The case for simplicity

I WAS LOOKING at a picture of Joshua Slocum’s famous Spray the other day and marveling at the simplicity of it all. My thoughts strayed to an article I once edited for a magazine. The author and his wife had sailed almost halfway around the world in a 42-foot ketch, and the purpose of the article was to tell other amateur sailors how they, too, could do it.
The bit that stopped me in my tracks was a sentence that said a laptop computer was “essential equipment” on the author’s boat (and most other voyaging boats) for communications, the Internet, and electronic charting.
Now, as one who advocates smallness and utter simplicity in cruising boats, I found that statement very disturbing. So a laptop is “essential” equipment, is it? Baloney. As far as I’m concerned, to cross an ocean you need a boat with a keel or a centerboard, a rudder, a pole from which to hang the sails, and a bucket to bail out the bilges. A little stove would be nice to make some hot coffee or a meal now and then, but you can eat cold canned food if you have to. I have.
Let me list a few essentials that the aforementioned author had on his boat, compared with what Captain Joshua Slocum had on his boat when he became the first man to sail singlehanded around the world.
Diesel engine (Slocum, no engine); radar (none); autopilot (none); wind vane (none); Dutchman sail-flaking system (none); watermaker (none); two alternators producing 150 amps (none); refrigerator (none); single-sideband radio (none); Pactor e-mail system (none); towed generator (none); battery monitor (none); 2,000-watt inverter (none); fuel polishing system (none); WiFi (none); laptop computer (none).
I myself am not a greatly experienced voyager, but I have twice crossed the Atlantic in boats of 33 feet and less that lacked the “essential” laptop computer, not to mention radar, autopilot, electronic charts, fridge, single-sideband radio, and a whole lot of other things from that author’s list. I didn’t even have an electric bilge pump.
The strange thing is, now that I know what’s essential, thanks to this experienced author, I suddenly feel deprived. It’s like not having taken advantage of hallucogenic drugs when I was still young enough to recover and save myself. It’s just too late for me to start on the essentials now. Besides, most of the boats I’ve owned had nowhere on board that would be dry enough for a laptop.
I am astonished that I managed to cross the Atlantic twice without all the goodies I really needed. To tell the truth, I’m really rather ashamed of myself. Such a bad example. My only consolation is that Captain Slocum was a bad example, too. And a few thousand others just like him.

Today’s Thought

Often ornateness goes with greatness;

Oftener felicity comes of simplicity.

— William Watson, Art Maxims

Tailpiece

California’s wine growers have listened to pleas from senior boatowners who have to make several trips to the head every night.

Vintners in the Napa Valley area, ordinarily producing Pinot Blanc, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Grigio wines, have now developed a new hybrid grape with anti-diuretic properties that will eliminate the need to visit the head during sleeping hours.

It will be marketed as Pinot More.

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

The truth about Spray

IT COMES AS A BIT OF A SHOCK to learn that the first yacht to have been sailed all the way around the world singlehanded was actually not very seaworthy. Apparently Capt. Joshua Slocum’s famous Spray, which has been copied lord knows how many times, was unlikely to right herself after a capsize. She was extremely stiff initially, but once heeled beyond a certain angle was unlikely to recover.

This assessment, which is not the best news for the many owners of existing Spray clones, came from one of America’s best-known sailboat architects, John G. Hanna, designer of the famous Tahiti ketch.

In The Rudder Treasury (Sheridan House) Hanna says:  “Since the Suicide Squad has been for many years building exact copies of Spray, and will continue doing so for many years more unless restrained, perhaps I can save a life or two by explaining, as simply as possible, the basic reason (skipping many other good reasons) why Spray is the worst possible boat for anyone, and especially anyone lacking the experience and resourcefulness of Slocum, to take off-soundings . . .

“A big lurching cross sea, that would scarcely disturb a properly designed hull, can — especially if it coincides, as it often does, with an extra-savage puff of a squall — flip over a Spray hull just as you would a poker chip.

“Many duplicates trying to duplicate the circumnavigation have disappeared without trace, just as the original Spray and Slocum did.”

Hanna goes on to say that one Spray copy that completed a circumnavigation, Roger Strout’s Igdrasil, was flipped “up to the very point of the last rollover, and for a second or two it seemed she would never come back on her bottom.” Strout told Hanna that if ever he were building again for such a trip, he would willingly sacrifice the comfort of broad decks and great initial stability for more of the ultimate stability that infallibly rights a well-designed yacht, even if knocked down with her masts in the water.

Hanna added: “I trust a little sober reflection on these facts will cause a ray of light  to dawn in the minds of another generation of would-be Spray duplicators. The famous old ship had her good points, and no one admires them more than I; but not enough to overcome some almost certainly fatal faults.”

All of which tends to reinforce my own long-held belief that a large portion of any boat’s seaworthiness consists of the skill and experience of the skipper (and crew, if any).

 Today’s Thought

None but blockheads copy each other.

— William Blake

Tailpiece

There’s a new series of TV sets due to hit the market soon. They project in 3-D. They’ll give you height, width, and debt.

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

Inspired by Slocum

I HAVE LONG THOUGHT how lucky we are that the first man to sail around the world alone was also a splendid writer.

I first read Captain Joshua Slocum’s book, Sailing Alone Around the World, as an impressionable teenager and what struck me then was his modesty, his humility and his very obvious enthusiasm for the sea, even when it wasn’t being very kind to him. He made single-handed ocean sailing sound … well, if not easy, then at least very manageable and businesslike.

I later learned that my hero Slocum was not exactly an angel. He once shot to death a pirate who threatened him, and in later life he served jail time for indecently exposing himself to a 12-year-old girl.

Nevertheless, Slocum made it plain for the first time that it was possible for a small boat with a crew of one to sail clean around the world without the drama and exaggeration normally found in the yachting literature. In this way he inspired many timid souls to follow his example. At any given time today, hundreds of small boats — and by small I mean anything under 40 feet — literally hundreds of small boats are sailing around the world, many of them manned by husband-and-wife teams or families with small children.

Although Slocum’s book was written more than 100 years ago, it retains an enthusiastic freshness that’s wonderfully infectious. To enjoy this book you don’t need to know port from starboard or a pintle from a gudgeon. There are, inevitably, some incidents that have to be explained in technical terms, but they’re few and far between and you can skip over them without losing any of the sense, or urgency. In fact, Slocum writes much more about the land and the ports he visited than he does about his ship and the seas they traveled over.

For me, reading Sailing Alone Around the World as a teenager aroused the feelings of restlessness and adventure so common to youth. I wanted to build my own boat, as Slocum had done, and indulge my curiosity by travel under sail to exotic faraway places. But, like so many others, my plans were long thwarted by a combination of family commitments and cold feet. I did start building my own wooden yacht once, but soon abandoned it when I realized the size of the task I’d set myself. I simply wasn’t up to it.

But Slocum wouldn’t let me rest. He kept me awake year after year with visions of a sailboat running swift and true through the trade winds toward some distant palm-fringed shore. Finally, when I was 50, I crossed an ocean as the skipper of my own boat, with my family as crew.

It was a fiberglass boat, I confess, and one that I bought, not built. I wasn’t alone. It wasn’t a circumnavigation, either; but I felt proud enough when it was over, and very grateful to Captain Slocum. Given my limitations, I thought I’d done my best; and a man can’t ask for more than that.

Today’s Thought
Most happy he who is entirely self-reliant, and who centres all his requirements in himself alone.
— Cicero, Paradoxa

Tailpiece
“Did I tell you about the cruel blow that fate struck my parents in New York?”
“No — I thought you were born in Seattle.”