About the "right" boat...

Something about ballot boxes, Dr Fauci making a point, just can't fix stupid, and in the "Completely out-of-touch with reality" department...

I'm pretty sure that most folk have a mental picture of the boat they'd like to go cruising on. In my case it's more like a constantly evolving work in progress. Which is hardly surprising as we tend to learn more as time goes by.

The learning curve has a lot to do with improvements in tech and design and we'd be foolish to ignore those. A better sail or rig design, improvements in navigation gear, affordable/accessible systems like watermakers all tweak the desired cruising boat that's floating around up there in my head.

Of course the tech side of things is an important element but it's only a fraction of the evolution as the biggest element in the equation is really about someone's personal state of mind and knowing just who you really happen to be at a particular point in time.

So, the question of the day is...

 Who are you?

Most of us are way too busy reacting to various stimulus to take the needful time for the sort of introspection needed to sort out the answer to that question. That being the case, it's hardly surprising that folks, as a result, tend to choose boats that don't quite fit who they actually are. Not unlike a pair of ill-fitting jeans.

Jeans either fit or they don't and there's a "feel" that they have when they are just right. The same goes for boats. It's akin to the boat becoming part of you, you becoming part of the boat and everything just feels right.

It's got to feel right. 

Which is why you really need to spend some serious meditation time sorting out who you actually are to bring yourself and that cruising boat in your head into focus.

Listening to Butch Walker.

So it goes...

Splash...

A pithy take on an ongoing debate, a theory explained, and G&T makes a rather good point...

While Boat Bits has some serious issues with folks campaigning for idiotic laws requiring sailors to wear PFDs, we very much feel that folks should wear PFDs when sensible and needful. The more solid information (rather than just another regurgitated press release or advertising copy) on the subject available to us the better we can make the sort of informed needful decisions...

Voile Magazine (a way better read than most US sailing/cruising rags) has been beavering away testing inflatable PFDs and you might find the resulting video and article in the current issue both interesting and enlightening.


test gilets by voile-magazine

Listening to St. Paul & The Broken Bones  (who just may be the best band I've heard all year)


So it goes...

on being a happy/unhappy camper...

Moral lepers, an info-graphic that might surprise you, and what's wrong with in-your-face “prima facie criminal behavior” as long as profit is involved...

The internet, from time to time, is a place that often surprises me... Especially in the general connectedness where it concerns folks reading "Boat Bits".

Yesterday's post, like many that deal with boater education (or lack of), always produces a big mailbag and I never do quite understand why some readers take what I say so personally.

Maybe it's the dynamic of the internet that everyone thinks the blog is directed at them personally and, somehow, my pointing out that there are people who would be unable to sail a boat well enough to effect a rescue if their significant other were to fall overboard is some how akin to a personal attack...

The thing is, I don't recall writing anything that was directed at any individual yet this morning I find a half dozen folks who think I had called them out personally and told them they were "passengers" and "useless" where needful sailing skills are concerned.

One of the great things about sailing and boats in general is that there is very little regulation about... If you want to sail around the world all you have to do is to buy/build a boat, point it in the direction of choice, and have at it. You don't need a license, special permission, or the need to pass any tests and, from where I sit, that's not really a bad thing.

Lots of folks do just that and learn how to sail as they go. Most of them survive and usually wind up with some entertaining stories of the "what does not kill us makes us stronger" sort to share over beers as they work their way through the learning curve.

Of course, the downside is some folks don't survive, people get hurt, and dreams fall apart... Life is like that.

So, next time I point out that "you" (in the collective sense) might want to think about some aspect of your skill set or lack thereof don't take it personally and simply take a moment to consider that what you know or don't know may just be the difference between being a happy or a very unhappy camper...

Listening to Renaud

So it goes...

Shit does, after all, happen...

These days it is not just fans of "Firefly" that see the need to learn some Chinese, banks don't just get bail outs they're also caring, and Captain Fogg is even more depressed about things than I am (can you imagine?)...

Currently the cruising cyberworld is buzzing about a couple who are stranded someplace because the engine died on their sailboat and apparently they don't have the sailing chops to actually sail where they want to go.

Scary...

Every once in awhile when I see that the hate mail has slowed down to a trickle, I have the insane urge to write something about how folks sailing boats should have the skills set to be able to pick up a mooring, sail to windward to get into an anchorage or, just possibly, be able to figure out where they are if their electronics on board have a catastrophic clusterfuck. After all, shit does happen from time to time, but my pointing it out really does seem to piss people off...

The thing is, I applaud the couple in question because they have the courage to voice the fact that they simply are not prepared to go to sea. Hopefully this experience will also be the sort of thing that makes a few people think that spending a few days learning to actually sail and sorting out what is actually needful to go cruising is no bad thing...

Maybe someone will even give this couple a copy of "Sea-Steading" which, if they had actually taken the time to read it or something of similar ilk, they would not find themselves stranded...

Listening to Taj Mahal

So it goes...

An important 40th anniversary!

On the 22nd of April in 1969 Robin Knox Johnston completed the first single handed non stop circumnavigation, a voyage of 313 days... Big deal, right?

The other day someone told me that going to sea in a thirty-four foot boat was both stupid and unsafe... He pointed out that in all of the cruising magazines they all seemed to be sailing boats forty-five feet or over and that my boat is simply too small! The fact is the nay sayer was right... Not in that a thirty-four foot boat is unsafe, but that the yachting press do push the bigger and more gear you have, the more you spend the better off you are. One can only imagine what they would say nowadays about RKJ sailing off around the world non stop in a Colin Archer style boat designed by William Atkin in 1923 (hardly cutting edge!) and made in WOOD! It might not have been the optimum yacht for the job but it was the boat RKJ had and so it was the right one!

You really should read his wonderful book "A World of My Own" because he can tell it so much better than any of us.

What is even more impressive is RKJ is still doing it and doing it well. Just a couple of years ago RKJ finished fourth in a single handed solo round the world race at sixty-eight years old!

So YES it is a big deal and sailors everywhere owe Mr Johnston a debt of gratitude in simply showing us all it can be done...

For more on RKJ