Women at the helm of a cruising yacht.

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WOMEN AT THE HELM

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[One women's journey to becoming an equal partner in this cruising life]

For my part, I know that I was full of anxiety when we first started sailing. It was only after talking with other women that I could understand some of the reasons for my nervousness and fears, and that I wasn’t alone.

One problem I recognized in myself was my difficulty in judging speed and distance on the water. Everything seemed closer than it actually was. I worried about avoiding oncoming boats and took “evasive” action long before it might have become necessary. I was convinced that I was going to run our home up on the rocks, never mind that the rocks I worried about were half a mile away from us and 90 degrees off our course! To an experienced helmsman such as Peter, my worries seemed irrational because he didn’t see things the way I did. To him, that boat over there was at least 10 (or 15) minutes away from us and the person at the helm of that boat surely saw us and wasn’t about to let us collide. Those rocks didn’t even register on his consciousness because they were not in our way. He knew exactly how long it would take to get from Point A to Point B, he knew what our direction was, what the current was doing to us, and how fast we were going. He knew what our boat could do, under sail or under power. And once I realized that I could learn these things myself I could set out a program of learning how to handle the boat better, and thus control my fears.

I played games. When I was at the helm I’d guess at the time it would take for us to pass a landmark on shore, or reach a buoy, or pass an anchored boat - something fixed. I would them time our passage to that point. It always took longer than I had expected, of course. I would calculate how far off I was in my estimate and try again. The exercises helped me judge distances on the water better, and helped ease my anxiety that things were going to happen too fast to control.

Then there was the day that we were backing out of a marina slip and the engine wouldn’t go into forward. Peter deployed everything soft that we had in the cockpit - fenders and boat cushions. They cushioned our contact with the dock, and no harm was done. It may have been frightening to me, but Peter’s no-nonsense handling of the “emergency” quickly calmed me down.

There were all the times we practiced coming up to our mooring under sail. And sailing off our mooring, and sailing onto and off our anchor. We would start our engine but leave it in neutral, which reassured me that if I goofed I could put the boat into gear and get us out of trouble. It took many successful maneuvers before I could be convinced to do it completely under sail, but we were both determined that I learn how to do it and be confident doing it. And with each new skill, other problems also resolved themselves, such as my insistence on anchoring so far our that it took us forever to dinghy into the beach. Once I understood that I could steer us out of harm’s way, and that things looked closer than they were, it became easier to be braver about closing on the beach. Once I learned how to extricate us from a grounding or other problem, the less worrisome that possibility became.

As in so many areas of life, success breeds success. Each time I did something well my confidence increased. We would then play “what if” games and try something new.

Our first offshore passage through a storm was not very frightening because we had already done passages in fine weather which proved to me that I could handle myself and the boat, and the bad weather just proved that our boat could handle the weather. That built up my confidence even more.

That just left the vague fears, the ones I couldn’t express because I wasn’t really sure what they were. Those just eased and disappeared as we cruised and built up experience.

Try this. When you weigh anchor, and are feeling anxious, let your partner take over the helm, and go below and lie down for a while - half an hour, an hour - until your heart rate slows down. You might find that this little trick (Peter calls it my “vapors,” and I still indulge them) calms you down significantly and makes the trip less stressful.

But the best cure for anxiety is experience and competence. Practice in non-threatening situations so that you can trust your judgment, and learn how to navigate, and just about anything else you are worried about so you won't feel powerless or vulnerable should something happen to your partner.

We were all novices at one time. We’ve all had to learn how to handle ourselves and our equipment. All those competent and “fearless” people out there once were fumble-fingered and clumsy and did dumb things.

Jeanne.

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