You might remember my friend from Issue 6. He was the one who asked me what my plan B was after I told him the storm story. The one who smiled in the way that people who know things smile when they realise you do not know them yet.
I told him about Issue 8 last week. The renting vs owning comparison, the numbers, the crossover point at forty days a year.
He nodded. Then he said something I had not considered.
"You left out the third option."
He was right. I had mentioned it at the end, almost as a footnote. Chartering with a skipper on board. But I had not really explained it, because I have never done it myself. He has. Many times. And the way he described it changed how I think about the whole question of learning to boat properly.
He did not build his experience from one skipper. He built it from many.
Every time he chartered, he made a point of booking with a different captain. These were not day trips or afternoon outings. Each charter was a week or two at sea: proper passages, living on the boat, dealing with real offshore conditions from departure to arrival. Different skippers, different waters, different boats. Some were methodical and precise, the kind who explain every step before they take it. Others were instinctive, doing things by feel and explaining afterwards, if at all. Some had spent their careers on open ocean passages. Others knew specific stretches of coast so well they could read the water without looking at the instruments.
And here is what he found: every single one of them approached the same problems differently.
The way one skipper handled a difficult mooring was completely unlike the way another did. One anchored in a particular spot for reasons the next captain would have weighed differently. And when it came to reading conditions on the water, the lesson was perhaps the most important of all: two experienced skippers might read the same wind in exactly the same way, and still make completely different decisions in response.
One read the afternoon wind building on the water and decided to push on, knowing the boat and the destination could handle what was coming. Another skipper, facing the same wind on a different day, made exactly the same reading and chose to anchor in a sheltered bay instead, because his boat, his crew, and his route called for a different response. Same conclusion about the wind. Two completely different and equally correct decisions made from it.
At first this was surprising. Then it became the most valuable thing about the whole experience.
Because seamanship is not just about reading conditions correctly. It is about knowing what the right response is for your specific situation — your boat, your crew, your destination, your margins. When you learn from one person, you learn one set of responses. When you learn from many, across weeks at sea in real offshore conditions, you start to understand the principles behind the different responses. And that is where real competence begins.
The fundamentals came first and came fast. A week at sea means mooring, anchoring, and handling lines every single day, sometimes multiple times. Knots tied and untied until the hands know what to do before the mind has finished deciding. Safety checks and engine routines done in every port and anchorage. These things become automatic not because someone explained them once, but because offshore passages demand them repeatedly and without shortcuts. By the time my friend went solo, the fundamentals were not things he had to think about. They were simply things he did.
Then came the deeper skills. Understanding how a specific stretch of coast or open water behaves at different times of day and in different seasons. Knowing when conditions are genuinely manageable and when they are not. Learning to read the signs early enough to make good decisions rather than reactive ones. A week at sea with an experienced skipper exposes you to more real situations than a season of weekend day trips. Two weeks with a different skipper doubles that, and adds a completely different perspective on the same sea.
And then there are the things nobody plans to learn. The repair made with what is on board because there is no alternative. The weather that arrives differently from the forecast and requires a decision in real time. The mechanical issue that cannot wait for a marina. These are the situations that build genuine confidence, not because they go perfectly, but because they get handled. And they are far more likely to arise and be properly managed in the context of a week-long passage with a skilled skipper alongside than on any other kind of trip a beginner could take.
My friend did not decide he was ready to go solo on a particular day. It was more gradual than that. One charter, then another, then another. More weeks at sea, more skippers, more situations. Until one day he realised that when something happened on the water, his first instinct was no longer to look for the skipper. It was to deal with it.
That is what enough hours looks like. And chartering with a skipper for a week or two at a time is the fastest legitimate way to accumulate the kind of hours that actually build that instinct.
One more thing before I go: the boat budget calculator I mentioned in Issue 8 is still in progress. A few more weeks and it will be ready. When it is, I will dedicate a full issue to it. In the meantime, Issue 8 has the manual version of the numbers if you want to run them yourself.
See you next week.
— Ale
Learning from one skipper teaches you one way of doing things. Learning from many, across multiple weeks at sea, teaches you why things are done at all.
The fundamentals — mooring, anchoring, knots, safety checks — become automatic through repetition, and a week-long offshore passage delivers more repetitions than months of weekend outings. Everything beyond that is variable, and the best way to learn variable skills is through real situations, in real conditions, with experienced people making decisions alongside you and explaining them.
Charter with a skipper not once but several times. Make each charter a proper passage, not a day trip. Change the skipper each time if you can. The variety is not a complication. It is the point.
If you want to try chartering with a skipper for a week or two, Click & Boat is one of the largest peer-to-peer boat charter platforms in Europe, covering Italy, France, Croatia, Spain, and beyond. You can filter specifically for boats that include a skipper, read reviews from previous charterers, and compare prices and boat types before booking. A useful starting point for anyone looking to put this week's lesson into practice.
Experience and competence are not the same thing, and it is a fair question. A few signals worth looking for when booking: reviews that mention specific things the skipper taught or explained, rather than just general praise. A willingness to answer questions before the charter, not just during. References to safety briefings and preparation in past reviews. And on the day itself — or the week itself — a good skipper explains decisions rather than just making them. You are paying to be at sea and to learn. If the skipper treats you as cargo rather than crew, you are not getting the full value of the experience. The best ones understand that an engaged, learning crew is also a more capable and safer crew.
