Kites, boats and personalities

[Grizwald]

I am looking for opinions or wild ass guesses for that matter.

So imagine you own a good sized sailboat. You are planing an extended sail around the Caribbean stopping at odd places and kiting whenever wind and conditions allow. You want to invite kiters who you have never met to join you for roughly a week at a time. One week because you don't really know these people and one can put up with almost anything for a week. The time could vary depending on the distance between ports and about five million other factors.

Part 1. How would you as the boat owner go about weeding out the dicks from the non-dicks.
How would you figure out if someone's personality would become irritating the moment you were out of sight of land?
What skills, attributes, life experiences would you like to see?
What would be absolute red flags.
What would be absolute minimum requirements - eg not getting seasick is one pretty obvious requirement.

Remember as the owner/ skipper of said boat if someone decides to bring aboard a gram of cocaine and customs finds it, not only do you and the perpetrator both go to jail, you loose the boat so finding a non-dick is pretty important.

Part 2. If you were offered a situation like this what would you want to see in the owner / boat etc. However romantic or exciting it sounds, getting on a sailboat is like living in a closet. Living in closet is bad enough but if the other denizens of the closet do anything really stupid you could die, so it is worth thinking about before you buy a plane ticket.

Thank you one and all for your opinions
Griz

[Grizwald]

In case I wasn't clear, this isn't some sneaky way of advertising a kite charter.
Kiting off the beach of a remote tropical island is great but it is a lot safer with another kiter.

[Herman]

Hi! My name is J Sparrow and I would like to apply for the position of first mate, or watch leader for your proposed trip. I have the following attributes:

Able to tie a bowline knot in several ways and work on basic rigging.
Para medic skills,
Shipwrights skills, Diesel engines, electrics, heads not adverse to a bit of shit.
Good cook able to work in a small galley underway,
Navigation skills both DR and GPS, familiar with charts etc
Quartermaster, vitalling, meteorologist, and planning skills,
Used to sleeping quietly in confined spaces
Adaptable and good sense of humour,

I can show you a number of forged documents showing qualifications from various national and military organisations (a lot of forces have fleets of yachts for adventure training, team building etc) and of course my sailing log that shows all the trips that I have done in the past. The one I regret missing most was the skipper who was looking for a saxophone player to be the final crew member for a sail round the world. I have only been involved in three mutinies, non of which were my fault!

Personality:
My main interest is GOLD, GOLD....... harrrgh harrrgh. Interview technique is sneaky stuff!!! (Ask a copper!)

PS the way you describe your crew rotation is the same way as some military organisations run this type of adventure training so there is a band of people you may be able to tap into with the right expectations but, it will still be a lot of potluck and you would need contingency for no shows. Best of luck!!

[nothing2seehere]

1. Go for a drink in a pub.
1b. Everyone is annoying. Accept it and look for someone with a creative sense of humour. The more creatively someone can insult you, the better (If you know History today from the Mary Whitehouse Experience you know what I mean) as you are going to run out with things to talk about after about 3 weeks

2. I'd want to see plans. Too few plans and a wing it attitude would suggest someone unprepared for problems (storms were late and we're moored in the wrong place). Too many would suggest someone too inflexible to handle the problems that will inevitably happen (we've just hit a submerged container and the hull is leaking)

Sounds fun. I probably wouldn't limit myself just to kiters though. Kiting will be the thing you probably spend the least amount of time doing. Maybe look for someone who enjoys videoing kiters instead - and is handy with a rescue dinghy?

[tkaraszewski]

I am in the Caribbean (the BVI for this season, since COVID has made traveling between countries pretty difficult this year) living on my sailboat (a Beneteau Oceanis 411). Most of the good kite spots seem to be pretty well-known, and it's not too tough to meet the other (either local or tourist) kiters in these places. The nice thing about meeting other kiters who aren't staying with you is you can avoid them if you don't like them, and keep your own space.

My "crew" is just myself, my wife, our two children, and our dog. This has been working well for us.

Current location (as of yesterday morning):

[Grizwald]

Nothing2seehere- you have more or less hit on the problem and the purpose of this post. Going to the pub and getting acquainted is exactly how it should happen. Getting friends to come along is relatively easy. Meeting up with people who kite, have time and means to go, like sailing, is/are not a dick and live close enough to meet up for a beer, now that is a challenge.

I am not enough of a dick that I would encourage someone to fly across an ocean to a small island, meet them for a beer and then say "no I don't like the way your nose hairs wrap around your face and end up in your ears." That is why I figured a week. If it worked out we'd invite them back later. Also just because we like someone does not mean they like us or our boat. Having a definite time period allows them an end point so they don't have to plan a mutiny or murder. I hate being murdered by unhappy crew.

From the crew perspective, when I was crewing I always saw the boat before I committed to getting on, someone coming from - say Europe - wouldn't have that option until after they had forked out for a plane ticket. I could send pictures of course but anyone who has ever shopped for a boat knows that pictures lie. On one boat that I crewed on in my youth, I was the only one who didn't wear glasses. We were crossing some shipping lines in nasty weather and I was the only one who could see anything in the rain. It is always surprising that such little things can make such a big difference.
You make an excellent point about the plans except that it only takes one storm or one broken impeller to throw everything into a cock hat. This is something that I am still puzzling over. How do you agree to meet someone in Grenada when you are broken down in Saint Lucia? Longer term no big deal but for someone coming for a week could be a big problem.

Herman your alter ego has an impressive resume. Are the forged documents of good quality? I have found good forgers are very hard to find. Do you play the saxophone or do you just use it as an instrument of torture?
Other than from an annoyance standpoint no-shows are not that big a deal. We can run the boat ourselves.

Thanks for you input. Hurricane season is almost upon us, and Covid lock-downs are still a thing so I have some time to work this out, but I very much appreciate your thoughts and suggestions on this matter.
I would really like to here from non-sailing people so I can get a sense of what their hopes fears and expectations would be, so if you could encourage some of your friends to consider this and drop me a line it would be greatly appreciated.
Stay safe,
Griz

[grtlakes]

Kiteboarders are in general a pretty cool self sufficient bunch. Have faith and check their sense of humour.

[Grizwald]

tkaraszewski - sweet. I have never been on any bay in BVI where we were alone. There are some positive aspects of Covid. How do you like the Oceanis? I have a couple friends with older Benateaus and they are bullet proof.
I definitely take your point re meeting people locally. Can you kite off the boat or do you go to shore to pump up / launch?

Grtlakes - I absolutely agree. I would never even contemplate something like this for any other group. That being said, all you have to do is go to a crowded launch and there is always at least one dickwad who insists on doing tricks right in front so no one can launch or land safely. And then there is the turnip who lands his kite, with lines over everyone else and just walks away. Being stuck on a boat with people like these would be a close approximation of hell.

[tkaraszewski]

tkaraszewski - sweet. I have never been on any bay in BVI where we were alone. There are some positive aspects of Covid. How do you like the Oceanis? I have a couple friends with older Benateaus and they are bullet proof.
I definitely take your point re meeting people locally. Can you kite off the boat or do you go to shore to pump up / launch?

I've been happy with the boat. Pretty much everything works. The boat has a solar arch/dinghy davits and a wind generator above the transom, so I've jsut been launching from beaches, it's a bit sketchy to launch a kite into a a bunch of electrical equipment, though it's probably possible.

[GTC]

Years ago I worked as a crew member in a sailboat. Make sure that the person you get on board doesn't have any alcohol addiction. Even the nicest and kindest guy can become a beast when frequent drinking is not allowed.