no hiding on a boat
I regularly dial into the webinar series "Blue Water Sailing" run by Grand Large Yachting Group in association with Yachting World. If you have been reading my blog for a while, you'll know that I am a fan of Garcia Yachts. Grand Large Yachting group has built more than 1 000 professional and leisure boats at its shipyards ranging from 30 to 138ft and is well known for excellence in design, reliability and resistance. Amongst Garcia, they also own Allures Yachting, Outremer, Gunboat and RM Yachts. All pretty well-known brands for bluewater cruising. BTW, I have no affiliation with GLY, neither is this paid advertising. BUT GLY, if you decide to give me a discount on an "Exploration 52", I won't say no :-)
Either way, last week, I watched the 4th webinar in the bluewater sailing series with Nikki Henderson, and she talked about "Can there be more than one skipper on board?"
If you don't know Nikki, she skippered her first Trans-Atlantic race at just 20 and is one of the UK's leading young sailors. She is the youngest person ever to have skippered a yacht in the Clipper Round the World race, coming second in the 2017/18 edition at 25 years old. Since the age of 18, Nikki has pursued a career in professional sailing and has earned worldwide respect for her accomplishments.
Without going too much into detail (you can watch the replay here), Nikki's talk reminded me of some of my bluewater trips with a crew and how everyone shows their character, strengths and weaknesses. The sea flushes this out of you and puts it on display. Every time.
From a business and leadership perspective, one can pretty much tell after some days (and nights) on the water who falls into which category. You'll see introverts suddenly turn into demanding leaders, extroverts who talk and talk but run for the hills (or rather go below) when the wind reaches 40knots, and apparent team players who suddenly sit back and let others do the difficult jobs. There is no hiding your character on a boat.
I wonder what your views are, and I highly recommend the GLY webinar series. The next one up is "Medicine basics on board" with Martin Oudet (Emergency Doctor). Thursday 18 Nov, 1 pm (Paris time).
Fair winds!