Means of Seeing what the eye brings

Went sailing and exploring this weekend with my friend the Guatemalan. She’s been here for about 10 days now, just settling in. The situation is a little weird: she advertised herself as available to crew on a few crew-placement sites, and had plenty of replies. She picked out the best-sounding respondant, and after a few weeks of emailing, showed up here to join on as cruising crew.
Coincidentaly, the fellow whose boat she joined is a local yacht broker whom i happen to have some contact with here around the boatyard. So, as it turns out, it’s more a case of “living on a boat at a mooring” than “cruising around the Caribbean”. The Guatemalan was looking for a bit more adventure; now she’s stuck on this boat with the both the broker’s misguided ardour as well as his teenage son.
This past weekend, we all went sailing. Normally, i wouldn’t have had much interest in sailing with the broker, but the Guatemalan was insistant; as much to enjoy my own company as to help keep the broker at bay. The sailing was okay, and i finally got to explore The Baths and Estatia Sound over on Virgin Gorda, but for most of the time she and i felt that we would rather have had better company than the socially-graceless father and son (and coming from me, “socially-graceless” is fairly damning).
The whole situation is an interesting one, that i will have to follow closely. Of course, i’ve offered the Guatemalan sanctuary if things get too weird on the boat. The broker doesn’t seem like a jerk, but still, he ought to have noticed by know how uncomfortable he makes her feel with his calling her “my princess” or “baby”, and finding excuses to touch her; it’s like he’s trying to come off as a casual, humourous, affectionate, and friendly fellow, but ending up being just plain slimy. It’s not really his intentions i doubt, just his manner.
If you go to any of the crewing websites out there, such as 7Knots or Floatplan, you end up seeing that the great majority of the “crew-wanted” ads read like singles ads; “…50-ish male skipper seeks adventuresome 20’s-30’s female first mate for extended cruising…”. Frankly, i think it’s pretty pathetic. Naturally, energetic, charismatic, beautiful young women like the Guatemalan have no problem finding hordes of guys who want to get her alone out on a boat, especially as she has a modicum of experience and doesn’t get seasick. She’s smart, assertive, and has her pepper-spray, but i’m still left wondering if she’ll be able to find a berth where she can really relax and enjoy herself. Right in her berth-wanted ad she abrubptly states “I’m not looking for a lover.”… Isn’t it ridiculous that she should even have to say so?

A fellow sailor posted this to her blog:

“It would be a steel hulled with wooden masts that sleeps at least 20. Maybe one or two squares in the rig, or a gaff topsail schooner. Something like the R.Tucker Thompson. I’d advertise on the internet and in magazines to do charters, ed trips, youth at risk programs, whatever was in demand in Puget Sound, Vancouver Island and Southeast Alaska. But it would be weekend or weeklong trips minimum, none of this daysail nonsense. And we’d have a good boat dog and allow at least one crew to raise a kid on board.

What would YOU do if you had you’re own tall ship?”
(more…)