Bad boat trip on Bethanny Ever After

[Rich85tpi]

Hi,

So I was watching the reality show "Bethanny Ever After" with my wife (it's her idea of quality time together), and there was sailing involved.

On the show, Bethanny sees a therapist. Her therapist thought it would be a good idea for Bethanny and her husband to take a sailing trip with him and another couple for some group therapy.

Supposedly the doctor/therapist has been sailing for 30 years. He has a 74 foot sailboat docked at Block Island. The couples get on the boat in Block Island and they're going to sail to Nantucket which we're told is a 7-10 hour trip.

Sometime during the night the sailboat goes off course and the gps goes on the fritz. The doctor/therapist says he can't get Nantucket without the gps. They have to wait for either the Coast Guard or another boat to help lead them to Nantucket. Eventually the next day another boat shows up and helps lead them to Nantucket.

My question is would someone with that much sailing experience have trouble getting from Block Island to Nantucket without a gps, or was the whole thing just scripted like that for the "reality" show?

[Rozz]

granted ive never sailed there, but i cant imagine not getting close from what u plotted then visual in from there. from the sound of it, he has made the trip before... was there bad weather/fog?

i really hate reality shows... lol

[Rich85tpi]

The weather looked good but it was in the middle of the night.

I'm an extreme novice when it comes to sailing, but it the doctor didn't seem that stressed about it. He never admitted it but it seemed as though he put the two couples in a stressful situation as a therapy exercise.

I don't know if the trip from Block Island to Nantucket is difficult or not.

[jimrafford]

A 75 ft boat could probably do it in that time frame but the story is total crap. The coast guard isn't going to come out a guide you to Nantucket. How did we ever make it to north america before gps. I've made that trip many times long before we even had a loran. Get out a paper chart, know your speed and currents and plot a course. There a lots of shoals in vinyard and nantucket sounds but they are well marked.
Jim

[SailingBag]

seems to me that sailing in this case is just the current version of snake oil salesmen...sailing marketed as a therapeutic tool by someone looking for a marketing hook...junk.

[eherlihy]

There's this thing called a chart. It is a two dimensional graphical representation of the earth surface. It has color pictures on it, so even a psychotherapist with 30 years sailing experience can try to understand what it means. (Brown = BAD, White = Good, Blue = Not so good, etc.)

When the chart is used in conjunction with a compass, it tells you which direction the pointy end should point in order to get from point A to point B.

The Global Positioning System did not become fully operational until 1994, or less than 20 years ago, and chartplotters with electronic navigation software are far younger than that. Prior to the availability of GPS/Chartplotters, sailors used charts (see above) and Loran, again in conjunction with charts and compasses to find their way from point A to point B.

I call BS! And I would seek a new definition of quality time...

[Tim R.]

I wonder if the good doc has a captain's license. Wouldn't this be considered taking paying passengers?

[rugosa]

QT is taking the trip, not watching it in fiction, IMHO

[MedSailor]

Originally Posted by eherlihy

There's this thing called a chart. It is a two dimensional graphical representation of the earth surface. It has color pictures on it, so even a psychotherapist with 30 years sailing experience can try to understand what it means. (Brown = BAD, White = Good, Blue = Not so good, etc.)

I think this was the chart he was looking at. "Tell me what you see..."


Medsailor

[travlineasy]

You could probably make that trip blindfolded and drunk--even at night. Obviously, the reality show doesn't portray reality at all. It would be a very easy trip with just a chart and compass--nothing more.

Cheers,

Gary