The New YT Gen of 'Sailing' Vloggers - foolishness abounds.

[CapnK]

Basically, I am seeing LOTS and LOTS of plain ignorance on the part of most of these 'vloggers' when it comes to sailing. They see someone like the Vags or Delos who stay in the Milk Run band of tropical weather sailing off the wind for a couple years and having a great time so they go and buy a boat and head out themselves - often with what seems to be little in the way of knowledge WRT to boating skill, and nothing in the way of historical context of small boat cruising.

I bet if you went to 10 of them and said "Smeeton's?", their only response could be "Huh?".
::)

Saw one the other day, they started sinking in the Bahamas - because their single, sole electric bilge pump couldn't keep up when their speedo thru-hull came out.
Yet during their filming of themselves in crisis mode attempting to prevent sending the boat down, you can see their $1000 Phantom Drone hanging there more than useless on the bulkhead behind them... (face palm)

Or the ones over in the Med, trying to fly their spin for the first time, no idea what a spinnaker is, or how to fly it *at all* - and when they did get it up on a 15' rope pennant from the stem fitting, it was flying off the beam of the boat. lol  :o

And then there's the Vags themselves  Riley, sailing their $1mil cat up from the Bahamas to Chas, SC, encounters something he's never encountered in their "5 years" of cruising - when the wind went from 18 to 38 in a squall.
Say what? Keep in mind, this fella has a book out there on "How to Sail" that they sell and promote to their 'crew' of Patreon subscribers and YouTube followers. ???

How long until one of these people get seriously bit on the ass, hurt or maybe dead, or causing same to those who will get called to the rescue?
It may need to happen sooner rather than later, so that someone, even if regrettably, gets to serve as an example of the caution and learning that was needed before they begin to establish "revenue flow" and "passive income" from selfying themselves all over the planet...

Rant over. For now...

[s/v Faith]

I hear you Kurt, I really do.

I was a latecomer to Facebook, but am horrified by some of the things I read there...  YouTube, and blogs have the same weakness IMHO, namely that popularity does not correlate to accuracy. 

Reading hapless idiots tell a new cruiser that it was perfectly acceptable to run her generator all night in the mooring field (sans CO detector onboard) was "perfectly acceptable because cruise ships do it all the time".... with very little pushback really causes me concern for their audience.

I have always appreciated forums for this.  While the odd duck comes along and encourages something goofy from time to time, there is equal opportunity for push back.

Of course, not everything we read in books is right either...  thankfully not too many are drizzling whale oil to keep the waves from washing over us any longer ;)

[Phantom Jim]

Books published by reputable firms will have a peer review process that will prevent the publisher looking like a total ignoramus.  Blogs do not have that feature.  Lord help us from the ignorant who do not know what they do not know!

[Bubba the Pirate]

My personal (not) favorite is Linus Wilson, Slow Boat Sailing. He wrote a book about sailing around the world part time  ...

      ... before ever doing it.  Apparently based on his conjecture, his theory on how a person could do it.  Same vacuous advice as the Vloggers with the dangerous gravitas of being an old school book; even as a Kindle version.

One of my (real) heroes is Jerome Rand, who solo non-stop circumnavigated with no sponsors, no fanfare, simple satellite text reports forwarded to Facebook by his mom.  He is currently back in the USVI, writing the book ... about what he's actually done.

[Frank]

Sad....
Armchair expert...

[CapnK]

Interesting, will have to look them up, thanks!

[Captain Smollett]

Good rant, KR.  I read it a while ago and had to compose my thoughts a bit before responding.  This is an issue I've commented on in other contexts as well as sailing with friends.

I really don't want to "put down" younger folks as a general statement because I know quite a few teens and early 20's people that give me great hope for the future.  They are out there.  With that said, there are also some that make me scratch my head.  These are in part the ones that act like everything they do is new, not just to them but to the world.

For example, I watched a YT vid earlier today that just rubbed me very wrong.  A younger dude told the world we were all tying our fishing lines wrong because he apparently learned about another knot that was "better."  Never mind if the one he said was no longer good enough has been used for generations all over the world and has stood the test of time and hard use.  He found something "better" therefore everyone else is "wrong."

Now I'll "other hand" this to end on a not-negative note.  These particular ones are also the ones that are "out there" doing "it" ...their thing... and are excited / passionate enough about it to talk about it online, make videos and share their "discoveries" with the world.  A little more humility in their learning process would be nice, but they are learning.