KNOW-IT-ALL
Know-It-All is a close relative of Mr. Lemme- Show- Ya- How- It's- Done, but the key difference is that Mr. Lemme- Show- Ya- How-It's-Done might actually exert himself to demonstrate his superior knowledge and skills, while Know-It-All merely talks about how much he knows and his well-founded opinions. These two species are largely interchangeable. Not surprisingly, Know-It-All often lacks knowledge and experience of the things he is expounding on, though perhaps he may have read about the subject somewhere. He is most likely to question the skipper's orders, even if he doesn't have any constructive alternatives to offer. Generally an extrovert, Know-It-All takes command of a situation ... until it goes haywire. Then, it's someone else's fault.
Our dinghy went adrift twice from Know-It-All's "exotic knots, unknown to most modern sailors." We also watched our boat begin to drift across Great Harbour on Jost Van Dyke while sitting at Foxy's. Seems he raised most of the anchor rode before coming in, "so we wouldn't have to do it all later." I still give thanks to Jenneau for making the deck fill plates slightly different on our boat. I returned from the shore head on Marina Cay to find him cursing and trying to get the winch handle to open the diesel cap with the water hose ready to go!!
We had a Know-It-All on one of those "rent a stateroom" charters in the Grenadines (i.e. we didn't CHOOSE this person to join us). This old (but energetic) guy was an actual Nazi who served in the Germany army during WWII, and couldn't get over the fact that at the end of the war, he was captured by "Negro American soldiers." I sensed that he found the Grenadine islanders, most of whom were of African descent, a little disconcerting. He was always the first one out of his bunk in the morning, and the last one back in it at night, so there was no escaping his superior intellect and strong opinions. While we could never escape him, the chef and I had a lot of fun doctoring his drinks, making them stronger, so that he might retire sooner.
My favorite incident with Mr. Lemme-Show-Ya-How-It's-Done was in Anegada. We went back to our boat after dinner, but my wife and I were in a party mood and decided we were going back ashore for a while. Mr. Lemme-Show-Ya-How-It's-Done's wife was not in a party mood, so he was stuck on the boat. As I began to tie off the dinghy so my wife and I could dash below to change from dinner clothes into beach clothes, Mr. Lemme-Show-Ya-How-It's-Done insisted that I let him tie up the dinghy. We were back on deck in less than 5 minutes. When I walked to the stern and asked him where the dingy was, he said "It's right there!" I calmly said, "Show me." The flashlight found it dead downwind of us on the beach beyond Neptune's Treasure. He said, "I tied it with THREE KNOTS." For the rest of our trip, I would ask him how fast he thought we were going. Before he could answer, I would yell, "ABOUT THREE KNOTS!"
