Sweet on Shore, Sour at Sea

On Friday, we asked if you’ve ever sailed with a ‘Captain Bligh’, or a skipper who is calm and even charming on shore, but screams and belittles their crew once at sea — especially racing.

We realize that such a query has the potential to spark a certain degree of negativity, so we pulled it from our website in order to reframe the question, and try to keep this potentially contentious issue as lighthearted as possible. 

To reiterate: You accept an invitation to sail in a friendly Friday night beer can with a skipper you just met — the captain is loquacious and kind, the boat relaxed and smiling as you motor your way to the race course.

But once the start sequence is underway, something has happened to the easygoing, happy-go-lucky skipper. Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or like David Banner bursting through his clothes with pulsating rage, the captain has suddenly transformed. They start barking orders. They’re indignant and berate the crew — not just demanding faster action, but shaming sailors who aren’t performing quickly enough.

We’ve heard variations of this story time and again from novices who accepted an invitation to race, and decided to give sailing a try. And this is somewhat worrying — we view beer can racing as a chance to offer newbies access to a sport that can be difficult and expensive to casually break into.

This is our concern, and we’d like to explore the phenomenon of ‘Captain Blighs’ rather than foment any specific drama. We would like to open our couch and analysis to the skippers who experience a notable change, a transformation of personality when going from shore to sea.

Is the phenomenon part of an unchallenged tradition of bad habits? Are ‘Captain Blighs’ behaving in a way that they learned from another aggressive skipper? Like high-level chefs in a busy kitchen, have ‘Blighs’ inherited a particular language laced with expletives and beratement, and do they believe that that’s simply the way one sails and motivates the crew?

"I have done beercans and other races where the [skipper] was convinced that the louder he yelled and the more he berated his crew, the faster the boat would go," one commenter wrote last week. 

"I am familiar with the phenomenon," another reader wrote. "One boat I crewed aboard brought a ‘Pro’ in for a big race event. Decent enough guy ashore, but . . . aside from general beratement of the entire crew, the man would lay into the foredeck gang with a vengeance I’ve never heard before or since.

"We generally would tell the foredeck what we wanted, and let them do it. But the repeated and now infamous refrain from this gentleman was a manically screamed: "WHAT’S TAKING SO LONG?" This does not increase the productivity of the bowman. Now, to be fair — the screamer was fairly fast, and perhaps the stress of needing to perform was the cause of it all, but, don’t we just do this for fun?"

We’d like to hear your stories, as well as your thoughts on whether you think beer cans are or should be a chance for the uninitiated to dip their toes into the sport. What’s more, do you think we experienced sailors should help facilitate newcomers’ getting out and enjoying themselves on sailboats? 

We want to keep it positive so more people can have more fun sailing. We are not interested in the names of skippers or even boats. And, while we’re asking what makes a ‘Captain Bligh’, it’s a good time to ask what makes a great skipper whom you can’t wait to go sailing with.

Let us know.