This is his description, as recorded
in Richard Henderson’s book, Choice Yacht
Designs:
“First, at home, you should go into
the bedroom fully dressed and pour a bucket of water over your head. Put on
your foul-weather gear and harness. Prop
up one side of the bed to an angle of 20 degrees, then pour a bucket of water
over the pillow and bedding.
“Engage the services of a fork-lift
(and operator) who will lift one corner of your house up into the air six feet
and then let it drop down with a bang.
He should do this all night long, intermittently, without warning. Now,
go to bed.
“After one hour of sleep it will be
time to get out of bed, open the sliding door to the balcony, and peer out (checking
the sails). At this moment a friend, well hidden, should throw a bucket of
water onto the back of your head. Your jacket hood must be in the off position,
as this will allow the water to run down your neck. . . . As you
turn to go back into the bedroom, another well-hidden friend should club you
over the head with a two-by-four. This simulates head blows from the bulkheads. . . .”
There’s more that a landlubber needs
to know, of course. You should fill your rubber boots with water and you should
remember to throw up only on the lee side of the cockpit. You should preferably
practice walking with one leg shorter than the other so as to remain upright on
the slanted deck and you should develop arms like a gorilla’s so you can hang
on to the handholds when a wave tries to wash you overboard.
You should also practice holding
your bladder for at least eight hours because it’s impossible to get a hand on
the outlet from your urinary tract when you’ve got a whole bunch of layers of
clothing and waterproof pants on.
As for cheerful, sustaining hot
meals — um, well, sorry feller. Ain’t gonna happen.
Today’s
Thought
We
have all sinned and come short of the glory of making ourselves as comfortable
as we easily might have done.
— Samuel Butler the Younger, The Way of All Flesh
Tailpiece
Adolescence is a period of rapid
change. Between the ages of 12 and 17, for instance, a parent can age as much
as 20 years.
(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday,
Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)
2 comments:
Ah yes. I have never been 'offshore' but I have done a number of coastal passage races of around 24 hours duration, some in unpleasant conditions. Cold, hungry, tired and miserable just halfway through the first I swore I would never do another. I could be home in bed for God's sake!! Yet a week later, there I am conducting a post mortem on why we finished halfway down the field and what we needed to improve on when we returned the following year. It's an addiction.
Comfort is a boring death.
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