An interesting talk, some thoughts on "hard work", and something to think about...
Way back when, in Las Palmas a few days before the ARC was due to depart, a guy was humping a Simson Lawrence 555 manual windlass up the dock and as we passed each other I asked if he was getting it repaired..."There's a sucker born every minute"
- most likely not said by P.T. Barnum
"Nope, I'm going to go put it in the dumpster"At the time it seemed like the man had taken some leave of his senses but I was already late to a paying job on another ARC boat so I did not have time to chat about the reason someone was hauling a perfectly good, newish, and if not pristine, expensive bit of gear to the dumpster...
A couple of hours later with a job done and cash money in my pocket I decided a visit to the dumpsters was in order.
What I found at the dumpsters was, for me at least, a thing of awesome splendor... a cornucopia of perfectly good batteries, VHF radios, sat navs, solar panels, Lorans, at least three manual windlasses, and one complete Aries wind vane, all being pawed over by a handful of cruisers of my ilk (translated roughly as non-ARC folk) who were busy making piles of stuff to take back to their own boats...
So, what could make these ARC cruisers behave like Lemmings and start ripping perfectly good stuff off their boats a few days before their Atlantic crossing? A mania for lightening up their boats, maybe an urge to shed expensive gear and return to the simple cruising lifestyle, or was it something more sinister?
It would seem that at the various ARC workshops of that year, mostly taught by various marine business concerns, a lot of the advice on offer was of the "you'd be a fool to cross the Atlantic without new batteries/windvane/electric windlass/new GPS/etc and as it happens I have just the thing right here and can install it before the fleet leaves" sort... The phrase "shooting fish in a barrel" does come to mind and the only thing I feel needs to be said is that you should always question advice from a man who has a vested interest in selling you something.
So, for a few days in Las Palmas folks were either selling gear at silly cheap prices or simply throwing it away and to this day those dumpsters in Las Palmas have a special place in my heart and I'm looking forward to going back right about ARC time...
Listening to Lucy Kaplansky
So it goes...
