Damned If You Do...

...damned if you don't. What is it about the internet that makes everyone an expert? Seriously, I'd like to know because I currently have plenty of internet and yet I am pretty certain I am an expert at...nothing.

Commander of the Internet Yacht Club watching...always watching....

Here's a comment left on my last post by Anonymous "Nice work, but do you guys ever actually sail your boat?"It might have been just an innocuous comment but it could just as easily have been meant to be snarky. Then. I got an email which basically accused me of wasting bandwidth on blogging the refit and could we just go sailing already. *sigh*

 At first I got annoyed because well, I am suffering a serious case of itchy feet and am ready to go NOW and I really do not need someone who is not even willing to sign their name pointing out what I already know- this refit is taking forever. Do these people even realize what we are preparing to do and with whom? Then I wondered if I really cared. I do a bit because it seems that 30 years of internet has spawned more expert sailors than thousands of years of sailing managed to do.

I was going to let it go and then one of my favorite sailing bloggers Pat, from Bumfuzzle posted about his quick trip down the coast to Mazatlan to join his family. As I read about what a craptacular trip he was having, I felt nothing but empathy for him. His trip was full of suck but he was bravely soldiering on, after having purchased a boat site unseen and subscribing to the " GO NOW!" philosophy. It bit him in the butt but fortunately, he is okay, the family is okay and the boat is still floating so as far as a score from me, he gets a win. The thing that really stuck in my craw about Pat's posting was the number of well,- pretty rude and unsympathetic comments. One in particular was pretty darned close to being of the "Neener neener I told you so" variety. Talk about kicking someone when they are down. Sheesh.

This isn't a case of thinking "our method is superior", its more a case of thinking "boats are really stupid and at some point you are going to want to take her out open up the seacocks and sink her no matter what you do". I think whether you ascribe to the Go NOW! philosophy or the Black Box Theory has everything to do with your past experiences and innate personality.

At anchor on our last sail, a year ago. The whole point of this was to determine what had to be corrected before leaving. Sitting in Mark's lap, reason number 1 we are so carefully going through a thorough refit.

The Bumfuzzles have been pretty forthright in documenting their sailing life and how they decided to sail around the world. Pat was a trader, a job that requires a heck of a lot of skill, luck, resourcefulness and a stomach for gambling. He seems to be more of the GO NOW! school and hey, it worked to get him all the way around once and I am sure it will serve him well, he will figure out the best course of action to take with his stupid boat and the Bums will be fine. That's what works for them and I am 100% behind them cheering them on.

We are more of the Black Box school. I grew up on a horse farm where there were literally 100 ways to kill yourself on a daily basis. I did some pretty audacious, dangerous stuff (which I will not recount because my Mom reads this and no need to scare the pants off of her after the fact ;) )but I did develop a pretty healthy respect for gravity, the laws of physics and the possible dangers of not heeding their risks. I am a risk taker, but a cautious one with a solid self preservation streak.

Reason number 2 for a meticulous refit, at our rainy night anchorage, same shake down.

One of Mark's first jobs was a safety inspector on rigs in the North sea. When he tells me of the time he caught some weather while on a FPSO ship in the west of Shetland (which is essentially a tanker and MUCH larger than our little boat) and watched as the waves battered dents into the heavy steel bow of the ship, I understand why he is as meticulous as he is. When he tells me of the time he was on the rig Brent Charlie in the North Atlantic which had a 4 foot steel I beam 70 feet above the sea  twisted and warped like a piece of plastic by a wave, I put aside my desire to hurry it up and say "take your time to do it right". Our boat is small. And plastic. You take your time Mark, you take your time.

Not my photo, If you think I would be snapping pics in conditions such as this we obviously have not met. Brent Charlie, where Mark really, really learned to respect the power of wind and waves.

It's all about preferences and past experiences. Our past experience makes us prefer to meticulously go through every single system. We prefer not to take our boat offshore, with kids and 30 year old hoses with suspect clamps that may or may not be in good shape. We prefer not to have a questionable electrical system. We prefer to take the time to install a fuel system which greatly reduces the likelihood of us losing the engine due to water ingress. We prefer to make sure every hose, electrical run, sea cock, through hull and bit of rigging is solid, intact and organized in such a way that when we do have a problem, we can address it as quickly as possible. Does our total and complete refit guarantee that we will never have a spate of bud luck? Not at all, but it does mean we will at least know that we have done everything we can in preparation and hopefully we have put enough into the Black Box to have a good outcome. So do we ever sail it? Soon enough, soon enough.

So that is what I find so highly amusing about internet sailors and their criticism. I would not be surprised to find that the very same people who are tsk tsking the Bums for not doing a refit before moving aboard are the same folks who like to say we aren't sailing enough and should go now. Which is it? Go now or prepare the boat meticulously? I don't think there is a right answer there is only the right answer for each person and really, everyone is doing the best the can and trying to make the best decisions for themselves.

I get it, I really do. I write and post a blog about the refit and the boat so people feel entitled to criticize. I also understand that a year of refit posts is BORING. That's the reason I don't post more frequently (no one wants to see post after post of each layer of varnish) and the biggest reason I haven't upgraded to a dedicated web site. Until we are on the move, its just not necessary. I just really wish the Internet Yacht Club would perhaps be a bit less quick to tell people what to do. I get complaints that I am not sailing enough and posting photos of Ceol Mor under sail. Pat from Bumfuzzle posts a true and accurate account of his really sucky sail, even managing to grab some stunning photos while in the midst of a poop storm of suckage and he gets admonished for not spending time with a very boring and time consuming refit before hand or even better, being told that the answer to his problems is to just throw money at it until it goes away. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Internet Yacht Club, I am beginning to suspect you have a serious case of bipolar disorder.

So what are appropriate comments on a sailing blog? If you have have a tip as to how to solve a problem, that is appreciated. If you have something that worked for you in a similar situation, also appreciated. If you want to commiserate, or offer condolences when things go badly or just to offer encouragement then your comments are not just appreciated, but GREATLY appreciated. Have nothing to say other than to offer an opinion that XYZ is wrong and we are boring, silly, not salty enough, too salty or whatever? Save it for happy hour at the Internet Yacht Club.

A little over a year to go and then I promise more sailing photos than you could want. Ten bucks says after a couple of months of photos of a boat which is on the move, I get an email saying we should do more maintenance the minute we have a failure. You know, what? I'll put 20 on that bet...

Now if you will excuse me, I need to go order yet more parts and spend a little time sending my fellow boat peeps who are in the midst of a painstaking refit, or a really crap sailing trip or  in the yard dealing with an unexpected and expensive repair or at the broker's dock getting their boat ready for sale a little good boat mojo.