But then I
realized, from long and bitter experience, that there’s always some whiner
lying on the couch who’ll be planning to read the column on an iPad propped up
on his extended stomach after Thanksgiving lunch.
Well, dang!
It sort of
reminds me of all the whining that went on a few days back, after the computers
running the Virtual Vendee Globe crashed for more than four hours. Lots of poor
hapless souls engaged in cut-throat rivalry with fellow competitors nearly went
crazy as their boats plowed on through the North Atlantic on their own, with
no-one at the helm. Some ran aground and
flailed around hopelessly. Others fell into irons as the wind direction
changed. Almost all were adversely
affected in some way or another as their boats rushed along out of control. Too many, I fear, resorted to hard liquor and
wrote nasty complaints to the game organizers.
I must
confess that I was one of those who complained.
I had worked my brain to the bone day and night for more than a week to bring
my boat up to about 20,000th position out of 300,000 starters. But when I was eventually able to rejoin the
game, after someone gave the computers some smelling salts, I found to my
astonishment that I was now ranked about 4,500.
I made the
mistake of gloating to my wife about it.
“You should just let the darned boat sail itself,” she remarked. “It seems to go much better when you’re not
interfering.” Interfering, she said,
honestly. Jeez, that hurt.
But all the
same, she may have a point. Now that I’m at the helm again we’ve fallen back to
60,000 and something. And we’re continuing
to lose places steadily.
But what I
was going to say was that the organizers felt really guilty about the computer
crashes (yes, more than one). They
formed a Protest Committee. They had a formal hearing and decided after much sober
debate that there was nothing they could do that would be fair to all entrants. But the guilt still gnawed
at them. So they decided on a decidedly Gallic course of action that basically
meant fining themselves. They vowed to make a contribution to charity.
They didn’t
mention how much they decided to give, or to whom. In any case, I think it was a wrong
move. Nobody taking part in the race
benefits from this, unless by chance they belong to the Homeless Ex-Mariners’
Benevolent Society. No, what the Protest
Committee should have done was to set up more prizes. Doesn’t charity begin at home, after all? As
far as I know, there’s only one prize at the moment for the overall winner, and
that’s a watch said to be worth about 1,600 euros.
There could
be lots more prizes. First boat to the
equator. First to go aground. First to Cape Horn. Last one to finish before the
cut-off time. And so on.
I don’t
suppose it will happen. The race organizers don’t read this column, you know.
They’re French. I’m tempted to say that
explains everything, but I won’t. I don’t want to antagonize them. I’m calmly
waiting for the next computer crash to get me back in front again, out through
the doldrums and heading helter skelter through the south-east trades for St.
Helena. It probably won’t be long.
Today’s Thought
Luck, mere luck, may make even madness
wisdom.— Douglas Jerrold, Jerrold’s Wit: Luck
Happy Thanksgiving
I’D LIKE TO
THANK all of you ( well, both of you, actually ) for reading this column so
faithfully week after week. We’ve
notched up more than a quarter million page views now, which must mean some
people read the same pages over and over an awful lot of times.But have a wonderful Thanksgiving anyway. I wish you all that’s best and tastiest.
Tailpiece
“Dad, why did you say the girls at the health club
are all ugly?”“I didn't say they were ugly. I said they held a beauty contest there the other day and nobody won.”
(Drop by
every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)
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