Dear readers,

You know that too, don't you? It's just before midnight. Sonderborg lies still in the moonlight, for once there are no halyards hitting the masts. Summery stillness - until a mooring comes to life.

"YAAAAA! Jump, give back the lead line, one more metre, stop the engine, then a feeder beer!"

Eight men aged between 45 and 60, in real life doctors, lawyers and management consultants, celebrate their arrival as if they had just won the Vendée Globe. They have sailed from Höruphav to Sonderborg. Just under five nautical miles. The assumption is that they have flown out of there.

It actually started when the boat was coming in. The boat comes into the box with far too much speed, the fenders are already hanging outside, the neighbouring boat feels the first contact. "All's well, all's well!" someone shouts over without really looking. Not a question. A statement. A release from responsibility in four words. The owner of the neighbouring boat raises his head briefly. One look is enough for him. He knows this. He has heard the crew coming.

What follows is an evening that the immediate neighbourhood doesn't need. The volume rises in a predictable, exponential ratio to the number of bottles. The Bluetooth box is switched on. Dire Straits (at least it's not rap!), loud. Anecdotes are told, almost shouted, with dramatic revolutions and accompanying hooting. The laughter carries far across the water. What a nuisance that would have been in the past! A family with two children are sleeping on the neighbouring boat. Nobody on board the party boat knows this - not because they don't care, but because they simply aren't looking. The group is inward-looking, a small world of its own, and what exists outside this world barely exists.

Another sailor appears. He makes a friendly request. The men nod, they are serious. For about twenty minutes.

The next morning, the cockpit shows signs of the evening. Empty bottles, an overturned glass, two beer cans on the jetty in front. Not there on purpose. Simply forgotten. But forgetting is sometimes worse than deliberately. At half past nine, the crew emerges, in a good mood, with the collective memory loss of well-rested men. Someone climbs over the neighbouring boat - without asking, as it's the easier way to the jetty. The boat sets off at a quarter past ten. Loud, cheerful, with music (Vizcaya, James Last).

They are gone. What remains is an imprint on the neighbouring boat, a wrongly shot line, an empty can - and in the minds of all the other harbour guests: an image, a stereotype of the reckless male crew.

Psychology explains what is happening here. Individual responsibility dissolves in homogeneous groups. What the individual would never do at home suddenly seems normal in a group, and in a leisure situation to boot. This is called deindividuation. In the group, the individual loses the feeling of personal responsibility, the mentality is: "The others do it too". This reduces their own moral standards. And these effects intensify the larger the group becomes. It develops its own standards, its own little world, and whoever puts the brakes on is the spoilsport. So no one puts the brakes on, the group members reinforce each other's behaviour. Added to this is the anonymity of the harbour: you don't know anyone, you'll be gone tomorrow. What the neighbour's gaze prevents at home, nothing prevents here. Alcohol does the rest. There are other reasons: Status thinking, men often prove their status through dominant behaviour in which loudness signals self-confidence and strength. Unfortunately, social inhibitions fall away more quickly among men. Mixed crews dampen extreme behaviour, women often act as natural moderators in the group.

All in all, the result is a crew that sees itself as a cheerful, relaxed community - and is perceived by everyone else as the problem of the night, the scourge of cruising.

And this is where the real dilemma lies. Because out of a hundred male crews that call at this harbour this summer, perhaps five are like the one described. Maybe ten. The other ninety moor properly, respect their neighbours, perhaps even tie off the halyards and tidy up. But you don't see the ninety. You don't hear them. The human brain attributes the image of the loud ten to all those who look similar: Men, middle-aged, no women on board. And so every proper crew of men fights against an image that they don't deserve - one that has been imposed on them by those who are louder.

The real problem with the men's crew is not just the behaviour of the ruthless few. It is the silence of the many sensible people towards them. As long as the calmest, the soberest, the one with the guilty conscience in each of these groups doesn't have the courage to say "Guys, enough is enough" - the picture will remain.

I'll tell you what bothers me most about it - and it's not the noise, it's not even the ruthlessness. What bothers me most is that it bothers me - or rather, has bothered me - was the wasted energy of indignation. Because there are two ways of dealing with the spectre of the noisy crew of men described above: Get upset or ignore it. I now choose the latter. Don't get upset, don't get angry, just let it roll off your back and be happy that it's over the next day.

Fridtjof Gunkel

Deputy Editor-in-Chief of YACHT

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