by Greg Halliday

Created on: June 16, 2009   Last Updated: June 17, 2009

How to be a good guest on a sail boat

When you are invited aboard a boat, there are two critical things to remember, boats are expensive and to a passionate sailor, boats are in fact living things. Both ways, treat the vessel with tremendous respect and you will be invited back, be careless in any way and you'll be looking elsewhere for a chance to live a nautical fantasy.

Footwear

Nobody likes a scuff mark, and many street shoes will leave ugly marks all over the non-skid decks of a yacht. The quick answer is to ditch the footwear and go barefoot, however, sailing boats have more devices on the deck to bend your toe back than you can poke a stick at, so if at all possible, beg borrow or buy a pair of genuine deck shoes, your host will appreciate the effort, your experience will be far more pleasurable and your feet will love your forever.

Be prepared

If you've been invited out for a race and there is any sort of a decent wind about, you'd better be prepared to get wet. A boat being pushed hard to windward will be heeled over a long way, this pushes the downwind side under the wave to some degree, so at the very least you'll get a wet butt on the next tack. Going hard to windward will also tend to, through the occasional splash of water and spray to windward, which nature will happily redirect downwind and on to you. With this in mind, wear clothes that you will be comfortable in damp. Also keep in mind, it may be a lovely day for swanning around on the beach in your swimmers, but the temperature out on the water is usually a few degrees lower.

Use your ears

A sail boat can be a place filled with tension and action, there are no brakes on a sail boat and you have no control over the main force of propulsion, the wind. So mild mannered Joe Bloggs at the office can suddenly and unexpectedly turn into a direct descendant of Captain Bligh! This is not to be taken as a direct attack on you or even what the captain really thinks of you, they are just dealing with stress in a socially acceptable way for the high seas, even if your just pottering about on the local lake. To reduce the danger of their ire being directed towards you, it is critical that you listen carefully to instructions from the skipper, when they say move, just do it. You can discuss its correctness and tone in the club house at the end of the day, delaying any action can genuinely put the boat or yourself in a position of risk. It also does not matter if you have 30 years of sailing under

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