It was the delivery trip from hell. Five of us - all experienced sailors - went to collect the newly purchased yacht of one of our number and deliver her from her old base to her new home.
Only the proud new owner had ever stepped aboard her before. We drove a very long way, had a fish and chip supper ashore and, already tired, set straight off into the evening. When we reached the pierheads, the owner succumbed to sea sickness and took to his bunk. Then we discovered that the Decca (as it was in those days) refused to work.
It was rapidly going dark. We were in strange waters in a boat we did not know. None of us had a clue where anything was stowed - or indeed even if it would be there if we looked for it. And the next problem was that we could not even find a torch to search with.
Fortunately one of our number had a tiny Magilite in the pocket of his oilskins. It was the only light we had between us. That was the first of a series of valuable lessons learned on that trip. Ever since then I have always kept a small torch in my own jacket pocket.
So much of the way we do things on a boat is shaped by this sort of experience. But there's no reason why everyone should have to go through the same tortuous, sometimes painful and potentially hazardous route to learning these valuable lessons.
TheMainSail has some 22,000 members, the majority with many years' experience on the water - a quarter of a million man years altogether is probably a gross underestimate. So we must have an awful lot of accumulated wisdom and expertise between us.
Why not share it, to try to stop others having to go through some of the scary or just plain ridiculous moments most of us have been through along the way?
To encourage you to pass on those hard-won tips and tricks we are offering a £300 Olympus 7 megapixel digital camera - waterproof, so ideal for taking pictures afloat - for the best post in our new forum thread The Best Lesson I Ever Learned.
The idea is to look beyond the RYA training syllabus - valuable as it is - at the real practicalities of life afloat. For example, the official syllabus tells you when to wear a lifejacket - in rough weather and at night. It doesn't tell you just how difficult it is to take it off, along with the rest of your foul weather gear, when going off watch - or how to stop it getting in a tangle so that you struggle to put it on in a hurry when you're called back on deck.
So please share your thoughts, ideas and experiences. You could win that camera. There will also be a bunch of Campkins vouchers as runner up prizes. And even if you don't win a prize, you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that you've helped someone else avoid a mistake they might otherwise have made - and made their enjoyment of being on the water that much greater.
And isn't that what it's all about?
