I've docked small boats and large boats, 150-foot steamers, twin-screw minesweepers, sailboats, and big ole 300+footers.   I have tied bowlines, square knots, bends, hitches and neckties.   I have made my share of errors, but I ain't never even considered taking boat-handling advice from a potato-farmer.

In a previous lifetime I spent doing seamanlike things, they called me Stormalong. I worked the Atlantic coast and when I retired, I decided to quit the sea. I put an oar over my shoulder and walked West. It wasn't until I got to Idaho that soemone asked me what the funny stick was I had on my shoulder.

I think the whole expedition was a mistake, though. I ended up being a potato farmer myself, that time around, and lived out my remaining years in a kind of dusty quietude, with only the occasional thunderstorm to remind me of my heady days on the rolling main.