What do you do if you are the leader of an island nation, most of it less than 5 feet above sea level, when you realize that there is a very real possibility that the whole nation will be underwater if the present pace of climate change keeps raising sea levels? If you are President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives you start preparing for the inevitable by holding a cabinet meeting underwater!
Ministers clad in wetsuits and shouldering oxygen tanks, will meet about 20ft underwater on 17 October. Here is a photo of some of the ministers preparing for the meeting...
I wonder if President Barack Obama or Prime Minister Gordon Brown will be following President Nasheed's lead?
Yarg of Apparent Wind averages about four posts per month, but you know that when he does post, it is going to be well worth a read. Recently we have had
A Conversation with O'Brien which is about an imaginary conversation that Yarg had with an imaginary friend about an imaginary dream (I think), or perhaps it's really about two different philosophies of one-design sailing,
Is Discretion Really the Better Part of Valor? which recounts a high school regatta sailed in atrocious conditions in illustration of a quotation from Shakespeare's Henry IV Part I, and
Practice Failure in which Yarg describes a coaching drill that didn't work out which leads him to muse on the parallel between sailing practice and "holistic thinking embodied in the English Romantics, the American Transcendentalists, and Eastern Philosophy."
Jay Livingston who writes Laser Sailing Notes also averages only one or two posts a week, but they are always worth reading. Recent posts have included
Dreams, Goals and Practice in which Jay uses an anecdote about walking around in circles to introduce an insightful discussion about sailing goals,
Meditation Can Improve Your Sailing which debunks some popular clichés about meditation and provides numerous practical examples of how meditation can indeed improve your sailing, and
For Men Only, a sensitive and perceptive discussion of how men behave when they are injured or sick, and how we need to look out for each other.
As you can see Yarg and Jay are very much the thinking man's sailing bloggers.
I, on the other hand, average about one post a day. There is no way that I could produce posts every day of the quality to be found on Yarg's and Jay's blogs. It is no coincidence that so many of my posts have the label Utter Nonsense. It sometimes feels as if my writing mantra is "More is Less."
So take your pick. If you prefer quality over quantity, read Jay and Yarg. If you really think that nonsense sharpens the intellect, read Proper Course. Or if you like pictures of half-naked women holding big fishes, then read Joe Rousse (rhymes with mousse.)
Yeah right. Like tip #1: Wear a Life Jacket this is not exactly controversial advice. Laser sailing is a wet sport. You will get wet from spray if it's windy. You will probably fall in the water sooner or later.
Cold water is not just annoying. Cold water will kill you. Faster than you might think.
Forget hypothermia (for now). Sudden entry into cold water can cause cardiac arrest, even for people in good health. And the initial shock of the cold water can also cause an involuntary gasp reflex that can cause victims to inhale water and drown. That's why it's so important to Wear a Life Jacket... because it's probably a good thing if your head isn't underwater when you experience that "involuntary gasp reflex". If you don't believe me, ask the Coast Guard.
So let's assume you don't die immediately of a heart attack or of drowning when you fall off your Laser into the icy waters. Your next potential problem is hypothermia. An adult dressed in average clothing may remain conscious for an hour in water at 40 degrees F and perhaps 2-3 hours at 50 degrees F. But actually things are more serious than these numbers suggest because any movement in the water accelerates heat loss, and survival time can be reduced to minutes. And the numbing effect of the cold water will prevent you from swimming. If you don't think cold water is all that dangerous, just read some of the tragic stories at the bottom of this page about off-season boating. Nine elite marines trained as water survival instructors unable to swim 100 yards to safety! Another guy drowned 25 yards from shore!
So wear a wetsuit or a drysuit if the water is cold. How cold? Some people go by the "100 degree rule" and think you should wear thermal protection if the air temperature plus water temperature is less than 100 degrees F.
The Laser frostbite fleet that I used to sail with in Connecticut had a rule that sailors had to wear a wetsuit or a drysuit at all times. Their season was from mid-October to mid-May (with a break in the middle of winter). Not a bad guideline for southern New England. Remember those warm spring days in early May can be very deceptive; the air may feel warm but the water is still very cold.
Personally, I'm a total wimp about feeling cold on the water. Irrespective of any personal survival issues, I hate to be shivering when I'm sailing. So I put on a wetsuit in marginal conditions, and quickly switch to a drysuit when it becomes at all wintry. Keeping head and hands and feet warm is important for my comfort too. I've reviewed sailing gloves and socks here before, and I have another pair of cold weather gloves to review as soon as the weather is chilly enough.
I know some Laser sailors are not too fond of drysuits. Something about interfering with their "oneness" with the boat. So they tough it out in a wetsuit all winter. I'm not really into "oneness". I'm generally in the "twoness with the boat" zone. Probably partly explains why I sail so slow.
I could go on a lot more about wetsuits and drysuits. Shortie or longie? Bootee or not bootee? Hiking pads inside or outside? Is bare skin faster than neoprene? (Seriously.) But this post is too long already. Less is more.
How about you? What do you wear for cold weather sailing?
Pause for laughter while my blogging friends in New Mexico and Florida work out the most sarcastic way to answer that question...
Your challenge for this month's group writing project is to write a blog post about sailing on the theme of "Less is more". Minimalist sailing, if you will. (Or if you're not a sailor then write one on that theme related to whatever form of boating is your particular perversion.)
We had some fun last week on the "Less is more" idea as applied to blogging: blank lines, blank comments, blank pages, blank posts... Things got a bit out of hand. I almost expected Graham Chapman's Colonel character to show up and tell us things were getting "far too silly."
So let's be serious for a moment. Minimalism is a concept that has been applied in many fields... music, art, literature, design, architecture... essentially meaning that the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features. "Less is more" was indeed the motto of the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. (Not often you see that name on a sailing blog!)
What are the fundamentals of sailing that we enjoy? Such simple things.. wind, water... and some machine that propels us using those elements. Why make it more complicated and fussy than it needs to be? Let's get back to basics. Less is more.
It struck me that the idea "Less is more" could be applied to so many aspects of boating... boat design, weather forecasting, racing rules, tactics, strategy, cruising, fitness, regatta travel, rigging, clothing...
Of course if you think this "Less is more" idea is total bollocks, as we Brits say, then write a rant about the opposite of "Less is more". Tell us why you absolutely need to own eight different boats. Tell us why you couldn't possibly go sailing without several hundred thousand bucks worth of electronic gizmos on the boat. Tell us why the latest incarnation of the America's Cup is the best thing that happened to sailing. Seriously. Go for it. So here is how to participate...
1. Write a post on the theme "Less is more" (or the opposite) on your blog. Please publish it before Monday October 19.
2. Let me know about your post by sending an email to tillermeister@gmail.com including a link to your post. If you don't have a blog of your own just email me your article and I will post it here.
3. I will post here two links to your post. Every day or so I will write a post listing any new entries in the project. Then at the end of the project I will publish the complete list of "Less is more" articles.
Captain JP was out for a jog When he had a brilliant idea for his blog. He wrote it down on his phone But the idea's now unknown 'Cause the note's as clear as an old London fog.
The note mentions some bloke called O Docker (Who, as the Brits say, is clean off his rocker) And some tasteful pics Perhaps bikini-clad chicks? Well that would be a real shocker.
So please help JP in cracking the code. If you don't do what he's owed It will drive him to drinking. What the hell was he thinking? Quick! Or his head will explode!
OK. OK. I know it's not exactly earth-shattering or new news. Most small boat sailors know that they should wear a "life jacket" or as they are known these days a Personal Flotation Device (or PFD). But there are two questions that merit further discussion...
What kind of PFD should you wear?
When should you wear it?
It will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog that I am quite anal about both these issues...
What kind of PFD should you wear? In the US, the Coast Guard approves various "types" of PFD. The most popular and appropriate for Laser sailing is the Type III. These are intended for use "in calm water where there is good chance of fast rescue." They must provide at least 15.5 pounds of buoyancy but will generally not turn an unconscious person face-up.
Hmmm. Calm water? I don't always sail in calm water. Good chance of fast rescue? Not much chance of that if I'm off practicing on my own.
Anyway, for better or worse, that's what I choose. For the last three years I've been using a Lotus Lola which one of my sons bought me for Xmas in 2006 after some blogger dropped hints on the subject. Some US Laser sailors wear PFD's that are not US Coast Guard approved. They may be somewhat less bulky than the USCG Type III PFDs; they may be more comfortable; they almost certainly provide less than the 15.5 lbs of buoyancy called for in the Type III spec. So why do I stick to Coast Guard approved jackets?
The reason is that some regattas in the US mandate USCG approved PFDs in the Sailing Instructions. I would always comply with such a rule. Those "other" Laser sailors who use non-USCG-approved PFDs don't always comply. I do because I feel that to blatantly ignore a requirement in the SIs is cheating. Call me anal if you like, but that's the way I am.
And if I'm going to have to wear a USCG-approved PFD in some regattas then I feel that I might as well wear the same PFD all the time, so that I become comfortable with it.
When should you wear a PFD? Only in regattas? Only when sailing alone? Only in heavy winds?
This is another subject I'm pretty anal about. I wear it all the time I'm on the water, no exceptions.
Why is that?
Two reasons I guess.
The first is akin to the reason why I use a Type III PFD. If I'm going to have to wear some kind of PFD when I'm racing (almost always mandated by the SIs these days) then I figure I should wear it all the time even when I'm just practicing.
Only 4-5 knots of wind on a little puddle of lake in the middle of summer? Sure. I will wear my PFD in those conditions because I might be sailing a regatta in such a situation one day. If I wear the PFD when I'm practicing I might actually win such a regatta.
The second reason I got into the habit of always wearing my PFD on the water goes back to the days when I worked as a sailing instructor. One of the clubs at which I worked had a rule that all junior sailors had to wear life-jackets when sailing; but it was optional for adults. I always thought this was totally ridiculous. Many of the kids were better swimmers than the adults. And I thought it would be the height of hypocrisy for me to insist that my students had to wear PFDs if I didn't wear one myself. That's when I started wearing a PFD all the time on the water, even on a little puddle with no wind in the height of summer. To set a good example for the kids.
So that's my personal philosophy on PFDs. Pretty anal I know.
So how about you? What kind of PFD do you prefer? What's your personal policy of when you wear it and when you don't?
You may have read on the Scuttlebutt Forum the story of Thorsten Cook who fell off his boat during the recent Star North Americans and (according to Mr. Cook) "nearly drowned". Notwithstanding that he was wearing one of those inflatable life vests that didn't inflate and that he forgot how to inflate it manually, his account seemed to pin a lot of the responsibility for his near drowning on the race committee and focused on various issues associated with communication between competitors and the RC by VHF or cell phone.
Now I don't want to rehash Mr Cook's case here. If you want to join that debate please feel free to do so at the Scuttlebutt forum. But it did start me thinking about my own approach to making sure that I come back alive every time I go out Laser sailing. I do feel it's largely my own personal responsibility to look after my own safety and have made a list for myself of Tillerman's Top Five Tips For Making Sure I Don't Die On My Laser. Some of my advice might even be useful to other small boat sailors...
I was going to write a post on that topic. But then I realised that I had so much to say about each of the Top Five Tips that it would make more sense to have a separate post about each tip. So that's what I will be blogging about over the next few days... unless one of my anal commenters provokes me to address some other random topic.
I read a lot of posts on sailing blogs every day. Some are funny; some are thought-provoking; some teach me something; some even inspire me. And a lot are pretty mundane.
Then occasionally a blogger finds a subject that stimulates their own creativity to a whole new level and they write a jewel of a post that gives the reader whole new insights into their world. Such a post as the one that Pat, of Desert Sea - New Mexico Sailing, submitted for Captain JP's World Rivers blogging challenge this week.
