I too have some experience in boats, from beetle cats, to wyano srs, to a whole slew of cape dory's and lymans. I sailed a 32 foot colin archer to Hawaii with a high school friend for what amounted to about 6 bucks a day. I have sailed in the carib and in new england waters. I too know what it is like to be in a position of being forced to choose options not up to you liking, but the only applicable one at the time. When we were sailing the colin archer, which had been built in Denmark and was an amazing sea boat, we faced several days of 40-50 knot winds and 30 foots seas. You have never felt as small as you really are when you are at sea in a storm 600 miles from shore. We had no motor and we ended loosing nearly 3 days of sailing from being blown back toward seattle. The boat did amazingly well, but it was literally the slow boat to China.
Dropping a few hundred bucks worth of guns overboard is no big deal. If they seize the boat, how many thousands would that have been instead? Paying the bite really only works when you know the options are just uncomfortable rather than painful. And offering the wrong bribe may just get you the same charges as the weapons possesion.
One time on a bare boat out of Antigua, we had to just bite the bullet and pay for a few extra days of charter and loose out plane reservations because the weatherwas just not going to allow us to make the return date. Sure, I could have pushed it, but in a rented boat, with an ok crew but not real experienced sailors, my options were not terribly good that I would make it back without paying just as much if not more in damages to the boat. Having to beat 130 miles into prevailing winds is not the most fun anytime, but into 8-10 seas with 25 knots on the nose, it just is not worth making the trip change from we had a wonderful 10 days in the Leewards, to "we were all seasick, and we lost two sails trying to make it back for some stupid deadline."
Dropping a few hundred bucks worth of guns overboard is no big deal. If they seize the boat, how many thousands would that have been instead? Paying the bite really only works when you know the options are just uncomfortable rather than painful. And offering the wrong bribe may just get you the same charges as the weapons possesion.
One time on a bare boat out of Antigua, we had to just bite the bullet and pay for a few extra days of charter and loose out plane reservations because the weatherwas just not going to allow us to make the return date. Sure, I could have pushed it, but in a rented boat, with an ok crew but not real experienced sailors, my options were not terribly good that I would make it back without paying just as much if not more in damages to the boat. Having to beat 130 miles into prevailing winds is not the most fun anytime, but into 8-10 seas with 25 knots on the nose, it just is not worth making the trip change from we had a wonderful 10 days in the Leewards, to "we were all seasick, and we lost two sails trying to make it back for some stupid deadline."
