Hilton Head Island: Nine; perseverance

 

Several of you have emailed about the depression still known as Nine.

A few days ago some of the projected paths indicated that Nine would make landfall on Hilton Head Island or very near.  I check the National Hurricane Center every morning during the hurricane season and was aware of this, but not overly concerned because meteorology is not yet an exact science and it is normal for projections to change as the time to the event lessons.  That is what happened in this case.  Yesterday saw Nine remaining offshore and making a to me surprising sharp turn to the east.  This morning’s projection above shows that turn being made even farther south than did yesterday’s.  At present I expect that we will have some wind and two days of heavy rain.  I have brought the furniture in from the deck and porch and checked GANNET’s dock lines and tied down the tiller.

I read in one alarmist article based on outdated information that people would have little time to prepare for the storm.  If you live in a hurricane zone you should have been prepared since May.

In a journal entry from 2015 I found the following.

I received an email from Brian:

A question please.  Apologies for being personal.  What has kept you going when you were at the brink of failure or defeat?  You seem to have persevered when many others backed away or threw in the towel.  How?  Pride, courageous heart, stubborn personality?  Have your thoughts on the matter changed with years and experience.

       I find it an interesting question.  Not why do I sail, but why do I persevere.  

        I’ve been thinking about it intermittently ever since and regret that I haven’t come up with a good answer, so I’m just going to write and let my thoughts flow.

        One reason I persevered is because I could.  

        I believe it is quantifiable that I have an exceptional body.  It bailed seven tons of water from EGREGIOUS for months; lived on six sips of water and half a can of tuna fish a day for two weeks after CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE pitch-poled and, despite losing more than 20% of its weight, rowed the last several miles and through breaking surf to reach land; swam for twenty-six hours after I sank RESURGAM. 

        And not exceptional just when it was young.

        Those ordeals occurred in my thirties, forties and fifties.

        In my sixties it sailed around the world a couple of times and survived three or four more Force 12 storms. 

        In my seventies it sailed GANNET across the Pacific, physically demanding because of exposure and quick motion.  And, time and chance permitting, it will sail GANNET even farther next year.

        I take no credit for that body, other than that I have taken pretty good care of it.

        Not only can it go the distance, it recovers relatively quickly.

        So I persevered because I could when perhaps others couldn’t.

        I also persevered because I put myself in situations where I had no choice but to persist or die.  That I carried no means to call for help was deliberate.  

        That I am alive today is due to something else beyond my control.  We all have an animal inside us who does not want to die.  My animal is strong and has kept me going, particularly during the long swim, far beyond what I would have believed were my limits.

        I have persevered partially because of ego.

        We all like to believe we are special.  As I have written elsewhere, I like to quantify things.  I come from nothing and no where.  I had no encouraging parents.  No mentor.  I was a solitary child who created himself.  No one believed in me but me.  And that was not enough.  

        I read biographies of great men as how-to manuals.  (Today you could probably write a best seller, GREATNESS FOR DUMMIES.)  I thought I was capable of living as they had lived.  And so I set out to write and sail and love.  Not to have persevered would have been to fail to live up to my image of myself, to have been ordinary, and that was unthinkable.

        If I persevered in part due to gifts and instincts beyond my control, I also did so in part because I understand that persevering can shift the odds, however slightly, in your favor, while quitting results in immediate and permanent failure.

        I set off for Cape Horn forty-one years ago, had rigging damage near the Equator, turned down wind for Tahiti, made repairs there, set off for Cape Horn, got down to the Southern Ocean, had rigging damage again, sailed all the way back to San Diego.  I didn’t have much money left.  If I had quit then, that would have been that.  But as I expect you know, I didn’t quit.

        A common thread in the lives of men and women who are considered great is that they attribute their success not to brilliance, but to hard work and persistence.   This is not false modesty.  I’m sure they were aware of their talents; but they also knew that had they not persisted through failure and hardship, those talents would not have reached fruition.

        One could as easily ask not why I have persevered, but why others who did not, gave up?

        When I proofread the scans of some of my early books for the Kindle edItions, STORM PASSAGE was the one I was most tempted to rewrite.

        Back then I was like my contemporary, Muhammad Ali, saying “I am the greatest”, and I expect for the same reason:  we created images of ourselves that we had to live up to.  Or try.  And I also expect that we both believe that you are not what you say you can do, but what you actually do.  And if you do it, you are it.  

        Muhammad Ali took brutal punishment to become Muhammad Ali.

        I would have died trying to complete my voyages.  I wrote at the start of that third attempt at Cape Horn that it was victory or death.  Over the top?  Perhaps for our less than epic age.  But then I did live it.

        For a long time now I have not claimed to be great, only an original, and I have only competed with myself.  That is easy:  I always win.  And of course lose.  But I forget that side of it.

        I still persevere because my body is still (mostly) strong and likes to be used; because persevering becomes a habit:  it is what I do; because I still enjoy solving problems, overcoming obstacles; and because I still want to live up to the image I formed of myself long go.  

        I don’t know that I’ve answered your question, Brian, but I have considered it, and thank you for causing me to do so. 

        (I have not yet decided whether I will include this in the GANNET book.)

Hilton Head Island: corroded

I am making an effort to go sailing for a day or two before the chopping starts.  I, who seldom have any appointments, now have three.  Each of my skin cancers requires a different surgeon and will be done individually starting new week.  With follow ups to remove stitches I will presumably end up with at least six appointments in coming weeks.

I am not certain I will go sailing.  Partly that is because I am in writing mode.  I work first thing every morning and am reluctant to change focus.  And partially the weather may not cooperate.

I did charge the Evo battery that is here in the condo and I went down to GANNET a few days ago to charge the second battery that is on board.  However I discovered that both the electrical outlets in the Great Cabin were not functioning.  The one to port is a cigarette lighter fixture.  The one to starboard has two USB outlets.

I went back yesterday and spent three hours in the contorted positions GANNET imposes, replacing the cigarette lighter and wire end fittings and tracing the wiring to the USB fixture, which required removing it when it strenuously did not want to be removed, until I found the corroded splice and replaced it and end fittings.

I then plugged the Evo battery charger into the new cigarette lighter socket, a UE Boom speaker into one of the USB outlets and left them to charge overnight.

I was pleased when I biked down this morning to find that both had.

I then intended only to scrub two small bird droppings from the deck, but when I had, the contrast between where I scrubbed and the rest of the deck, which until then had looked quite acceptable, was dramatic and I ended up scrubbing the entire deck and cockpit.

The cockpit needs painting as do the rub rail stripes and the hull touched up and probably the interior as well.  Heat prevented work from about mid-June to mid-August, but no longer does.

Whether I will get GANNET away from the dock in the next week I do not know.

In rereading the journal from 2015 I came across this from Saint-Exupéry’s WIND, SAND AND STARS:

Flying is a man’s job and its worries are a man’s worries.  A pilot’s business is with the wind, with the stars, with night, with sand, with the sea.  He strives to outwit the forces of nature.  He stares in expectancy for the coming of dawn the way a gardener awaits the coming of spring.  He looks forward to port as to a promised land, and truth for him is what lives in the stars.

Drop ‘with sand’ and he could have been writing about sailors, too.

Hilton Head Island: some poems

Fermamdo Pesoa

Hilton Head Island: batting 1.000; working; a photo and some quotes

 

Ted Williams was the last man to bat .400 in the major leagues.  He did that the year of my birth which means it was a very long time ago.  However I have just battled 1.000 and rather wish I hadn't.  

A little over a week ago a pleasant young woman cut three pieces from me and sent them to be biopsied.  Having had literally countless skin cancers I was reasonably certain one of these would prove positive.  All three did.  One has been scheduled for removal next month.  I should soon receive word when the other two will be.  I continue to be whittled away.

Now that the summer heat has ended, I would like to go sailing and have asked the dive company to clean GANNET's bottom.  Skin chopping may interfere and I am in working mode, but I am willing to take a break if doctors and weather permit.

As some of you know I focus on one thing at a time.  Presently that is working on the GANNET book.  I wake at around 6 AM, get dressed, start the coffee machine, pour a half glass of grapefruit juice, swallow a multi-vitamin, and retire to the guest bedroom and work for a couple of hours, producing five hundred to a thousand words.  This is more than I have usually done on first drafts in the past, but this is mostly collating from passage logs, journal entries and magazine articles I have already written.  I am now 35,000 words in.  I understand the structure.  I will continue until GANNET and I reach San Diego and then I will go back and rewrite and eliminate and rewrite and rewrite.  I like rewriting, which is like polishing, and could do so endlessly, but sometime it must come to an end.  I know the time to stop is when I find myself changing back one morning what I changed the day before.  

You can expect to  continue to find posted  items I have come across in reading past journal entries for the GANNET book.  

One is the above photo taken by the man I believe to be America's foremost living open boat cruiser, Steve Earley, in his previous life as a newspaper photographer.  The newsroom heard of a derecho approaching, so Steve stationed himself with a view of the Norfolk waterfront.  This is one of my favorite of Steve's photo and I believe perfected by the man in the red shirt in the foreground.

From Joseph Conrad's novel, CHANCE.

The exacting life of the sea has this advantage over the life of the earth that its claims are simple and cannot be evaded.

and

Sailors are not adventurers.

From Wilbur Wright.

No bird soars in a calm.

From Grouch Marx.

Just think what God could have done if he had the money.

Hilton Head Island: from the past; a reply to a comment

In writing the GANNET book I have been reading journal entries from the time of the voyage and have come across some bits that I believe are worth posting again after a decade, including the above cartoon sent to me in 2015 by Larry who knows that I share Carl Sagan’s view of the universe.  It brought a smile now as then.  I thank Larry again.

On November 13, 2014, I wrote:  I just read on the Internet a study that concludes that men who have had sex with more than twenty women are less likely to get prostate cancer than those who have not.

That’s a relief.

Also, a reader with the fine name Chance sent me:  The meek shall inherit the Earth; the brave will get the oceans.

To one journal entry the ubiquitous anonymous commented:

I may have missed a post where you have listed all of your offshore equipment, food, safety, extras, sails, water, beer, something to make you laugh when it gets rough, or wondering what am I doing here.  Thank you for your reply.

I told him that I have written about all those things, but not in one place and to respond fully would take a book.  However when I had time I would respond as a journal entry because others might be interested.  I have time today, so here it is.

Offshore equipment.  For the year Carol sailed with me I had a life raft and an EPIRB.  I normally do not carry either and when those died, I did not replace them.  I have survived in an inflatable dinghy for two weeks and three hundred miles.  If a boat sinks almost instantly a life raft may save my life.  If it takes ten minutes I can pump up the dinghy.  Of EPIRBs, I have always saved myself.  I do have a Yellowbrick tracking device on GANNET which can send up a distress signal.  I do not carry it for that, but to let Carol and others who might be interested know where I am and how I am progressing, or not.  I would disable that feature if I could.  I have on GANNET a Jordan drogue which I am glad never to have used.  I also have a dry suit, which I am also glad never to have used.  I  have two sets of foul weather gear and the required life jackets, flares, fire extinguisher, and fog horn.

Food.  As should be well known, I do not cook.  I only boil water.  My breakfast at sea is uncooked oatmeal, trail mix, dried fruit, protein powder, dried milk, water; a box of juice; a cup of black instant coffee.  Ashore I have the same except the fruit and milk are fresh and the coffee is not instant.  Dinner is a freeze dry meal.  Lunch in the past has been a can of fish or chicken or Laughing Cow cheese.  I seldom eat lunch any longer.  I also have chocolate, some chips, cookies, etc.

Sails.  For four decades my boats have been three sail boats.  Fully battened main, furling jib, asymmetrical spinnaker.  The jibs have over the years become increasingly smaller.  GANNET’s is nominally a 110%, but with the tack set above the deck on a furling gear drum is really only about a 100%.  On GANNET the asymmetrical is set on a short carbon fiber bow sprit and top down furling gear so it can be quickly furled from the cockpit.

Something to make me laugh.  Nothing specifically.  I have a sense of humor and easily find things to laugh at, including myself.

Wondering what I am doing out here.  I sometimes would end a voyage at a given moment if I could, but I can’t, so I carry on.  I never wonder what I am doing out there.  I have known from the beginning.

Hilton Head Island: water and a shipwreck

 

The above image comes from The Astronomy Picture of the Day.  If you can't read the caption, the biggest blue ball represents all the water on, in, and above the Earth; the middle ball is liquid fresh water; and the tiny, almost invisible ball fresh water in lakes and rivers.  We don't have much.

For a fuller explanation:

ap250907.html

This is THE ASTROLABE "Falling suddenly on the reefs in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand' drawn by St. Aulaire.  It came to me via Jack for which I thank him.  I am including it just because I like it.

Hilton Head Island: The Human Factor; cooler

I found William Langewiesche’s article about the Air France Flight 447 crash.  It is titled The Human Factor.  Although some pop up ads appear and cover some of the words, the article is readable and I found it interesting to do so again.  Here is the link.

 https://www.vanityfair.com/news/business/2014/10/air-france-flight-447-crash

It appears that like last year the extreme heat ended while we were away in August.  Carol and I have gone for walks and bike rides in afternoons, something we had not be able to do for at least two months, and I biked ten miles today to a skin cancer appointment.  Three biopsies and lots of areas frozen.  I need a full skin transplant, but unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—they are not available.

Hilton Head Island: complications and cascades

In reading the passage logs and relevant journal entries while writing the GANNET book I came upon an entry about an article I read by William Langewiesche on the crash of Air France Flight 447 into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009.  

Langewiesche’s name was so unusual that I easily recognized it.  I read many of his articles over the years, mostly about airplane crashes.  I also saw his obituary a few months ago when he died at age 70 of prostate cancer.

The journal entry appeared here eleven years ago.  It is worth reading again.

        I read online a long article by William Langewiesche about the crash in 2009 in the Atlantic Ocean of Air France Flight 447.  Although I would not have remembered it, I recognized Mr. Langewiesche’s unusual name from having read an article of his many years ago about the crash of, I think, a Boeing 737 over Pennsylvania.  That crash was due to a cascading series of minor problems that combined to create disaster.

        I was thinking of that toward the end of the passage from Neiafu when GANNET was coming unravelled.  No one failure was critical:  split floorboard, broken pipe berth, failed flashlight, limited solar charging, failed tiller pilots, sheered off tiller pedestal tube; but our resources and options were diminishing, and in addition to personal comfort I wanted to reach port before the cascade became serious.

        Air France 447 was a very different story, one of pilots unable to respond properly when automation failed.  In the Air France case the failure was minor:  a brief loss of air speed indication; but 98% of flying commercial jets is now automated turning pilots into system managers and rendering them ever less capable of flying the aircraft when they have to.

        There is more here than a mere analogy to sailing.  I have prepared all my boats to sail themselves with only minor intervention from me.  That is true of GANNET as well.  I often think of myself as a system manager; but when the time came in the gale as we approached Opua that I had to steer, I did.  When the time came on Flight 447 that the pilots had to steer, they—and there were three—did exactly the wrong thing and killed everyone on board.

        I found many interesting observations in the article, among them that the average pilot thinks he is better than he is; there are cultural differences in pilots willingness to take over the controls from automated systems—the Irish are most willing; Asian pilots least so; and Wiener’s Laws, formulated by Earl Wiener, an engineer who taught at the University of Miami.

        Every device creates its own opportunity for human error.

        Exotic devices create exotic problems.

        Digital devices tune out small errors while creating opportunities for large ones.

        Invention is the mother of necessity.

        Some problems have no solution.

        It takes an airplane to bring out the worst in a pilot.

        Whenever you solve a problem, you usually create one.  You can only hope that the one you create is less critical than the one you eliminated.

        You can never be too rich or too thin (Duchess of Windsor) or too careful what you put into a digital flight-guidance system (Wiener).

        People universally say GANNET is a pretty boat, often they say beautiful.  That is because there is none of the stuff—and I almost chose a harsher word—many people put on their boats.  

        One of the more pleasing compliments I ever received wasn’t even directed to me.  Many years ago while down below on RESURGAM on a mooring in Sydney, Australia, another boat sailed by and I heard the owner tell someone aboard, “That boat has sailed around the world.”

        The incredulous reply, “Why it doesn’t have enough stuff on it.”