Boathandling experience

One of the more frequently quoted examples of Club 'elitism' that reaches my ears regards that favourite pastime of handling boats.

It would seem that some members of the Club, who can still count the number of years that they have been diving using the fingers God gave them, have been bold enough to suggest that they are seeing the same people time after time coxing the Club boats.

While they are keen to point out that they revere the uncountable years of boathandling experience seeping out of the very pores of such exalted individuals, they do have a very valid point in that, because of their comparative inexperience, they are infrequently invited to cox a boat, and consequently, their level of experience seems to grow at an irritatingly slow rate.

I, for one, having dived 'HMS ABC, (in the vicinity of)' a number of times, endorse the paramount importance of a well experienced seaman on board the lead boat when wreck-finding activities are in progress, and feel that our record of finding what we are looking for has improved in latter years.

Accepting the wisdom of including an embodied encyclopaedia of matters maritime as a part of the boat equipment checklist, I do not necessarily see why such an important consultant need debase him/herself by actually having to do any of the real work. After all, consultants in all other walks of life never do any work, just tell others how to do theirs!

I'm sure that this founding principle of business life can be easily adopted by our Club, and Dive Marshals can in the future be assured that by selecting a perhaps less experienced Cox'n, but giving him one of the 'old salts' as crew, not only will the general seamanship quota of the Club climb, but the Marshal can assure himself that he is following best business practice.

Of course, as overall Manager of the Day, he will be far too wily to fall into the management trap of 'doing it all himself', and will select cox'ns and their crew from amongst his 'motley crew' on the day. Not only does this represent an intelligent division of labour, it also gives him someone to blame when the 'unnamed wreck' he picked out of Sea Anglers Monthly (August 1964) can't be found!

This page was last updated on : 09 Sep 2018