WHY


While sitting in my boat one day I heard a boat engine close by. I went outside and asked the Captain if he needed help tying up. He said "Yeh, thanks" and so I stood on the dock alone, waiting for him to dock the boat and throw me the lines. Before I knew it, out of nowhere there were guys pushing me out of the way and taking the lines surrounding me. I did not think much of it and just walked away. That is, until it happened over and over again.

I began to mention it to a few people who basically just brushed it off. Okay, I thought, maybe I am making a mountain out of a molehill. Then one night my husband Fran and I were waiting on the dock for a friend to dock his boat and tie up, just the two of us, him at the bow and me at the stern. The boat closed in on the dock. The captain threw the bow and spring lines to Fran who proceeded to put the lines on the cleat and walk back to stand next to me. The captain looked right at me and threw the line to Fran. What is going on here?

Am I invisible or just so stupid looking that I am not capable of putting a line on a cleat? I am sure if I were the only one on the dock I would be competent enough. But obviously if there is a choice, the male is always the better choice. WHY??? I mentioned this to my husband but he just shrugged it off and said, "What's the big deal?" but then, he's male so he did not see a problem.

I was sitting in John and Penny's boat one day when the subject came up that Penny would really like us to go sailing with them so she could learn more. She told me that whenever she went sailing with John she felt stupid because she was always doing something wrong and getting yelled at. WHY??? Was she really doing things wrong or just not doing them the way "HE" would have done them or the way that he wanted them done?

I started thinking about these small things and realized I had never seen a boat book with an actual study of the differences in the way men's and women's brains work in reference to boating. Obviously, there is a difference.

Barbara and Lary (not a misprint) Baur have been living on Quintessence for over 8 years. Fran and I have been living on Ariel for over 8 years also. We sail and cruise as individual couples and together on each other's boats. We are amazingly compatible both on land and sea. We discovered early on that when we are cruising together the watch team seems to get along much better if the combination is Barb and Fran on one watch, Shirley and Lary on the other. Isn't this odd? Or not? No marriage, no commitment. No involvement equals no arguments or disagreements. Little did I know at the time that this one small observation would lead to a book on relationships and boating.

Eventually Barbara and I sat down and started talking about all of the observations and decided that we had a very interesting and little studied subject. The more we talked about it, the deeper the subject got and so, this book was born.

MEN GO TO PORT, WOMEN GO TO STARBOARD is not meant to put down either men or women. It is just a study in human behavior while boating. It is meant to let women know that they are not alone. We are not dumber or less competent than men, we are just different. We have differing views on how and why to do things. We just have to get the opposite sex to realize this. We may not do things their way but the end result is usually the same. That is all that really matters in life and boating, the end result.

Women over the years have gotten their freedom to vote, work outside the home and equality of the sexes. In this new millennium, maybe it is time to bring that equality and freedom to boating. We can sail that boat and we can do it our way on our watch. I do not have the answers to solving all the relationship problems on the water. I am not a psychologist. All I can do is share the information that I have gathered with you. Hopefully you will find help among these pages if that is what you are looking for. If nothing else, you might get some insight into the relationship issues and a few chuckles along the way.

Who knows, someday we may all stand on the dock, side by side, and be handed that dock line as a fellow boater, not as a man or woman!