Yacht owner here. Well, it’s a 56-year-old 28-foot sailboat, but technically it qualifies as a yacht, so I’m going with that. I spent a considerable amount of money and an inordinate amount of time repairing and restoring the deck, then covering it in white, non-slip paint. White, because just about any other color will absolutely burn you up out in the sun. And due to the rough surface of the non-slip coating, it picks up and holds onto the smallest bit of dirt or scuffing for dear life and is a pain to clean. So, yes, I absolutely have a ‘deck shoes or no shoes’ rule on my boat. And since most of my friends and family don’t happen to own a pair of Sperry Docksiders, that translates to shoes off on my boat.
The coiling of the unused part of a dockline into a neat flat spirail is called “flemishing” and among sailors, it is a sign that one has a care for attention and detail. If you take the time to flemish your docklines, your boat is probably pretty ship-shape as well. In my experience, the folks who tend to just leave their docklines in a heap usually arent using a proper cleat hitch to begin with.
The last boat I took was a day-long snorkeling cruise around Kauai. We were required to leave our shoes on the dock, before boarding the catamaran. It was mostly to keep non-essential gear off the boat. Fewer things to trip over or lose overboard. All the walking surfaces were were coated with something non-slip.
There’s a pretty large excluded middle there between carelessly creating a tripping hazard and crafting an artwork with your dock lines. Seems like a waste of time, especially in a transient situation where you’re only going to be there overnight.
Neatly coiling your extra dock line length into a flat circle takes all of 10 seconds and helps reduce the chance of someone tripping over them. I’d hardly call that a waste of time.
A 28-footer certainly qualifies as a legitimate yacht. These days, at least, most will have inboard diesels and are likely to have a wheel instead of a tiller.
But I disagree with you on this point:
At that time, with me having had only a course on sailing and my friend having no experience of sailing at all, sailing my new boat was full of new experiences. I had never seen “flemishing” of dock lines before, which is why we found it so amusing. And in fact, although the practice certainly exists, it’s not something I’ve seen often in all my years of sailing afterwards, either.
The occupants of this particular boat that we were remarking on seemed to be a methodical crew of disciplined sailors, whereas we were just having summer fun on a sailboat, cruising Georgian Bay, the North Channel, and Lake Huron and drinking a lot of rum (though not while actually sailing and trying to navigate). Sometimes docked in harbours, sometimes anchored in pristine bays and firing up the smoky barbecue hanging from the stern rail.
Not making value judgments one way or the other, but I’ll leave it up to the reader to decide which crew they’d rather be on.
I have nerve damage in the soles of my feet, and my podiatrist and regular doctor have both told me never to go barefoot, unless on sand at a beach. Hard surfaces are very painful for my feet.
We have about a 6’ long little wooden bridge in our backyard. It’s for drainage I guess. I have to carpet it with something because my shoeless wife is worried about splinters. Or you know, she could just wear shoes outside.
So this issue goes both ways for me. In addition, we just bought a new house. Lot’s of furniture moving and building. When I need my wifes help, I always have to reminder her that she should put shoes on least she stubs a toe or worst.
Wouldn‘t coiling a line in a spiral on a deck or dock actually a bad practice, as it keeps line and deck/dock from drying after rain?
As for the original question on going barefoot, I spent a lot of vacation weeks two decades ago as paying crew on medium yachts (20-30 ft LOA range), and always wore boat shoes because I often hit cleats or shroud fasteners with my feet (I am apt to stub toes in environments that I am not perfectly familiar with). Other crew did that too, but the owners sometimes went barefoot (in the Med of course, not in the North Sea) - perfect familiarity with your boat‘s environment seems to enable that.
Going barefoot will toughen your feet (barring any medical issues, etc.) You will not even notice hard surfaces. Stubbing/breaking a toe or stepping on broken glass is not fun, though, so city streets are not the ideal environment for running around barefoot; we are talking about yachts/indoors, though.
Ashley says Flemish flakes (= spiral coil of one layer only) are for making on a deck so that it can be walked on if necessary, and that often on yachts and training ships they are made and placed about because it looks cool; also as a mat for the helmsman to stand on.
I assume that stowing a rope on the deck where there is air circulation is OK, versus a coil between decks which should be placed over a grate or something to dry out.