Essential Yachting Rules and Etiquette in Details » Yachts & Boats

We discussed yachting rules and etiquette briefly in the previous article. Let's talk about some most essential rules and etiquette in more details in this article.

Life has changed. Besides sailing yachts, motor yachts are successfully used for a long period of time already. Sailing yachts are more comfortable and more reliable in navigability. However the price for these kind of yachts is high. Not many people can allow themselves such a purchase. And here is a paradox: a man, who purchased a yacht for a big sum of money considers he can do whatever he wants on the yacht.

But! Yacht is a water type of transport and yachting submits to all navigation laws. All of rules, norm of behavior and etiquette spread straightly at any ship, weather it's small or huge.

So, take off your shoes when you entered a yacht. This is, perhaps, one of the simplest rules - independently if it's your yacht or somebody's else, if it is a man in boots or a woman on heels. Certainly, a great deal is projected from an ordinary good breeding. People take off there shoes when they enter somebodies apartment from the street in many countries. Even the English Queen Elisabeth unshoes when she visits a yacht. They say that there is a special chair and deck slippers for her, it doesn't ever come to her mind not to change her shoes. However, barefoot walking on a yacht is also not acceptable: first - it's not hygienic (let's assume that you have ten guests), second - traumatic (it's slippery on the main decks and it's also possible to wound yourself in bottlenecks). Owners walk in the special footwear on a yacht, and guests can walk in white socks or terry slippers as a last resort. However the special footwear is also recommended for guests (socks and slippers also do not save from sliding). Yachting Rules - Footwear

Food on a yacht. Yachts are equipped with all necessary for food preparation, its storage, and also for a comfort pastime at the table in the company of friends today. There is all you need on a yacht - from an oven, dishwashing machine to the grill. Therefore there are no problems with food cooking and wash up. However, it is not customary to use for food red products as red wine, red berries on yachts. They can leave spots on a deck or clothes (it's accepted to wear white on a yacht) at falling. There is a proverb - as you treat the yacht, so she pays you.

Do not create inconvenience for another boat. It's a rule. However not many remember it. You can see often - someone decided to show himself, or a yacht is more powerful, or just to impress girls on the beach, in the water or on a slowly sailing powerboat. To sail alongside at a high speed is not only disrespectful, but sometimes it also creates dangerous situations. A collision is the worst case, but even if the risk of collision is absent, nobody has a right to be up to everything, that comes into his head, nearby other ships. The yacht can be damaged by a heavy wave when berthed at or while alongside any quay. Swimming adults and children are also not saved from strikes against the walls and stones. And simply the mood of people who are on a nearby yacht can be spoiled, if because of the heavy rolling wine was poured out on expensive carpets or at the clothes of beloved girl...
Yachting rules - shoes

Yachting clothes and footwear. It is customary to wear white on a yacht - sun, sea, cleanness. Clothes and footwear must be specialized. In other words, clothes must be convenient, comfortable, not getting wet, but if it got wet, it should get dry quickly. Clothes should protect you against the wind and moisture in the evening. To go in a trip is like on a war. Shoes should also be specialized. It is called topsider. It is comfortable, made of a natural leather as a rule, treated in a special way and is on a special non-sliding sole. A street footwear is changed to the yacht shoes, which are worn only on a yacht. All of guest shoes are put in a special teak locker, packed in separate bags first.

It is not worth to wear a business suit on a yacht. Certainly, it is beautiful. But practice shows different. A man comes in expensive suit, he just came to a yacht from a restaurant to have a cup of tea on a main deck in the evening. He does not notice that a captain changed his clothes already. The man sits down on a seat, it is raw. They wiped it, but moisture lies down again. Somebody brought a plaid, it also got wet. The suit is not in an ideal condition already, and it's uncomfortably in it. It's a rule – when you came on a yacht - change your clothes, take off your suit and shoes, put on good expensive yacht clothes which both in a yacht-club and in a restaurant will look effective, everybody will understand that this is an owner of a yacht. The whole industry is working in this direction today.

It must be much supplies aboard. Water and clean linen supplies has to be enough for the period of all trip. Always clean towels, ironed linen. Food-supply naturally has to be sufficient too, but the main is water and linen. Experienced captains have a saying: “If you are going at sea for a day – take supplies for a week, if for a week - take for a month”.

Woman on a yacht. Is it possible to imagine a yacht without women? The phrase is composed by itself: sea, yachts, girls... Girls like to come to a yacht-club in skirts and on heels. Then problems begin here. The heels of expensive fancy shoes stick in the holes of moorages (and moorages are advisedly made so, that water did not remain on them, but not in order that girls broke the heels) - footwear is spoiled, the mood is spoiled therefor. Skirts ride up at any gust of the wind (and it will necessarily be by the water) and so on.

It is customary for women to wear trousers on a yacht, these can be breeches or shorts also, if the shape allows. Footwear should be of the yachting type. The heels of even exquisite shoes will necessarily spoil very expensive teak coating of rooms and decks. Wearing of a panty-hose is nonsense. It is improper among yachtsmen if a woman is in the panty-hose without shoes walking around a yacht. The personal hygiene is always a trouble in the long trip. A woman troubles a team, and she is troubled with circumstances. The water is always husbanded during the sailing. If you are used to take a shower three times a days, sorry, you can't allowed this luxury here. Especially if a trip is enduring. If you washed your stuff, where would you dry it? Certainly not on the main deck. Can you imagine, once we saw drying woman pants streaming in the wind on the deck of an expensive yacht.

Women endure rolling worse, the bad mood follows therefore. But! Respectful attitude to a woman is the first rule on a shipboard. Therefore, if a woman was taken to a yacht, she should imagine what is waiting for her, and also necessarily submit to all the laws accepted for a trip.

Limitations. Yacht is a limited closed world. It's necessary to accept many things or to limit yourself. You have to be ready for this. It is not worth to take your friends in a trip with whom you can have conflict relations, they worsen there. Especially in complicate trip and climatic conditions. It is better to limit the trip with an unfamiliar company on your yacht in wild places with fishing, grill and women up to 2 days. Buying trophies and souvenirs, it's also necessary to check whether fishing is allowed in the district of your sailing, whether coral extraction is not forbidden, and if it is allowed to take out of the country antiques found under the water. You can depart in a long trip with tested people. Life is cyclic in the long trip. Your life rhythm can not coincide with a rhythm of other people on a yacht. When you are sleeping, others can make noise and have a party at the deck. You are sleeping, and the situation on the water does not submit you. Therefore there is another and the most important rule.

The captain is always right. As they say: “Who did not sail at the sea, that did not pray God”. As soon as a yacht was put out to the blue water, the most important man becomes not the owner, but the captain. Yes, the captain and the crew have to be unnoticeable on a ship, not to hinder owners and guests. However, it depends on him how safe and successful will be the trip. It is necessary to remember that you are associating not with a captain, but with the nature, with the circumstances of insuperable force.

The captain responds for the passengers at any time of the day. Captains tell different stories, but one stuck to my memory more. A politician, who rendered a sponsor support to a team during the sailing regatta, asked to accept him to the team. The yacht got in the strongest gale. The general council decided not to return, as it was yet more dangerously, but to sail further. A strong large man was suddenly scared, he yelled that it's necessary to return and threatened to throw overboard anyone who will say something counter to him. This did not influence and he decided to jump out himself. If he jumped out in a gale at night it would be no chance that he would be found and saved. They tied him. But he was beaten before this (since he was too strong and made resistance). Since he was sea-sick in a closed cabin, he was tied on a deck, and he spent the whole night in such condition. He was rolled, thrown from side to side, flowed over. The trip was finished successfully. He silently went out ashore at return. And... he asked to take him in a trip for the next year again.

There are situations when you are powerless. But the captain knows better than you what should be done in such situations. The captain is not a servant. One needs to listen to him and he can't be told “no” on a ship.

There are many rules of behavior for yachtsmen on water, but very important rule is to help to the one who got into trouble. There are no grades here, everybody is equal. You helped somebody today and somebody will help you tomorrow.

Remember that a mutual help and inviolability of the private life is the foundation of a yacht etiquette.