Boat Schooling: Lessons Learned
By Janet Howle There once was a lady named Jan, Who sailed off to the seas with her man. Ed said it’d be great, They’d make no mistakes, And the boys will become our first mates. It was with this optimism that we set off for the Bahamas with our two youngest sons, ages nine and ten, in our 1978 pilot-house Camper and Nicholson 40. The first thing you need to know is we bought this well-seasoned boat for this very reason – to sail with family. It had three sleeping cabins and fit our budget. The second thing is, I had almost no blue water experience, and our boys had none. We had
never owned or sailed a boat this big. Well, not entirely true, Ed had crossed the Atlantic on a forty-foot wooden boat, but he was crew, not captain. Third, we owned and still ran our business in North Carolina, and fourth, while Ed and I had both been university professors, we had no experience teaching young children (unless parenting six counts). Never let a few details stand in the way of a great idea was Ed’s philosophy. (Another time, I’ll tell you about moving to Paris.) I’m the cautious one. Well, I was.
I did talk Ed into hiring a mate. We interviewed several persons. The first one was a vegetarian and had other unusual dietary practices. The boys liked her, but we viewed this as an added complication. The second, or maybe third one, seemed ideal. Amanda had her captain’s license and had just graduated SisterShip 20
