Damp conversation

I NOTE WITH CONSIDERABLE INTEREST that there is now a handheld VHF radio that moves and shakes when it gets wet, like a shaggy sheepdog flinging spray everywhere after a swim.

It's an Icom, listed in the West Marine catalog, and it apparently has what's known as an AquaQuake water-draining function. I don't know how it senses that its speaker is waterlogged, but when it does, it shakes, rattles, and rolls until the water has been expelled, so that the glug-glug-glug of the Coast Guard on Channel 16, ordering you to heave to for potty inspection, comes through loud and clear again.

It would be nice to have a shivering radio like that, if only to impress my friends. Very little has evolved in the world of handheld VHF radios since DSC sneaked into operation, and that turned out to be more fanfare than practical use.

Not much fanfare has accompanied the introduction of the AquaQuake, but its significance should not be lost on amateur sailors. This is s radio that moves when it gets wet. It first thinks about things. And then it acts. It shudders until things come right again.

    What next might we expect in the line of electronic surprises like that? Could there be a kettle that will put itself on for tea while I furl the mainsail, or, more muscularly, a mast that will furl the mainsail while I put on the kettle for tea?
   I know there are already electric furlers and winches, but the point is they don't think for themselves. How about an anchor that winches itself up when it feels itself dragging, and resets itself without waking you up? How about binoculars that automatically focus on the yacht where the blonde lady with the long tan legs is obviously bored and looking for lively company? And binoculars that automatically take the shake out of your hand?
   Yes, yes, I know you can get binoculars that do away with a normal, everyday kind of shake, but this is a different kind of shake, an emotional sort of shake, a shake of anticipatory excitement that only special binoculars with testosterone sensors could cure.

Won't need any for myself, of course. Spoken for, lo these many years. I'm just thinking about you youngsters. No, no need to thank me. Always willing to help where I can.

Today's Thought

Women give us solace, but if it were not for women we should never need solace.

— Don Herold

Tailpiece

“Have you recently seen a man with one eye named Gustav?”
“I’m not sure. What’s his other eye called?”
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