The goofy questions non-sailors ask

[eryka]

So we're on our way to Aruba for Carnaval, for a 2-week vacation. I can't believe the number of people who ask us if we're taking the boat! So we have to explain that it would take 2 weeks just to get there, and it's winter, etc etc. I know we so take for granted some sailing basics, some of the questions are just funny! Like the woman who asked me why we had to stand watches through the night on a passage, why couldnt we just drop the anchor and sleep? (uh, in the middle of the Atlantic? It's how deep?) Or undine's story of the person who was amazed that their boat had "a little house with a kitchen and a bathroom"

What goofy questions have you been asked?

[sab30]

After purchasing our first sailboat (36ft) to leave on Vancouver Island some people asked if we could sail it back and forth from our home... (which is in the Okanagan 200 miles inland) Aside from the 200 miles of land, lack of connecting river systems and a rather large mountain range...no.

Motoring up a mountain river system on a 36ft sailboat...that would be something...the ride down the other side would be exciting..

[sailaway21]

I thought this thread might be a compilation of questions posed by CruisingDad.

[erps]

On our first sail up to Princess Louisa Inlet, we were standing on the dock admiring the glacier fed waterfalls on the mountain cliffs all around us when my wife asked "so, how high are we anyway?" In her defense, it did feel like we were up in the mountains.

[bljones]

When we bought our boat, I excitedly regaled coworkers with the stats, length, draft, displacement, beam... and one gentleman piped up, "Don't you mean 8 meter beam, not 8 feet?" I explained that this was a short little monohull, not a big catamaran. He looked puzzled, then his eyes lit up as he figured it out. "Ah, gotcha, because they have two hulls, catamarans need to have taller beams." I then had to explain that a mast is a spar but not a beam...

[bljones]

Oh, and self-tailing winches... this is almost like a blonde joke- I explained that if I had the cheddar, I'd like to install self-tailing winches to make single-handing a little easier, and one dirt-dwelling individual exclaimed, "No way! They make winches that automatically follow you around the boat to wherever you need them?"

[imagine2frolic]

When I was going to sail from S.F. Ca. to Mexico. I took a couple for one last sail on the bay before I left. Now this guy was 40 +or-. He set up booths for trade shows. This is an example of how people don't think. He asked what I was going to do for electricity, because he watched me pull the shorepower. I told I had a roll of wire on the boat I would let out as I sailed along attatched to the dock. His reply was, OH? He did not give it another thought until I started laughing....i2f

[xort]

When we first told the Admirals sister & husband we were going to livaboard and go cruising, his response was: "You can't do that! You'll be together all the time". Her response was: "Maybe they LIKE to be together!" I don't think he meant it quite like that but it was VERY funny.

[danjarch]

My favorite, when doing day sails in the keys. How many sunset sails do you do a day?

[bubb2]

We once had invited friends of our out for a Sunset sail. We were out sailing, I was in the cockpit with our friends and my wife was down below making dinner. She said Dinner is ready and one by one she passed plates up and joined us in the cockpit. After a great meal our friends wife tells my wife to enjoy herself, that she will do the dishes and clean up down below.

After my Friends wifes gets finished in the galley she joins in the cockpit. we are enjoying the sail and the setting sun! I have to use the head and go below to see all of the table scraps in the bowl!!!! I stick my head out of the companionway and ask who the Hell put the table scraps in the toilet bowl? My friends wife speaks up and says " You told us that nothing belongs in the toilet that can't be eaten." I said Jill; I said "nothing goes in the toilet bowl that HASN'T been eaten."