[Rhodes22-list] New Sailor Fears

[John Lock]

Hi Bill and welcome!

I am in much the same place as you, except it's my wife who is afraid of capsizing.  You've heard the best advice from others - give your son some measure of control via the tiller or mainsheet.  Take him out when there's enough wind to work with, but not enough to be work.  Let him experiment with different heeling angles, finding the comfort zone, and pushing the edges when he wants to.  He's a teenager, it's built in.

Cheers!
John Lock
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
s/v Pandion - '79 Rhodes 22 
Lake Sinclair, GA
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


On May 9, 2011, at 21:54, Bill Pauer wrote:
> Hello, Everyone,
> 
> My family and I are the proud new owners of our first Rhodes 22 (a  
> 1980 Rhodes which you may have seen on the list about a month ago).  I  
> am working on a list of mechanical questions for the list, but for the  
> moment I was hoping for some help with one of my crew.  I have a  
> twelve year old daughter and fourteen year old son.  While we don't  
> have much sailing experience as a family, my wife has had sailing  
> lessons and has actually instructed on small boats and I have sailed  
> for many years making it up as I went along.  The trouble I am having  
> is convincing my fourteen year old son that the boat is not going to  
> capsize.  I would like to say that it can't happen, but I am fairly  
> sure that is not the case.  I did read in "The Report on the Rhodes  
> 22"  on Stan's site that because of the flared sides, the boat will  
> not capsize while under sail.
> Does anyone have a story that I could share with my son that might  
> instill some confidence that the chances of turning turtle and sinking  
> to the bottom of the lake are slim to none?
> Thanks for your help.
> 
> Bill
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