nice jobs aboard and all the sailing that is in your heart.

If you wish to sail into your old age the boat must be set up for it. This takes long-term planning. The boat should be suitable for the sailing conditions where you intend voyaging. It may be a picnic across the Harbour or it may be lunch in the far islands of the Pacific. Grab handles, steering, sail handling, motor and anchoring equipment needs to be suitable for your declining strength and agility.

Count your blessings if your wife is the trusted crew who sails with you. Arguments can sometimes be solved with a kiss. When there are only the two of you, which is the best arrangement, the one on deck is really sailing single handed, while the below deck watch is asleep, relaxing or preparing the next meal. The yacht has therefore to be set up for single handed sailing.

A four day sail up the coast is testing. The reward is arriving at a sheltered cruising ground with better weather and no further night-sailing or night-watches for three months. With safe moorings and sheltered anchorages the drama is all over until you set course for home.

Perhaps the proper age limit for the sport of sailing is when you hear the Great Sea Gongs calling.

Is there something better to do?

Cheers,
Bill McIndoe
Yacht Avanti
Careys Bay,
New Zealand

[redbopeep]

I think you're right in that people will sail until it's no longer what they want to be doing with their time, often because of physical limitations.

I was fortunate to meet America's Cup Hall of Fame sailor Jack Sutphen around the time of his 90th birthday. He died this year at 95--still messing about in boats, including sailboats, until the end. Sailing legend Jack Sutphen dies at 95 | UTSanDiego.com

Here's Jack sailing:



Fair winds,

[duckwheat]

I met a couple in Green Turtle Cay a few years back that had sailed their boat down from Annapolis. They had done a nice job of setting their Island Packet up for themselves. They were both 85. The wife was not in the best of condition, and we went over to help her off the boat. The gentleman said they could do it ok without help, but I said it made me feel better to help.

Ballard, WA last week there was a late 80's year old couple loading their day sailor on a trailer. I winched it up on the trailer for them.

Is it unacceptable to pay for the things you no longer enjoy doing or are able to do? If it allowed you to enjoy all of the other things you can still do.

When I learned to ski in Colorado in my 20's there was a group of skiers that ranged from 70 to 92 in age. They skied very well and enjoyed themselves. They would probably ask you why you quit so young.

What is the worse that could happen? They could put on your head stone; He Went for a sail and got caught in a blow, but he is in calmer water now.

Beats waiting for the nurse to walk you to the commode.

DW

[Auzzee]

Sail either until you cease to enjoy it, or until you feel you are no longer able to do so while keeping the boat, crew and those sailing around you, safe.

[Joe Hill IV]

Well said, all

[Bill McIndoe]

Greetings Joe Hill IV

Thank you for your short comment. I have noted that like myself, you have been doing a thorough search of the Cruising Log Forum. Because I am new to the Forum I have spent many hours figuring out how it works, the rules and the terminology; the people running it, the sailors creating threads and those writing posts. I have followed hundreds of post back to their beginning to find the beliefs and the thoughts of those writing.

Except a trusting few, I find that members are averse to record their names. Nearly everybody is a cypher, hidden behind a code. There must be reasons such as worries about spam or hacking; desire to remain private or what have you.

Thirty years ago I purchased Swedish "Gastherm" boat heater which I installed in Avanti and it has stood me in good stead. Well designed and built but now elderly as heaters go. The jets need adjusting or replacing but all other parts are lasting. Here in Dunedin I have a few Swedish friends and like the Gastherm they are staunch, warm and friendly.

There must be hundreds of "archipelagos" in Sweden which would make it so interesting and demanding to sail especially among all those islands and rocks. In what area is the archipelago in which you are based? Your Storfida 25 would seem a happy boat to sail in the northern waters of Sweden.
When I was sailing in the Baltic 27 years ago, during the same week that Chernobyl exploded, I called in to Svendborg on the island of Flyn in Denmark. I met Knute Thurglison (spelling?) who had a business selling boat and caravan heaters. I bought the gas boat heater from him and shipped it back to NZ. He and I became friends and we made tentative arrangements to swap boats but sadly we never persevered with the plan so it never happened. However I remember our meeting with pleasure even after all these years.

Cheers,
Bill McIndoe
Careys Bay, Dunedin
New Zealand

[Joe Hill IV]

Hello Bill, just now read your very nice letter that was sent to my email box by the cruiser log robot Sorry its very very late here now to properly answer you as you so justly deserve, so more soonest. Yours sincerely//Joe

[Bill McIndoe]

Duckwheat,
Thank you for your message of welcome to the Cruising Log Forum. I see you joined the Forum in 2006 which is 7 years senior to me. I also noted that between when you joined and when you bought your Island Packet 35 in 2012 you asked many searching questions from other members of the Forum. I was most impressed with their knowledgeable answers and carefully thought-through suggestions. By the time you bought your first yacht I had been sailing for 62 years and had owned my own keel yacht for 48 years.

In your welcoming message you mentioned an elderly couple who sailed their Island Packet from Annapolis to Green Turtle Cay who, in spite of their saying that they did not need help, you "insisted on helping the woman ashore". Margaret and I get those kind offers frequently and similarly my lady sometimes doth protest too much.
Your assistance to the elderly couple to winch their trailer-sailor onto its trailer was another of your kind acts and I am sure that, as you said, "it made you feel better" as well.

I did enjoy the 26 year skiing period of my life. Having a country cottage on the lake near Queenstown made taking my family up the mountain so easy and we were able to ski for 30 days each year in the winter and sail in the summer. However looking back I did wast a lot of money on travel and tow tickets that could have been better spent on my boat. But when I realised that all my enthusiasm was directed at sailing I had no qualms about giving away the boards and the boots.
Just why the group of elderly skiers that you observed in Colorado 20 years ago, who were having such a good time, "would want to know why I quit skiing so young" must be something you invented i.e. that never happened - how could it?

My headstones won't say "He went for a sail and got caught in a blow, but is in calmer waters know" as you said it would. My message is in a bottle ready to be thrown into the sea:
Death did to me short warning give
We should be careful how we live
Prepare in time make no delay,
For no one knows their dying day.

But we loved your closing comment that when we do go sailing it "beats waiting for the nurse to walk you to the commode" which of course is so true.
As we have sailed 60,000 nautical miles together our knees certainly get wobbly, especially when we think of going to sea yet again in January 2014 to sail 1500nm on our 26th cruise north from Dunedin to Nelson.
We clearly see and appreciate all the agest points you made and hope we can keep in touch.
Best regards,
Bill McIndoe

[babylonlarry]

At 66 years old, I find that my strength and stamina are slightly diminishing. Minor trauma to the body takes longer to heal and an arthritic knee is a constant bother.

These things do not represent a threat to my perception of my ability to single hand cruise.

If my sense of balance and agility become impediments to the ability to go on deck to the mast and shorten sail in a sudden squall, then it may be time to stop sailing. I hope to get out of work mode and back to cruising within a year or two and am aware of the passage of time and it's effects on an old man :-)

[Bill McIndoe]

Reply to redpopeep 16/8/13

Hi redbopeep,
Looking through my emails I note that I have been remiss in not replying to your welcome when I first joined Cruising Log Forum on 16/7/13 (USA 7/16/13). What a wonderful sailor Jack Sutphen must have been sailing into his 90's and still messing about in boats when he poped his clogs at 96. Way to go! And thank you for the photo of him - sailing his yacht.
I have read much on the CLF. and am impressed with your own knowledgable threads and posts. The depth of your writings, on many yachting subjects, leaves me full of admiration.
I have also gleaned from reading the posts that your yacht is traditional, elegant and really rather stunning. I could see this for myself just by looking at the background to your own photograph in your SV Mahdee
Best regards
Bill McIndoe

[Bill McIndoe]

I have had a long and adventuresome sailing life but do not intend calling a halt, yet a while. On my 85th birthday, when I read again these few lines that I wrote, they now give to me a profound sense of peace. Commit them to memory and when sleep eludes, visualize the anchorage and the wonderful voyages ahead

A SAILOR'S FAREWELL
When I hear the Great Sea Gongs calling I will set course to the far horizon, departing on the last great adventure of death and sail into the Ocean of Eternity.
My ship of fate will carry me towards a haven where I will anchor. My beloved mate will join me one day and we will complete the final voyage of discovery together.

Love has been our companion on the long sail to this day. Compassion has stood watch in the dark and the storm. Steadfastness has firmly held the wheel when chaos abounds. There is no call for a guide or a compass, a chart or a sextant. We already know the unending route to our destination.

The sails will be set and the wind fresh. There is no turning back.
I will bid you farewell and wish you delight in your boat, peace upon the water and love in your heart.

Bill McIndoe
Careys Bay
New Zealand

[Guest2013b]

Thank you for those words (just above) Bill.

I shall remember them always. Now I need to grab the box of tissues.


We'll meet in that special anchorage one day Bill. But if you don't mind, I'm going to wait about 50 years. Until then, happy sailing!

[tholepin]

A fellow named R.T. McMullen got it right as well. He was found dead by some French fishermen on June 15, 1891. "He was sitting in the cockpit, with his face looking towards the sky." The doctor said he had been dead for 24 hours, cause of death being failure of the heart's action. He must have died in mid-Channel on Sunday night. The weather was fine, the breeze light, and the young moon was shimmering on the placid sea.

One can read about his cruises in his book Down Channel, printed by Horace Cox, London.

Should I end up in a Nursing Home, understand that my plan failed . . .

[Mate1860]

"A fellow named R.T. McMullen got it right as well. He was found dead by some French fishermen on June 15, 1891. "He was sitting in the cockpit, with his face looking towards the sky." The doctor said he had been dead for 24 hours, cause of death being failure of the heart's action. He must have died in mid-Channel on Sunday night. The weather was fine, the breeze light, and the young moon was shimmering on the placid sea."

I can think of no better way to go.

[haiqu]

Hi Bill,

Just wanted to say thanks for the cruising advice for our leg between Nelson and Lyttleton. French Pass was a blast although due to unforseen (by the NZ weather bureau) headwinds we missed the first window and stayed at Oyster Bay in Croisilles Harbour for a night before attempting it.

The skipper took one look at the gap between the lights at Cape Jackson and declared your advice to go between them unwise - actually I think his words were stronger than that - so we took a wide berth around Walkera Rock and were fortunate not to hit some submerged rocks out there, thanks to some frantic last minute jibes.

Most of the trip down was excellent t-shirts and shorts stuff, but we did get caught in some nasty weather on the last day.

All the best,

Rob
Crew on Chiara Stella
Newcastle to Lyttleton Xmas 2013