Badest Boogymen?

[MtnMike]

Not really a fear, but one of my biggest concerns is hitting or being hit by some unknown something. All the other things are known and avoidable, including having a well stocked med kit and knowing how to use it.

[Icarus05]

How about fire. The only thing scarier to me than fire on a boat at sea is fire on an airplane in flight.

[Boasun]

Originally Posted by Icarus05

How about fire. The only thing scarier to me than fire on a boat at sea is fire on an airplane in flight.

Unless you are in a large working harbor, there will be NO fire boats coming over the horizon to save your burnt A$$. Carry twice the entinguishers required and learn how to use them, either by putting out fires in your backyard barbecue or going to Maritime fire school.
And making a game of it, DRILL for various kinds of fire you could have on board your boat. Get the family involved on this one... The family you save may be your own.

[Winderlust]

Yes I must admit late the night I posted this poll I had thrown in W because well he had been blamed for just about everything else, why not a hazard at sea. Believe me I'm no W basher. I didn't think anything would come of it in an otherwise serious poll. Low and behold he currently ranks over 12%, well above Pirates. Some passions run deep.

- Fire is a good one and I missed it
- Med Emergency another good one, missed it too.
- I almost put in the Sun Exploding thing but talked myself out of that.
- Chafe/Corrosion are very close to Breakdown, I sort of had them.
- Pirates? Avoiding pirate infested waters, speaks for itself.
- How about water/food contamination?
- Dangerous is not the issue, Fear is (and it is subjective)

Yep it's not a complete poll and rife with poor humor. Hey the Fear itself thing was pretty funny... no?

Having said that, the results still are interesting.

[AdamLein]

Despite misgivings I had to go with Fear and Boredom. While gear breakdown is problematic, there are a million ways in which gear can break down and probably only a tiny fraction of those ways will kill you. On the other hand, fear makes you act irrationally, and boredom makes you complacent.

Fear is especially bad but again you have this statistical problem where, given that you're in a state of fear, there's probably already something really bad and dangerous going on so you have to discount the badness of fear a bit in light of that fact.

[Omatako]

Originally Posted by MtnMike

Not really a fear, but one of my biggest concerns is hitting or being hit by some unknown something. All the other things are known and avoidable, including having a well stocked med kit and knowing how to use it.

If the original post is intentionally worded then short-handed is the important aspect and then a medical kit is potentially only a small patch on a large puncture. Imagine breaking your leg in two places or even worse, a profound smack on the side of the head by a boom or similar. Now your wife (in my case the only other person on the boat) has to totally manage the boat because you are immobile? Your med kit ain't gonna help much. Splints? Yeah, right. In a heaving boat with limited medical resource that is my worst fear. By far.

Disasters at sea are generally not caused by one event but rather by a connected series of events each one making the last one and all those before it worse. The "broken leg" means that the wife has extended watches. That means she doesn't get enough rest. That means poor watch keeping. And maybe poor nutrition. That means increased risk of collision. And then the weather turns bad. And she can't reef on her own. And so on.

And while we're dealing with the adequacy of even a well stocked med kit at the age of a lot of cruisers there's always the ever-present threat of heart attack/stroke which will find most med kits wanting.

My worst fears? Serious weather that can cripple my boat and serious medical (read injury) occurrences.

Not provoking, just my opinion

[Bene505]

This poll (and others like it) need a "don't know" category for use coastal sailors who don't have enough experience to vote on a "Most ______ to Deep Water Cruising Sailers" type of poll. For me to vote would skew the results, because I'd be guessing. I'd rather not do that, even though I'd lke to know the survey results.