Saturday, July 23, 2011

On being frazzled...

1001 Boats tells us about a VERY important plywood boat, fools, incompetents, and people of limited vision continue to discuss electric propulsion, and the world is still getting scarier...

A friend of mine had a near knockdown the other day and he is a bit frazzled.

Like most of us he felt that a squall, zephyr or microburst big enough to knock down his boat would be visible from a distance and he'd have some time to sort stuff out, reduce sail or somesuch. The realization that when shit happens it can happen fast with no warning, like I said, has him a bit frazzled...

A few years ago when we were leaving Antigua all sail up, in all of three knots of wind in the harbor, we got hit by a microburst that (measured at the airport there at 11:00 @ 92MPH/148KMH) putting us on our ear and putting us in serious FUBAR land... So you might say I have a basic understanding of my friend's bit of frazzlement.

Not that there is a lot you can do to avoid stuff like this... though, having your sheets set up so you can throw them off pronto (one reason we do not have self-tailing winches) is no bad thing... as you simply have to consider the chances of being hit by such a microburst are pretty iffy and you simply rely on luck.

That said, shit does happen...

On the other hand, the things to be really scared of are those very obvious and slow moving issues/dangers we tend to ignore in spite of being right there in front of us full of menace and intent... You may scoff at those worrying about an economic meltdown, peak oil, global warming or (dare I say it) zombie apocalypse but being forewarned and forearmed is no bad thing.

By the way, is this tomahawk the perfect anti-zombie boarding tool or what?

Listening to Great Big Sea

So it goes...