LeifThor
Member III
When I was a kid, I dreamed of being an astronaut. In the 70s NASA was floating some crazy space engineering projects too like the L5 space station. A hollow air filled cigar 18 miles long lined with civilization spinning to recreate earth’s gravity. But NASA became a pale joke to it’s mighty roar during the race to the moon. I like many gave up on the dream.
Now decades later having spent over 10 years living and sailing on boats, it’s recently come to my attention I’ve inadvertently achieved as close as possible my childhood dream.
People often think of their boats similarly to their car or house, when in fact their boat is more like the space station circling our planet. For a boat is made of little more than a series of systems that can kill you should one or more ever break while out in the water.
Thru-hull fails, you sink you die. Fuel line leaks, if gasoline is your fuel, an explosion is possible. Hell if you have a gas engine and you don’t empty the air surrounding your engine compartment before turning the key, an explosion is possible. Steering cable snapping gets you a boat out of control, rigging fails, you may have a battering ram on your vessel, perhaps happening in less than pristine conditions. There are so so many ways if any one of the systems in our vessel fail, sinking or worse can be our outcome. I read recently about a million dollar sailboat running aground due to a broken zip tie, go figure!
In short, our boats are more similar to the space station then they are to our car or our house.
If you own a boat, you’re a captain of your ship, like Captain Kirk from Star Trek to the Enterprise. If your boat isn’t in your garage, your boat is in a port, it sounds similar to space ports. Spaceships dock like us, as momentum and inertia play a huge part in docking. And when we tie our ship/boat in our docks, they’re still organically moving. In the space station like in a boat, it’s a head, a galley, a cockpit, and a hatch.
When we power up or down, it’s the same terminology for spaceships. When we undock, and proceed to the wide-open spaces we’re heading to, we better have everything we need, for when we’re “out there”, it’s not like we can stop at a local liquor store to pick up fuel or water…It’s even referred to as “out there” to mean exactly what it means…out there. Like when Captain Ron says, “whatever’s going to happen is going to happen out there!”
Now here’s where all of us boaters in fact have it far better than astronauts, for many of these things we take for granted in 2020 aren’t possible for astronauts. We have thousands and thousands of potential destinations, often with adventures on the other end, astronauts have only one or two! And currently as of 2022 as a human being has it, unless utilizing commercial services like a jet or cruise ship, private travel from one continent to another is only possible on your ship. Even astronauts refer to their spaceships as simply their “ship”.
This is also unfortunately where not every ship gets to go, since if we took the total number of ships or boats in service owned by people, a small minority of them are capable of crossing an ocean. In terms of comparisons, there are cars that can make it around town, and cars that can cross the country without hesitation. If your boat can cross an ocean, or is a Blue Water vessel, then congratulations you’re one of the few the proud nautonauts. You will of course only be able to use this designation if you take your boat across said ocean.
I and my boat haven’t yet crossed an ocean yet, but in a few years we hope to. She’s required extensive refitting, including blue water hatches, which I did, and I know not a single astronaut has had the opportunity to work on their own spaceship so that’s been a lot of fun and learning. And she’ll get a few more upgrades before we set across the vast ocean to go from here to there. For now at least we have the Channel Islands to go to, and within a year or so Mexico to dash down to. Slow and steady we and she are getting outfitted for the long trips. Water maker, solar charging and a few other items our ship will need to make trips across a sea. And unlike astronauts traveling through space, we’ll definitely see wildlife along the way, hopefully eat some of it in route.
So to all the astronauts who’ve flown in to space, stayed aboard the space station or perhaps stepped on the moon, eat your heart out, for we boaters have a limitless air supply scrubbed so clean we can taste it, and every moment of our journeys are a journey of rocking movement telling us we’re no longer in Kansas any more.
Now decades later having spent over 10 years living and sailing on boats, it’s recently come to my attention I’ve inadvertently achieved as close as possible my childhood dream.
People often think of their boats similarly to their car or house, when in fact their boat is more like the space station circling our planet. For a boat is made of little more than a series of systems that can kill you should one or more ever break while out in the water.
Thru-hull fails, you sink you die. Fuel line leaks, if gasoline is your fuel, an explosion is possible. Hell if you have a gas engine and you don’t empty the air surrounding your engine compartment before turning the key, an explosion is possible. Steering cable snapping gets you a boat out of control, rigging fails, you may have a battering ram on your vessel, perhaps happening in less than pristine conditions. There are so so many ways if any one of the systems in our vessel fail, sinking or worse can be our outcome. I read recently about a million dollar sailboat running aground due to a broken zip tie, go figure!
In short, our boats are more similar to the space station then they are to our car or our house.
If you own a boat, you’re a captain of your ship, like Captain Kirk from Star Trek to the Enterprise. If your boat isn’t in your garage, your boat is in a port, it sounds similar to space ports. Spaceships dock like us, as momentum and inertia play a huge part in docking. And when we tie our ship/boat in our docks, they’re still organically moving. In the space station like in a boat, it’s a head, a galley, a cockpit, and a hatch.
When we power up or down, it’s the same terminology for spaceships. When we undock, and proceed to the wide-open spaces we’re heading to, we better have everything we need, for when we’re “out there”, it’s not like we can stop at a local liquor store to pick up fuel or water…It’s even referred to as “out there” to mean exactly what it means…out there. Like when Captain Ron says, “whatever’s going to happen is going to happen out there!”
Now here’s where all of us boaters in fact have it far better than astronauts, for many of these things we take for granted in 2020 aren’t possible for astronauts. We have thousands and thousands of potential destinations, often with adventures on the other end, astronauts have only one or two! And currently as of 2022 as a human being has it, unless utilizing commercial services like a jet or cruise ship, private travel from one continent to another is only possible on your ship. Even astronauts refer to their spaceships as simply their “ship”.
This is also unfortunately where not every ship gets to go, since if we took the total number of ships or boats in service owned by people, a small minority of them are capable of crossing an ocean. In terms of comparisons, there are cars that can make it around town, and cars that can cross the country without hesitation. If your boat can cross an ocean, or is a Blue Water vessel, then congratulations you’re one of the few the proud nautonauts. You will of course only be able to use this designation if you take your boat across said ocean.
I and my boat haven’t yet crossed an ocean yet, but in a few years we hope to. She’s required extensive refitting, including blue water hatches, which I did, and I know not a single astronaut has had the opportunity to work on their own spaceship so that’s been a lot of fun and learning. And she’ll get a few more upgrades before we set across the vast ocean to go from here to there. For now at least we have the Channel Islands to go to, and within a year or so Mexico to dash down to. Slow and steady we and she are getting outfitted for the long trips. Water maker, solar charging and a few other items our ship will need to make trips across a sea. And unlike astronauts traveling through space, we’ll definitely see wildlife along the way, hopefully eat some of it in route.
So to all the astronauts who’ve flown in to space, stayed aboard the space station or perhaps stepped on the moon, eat your heart out, for we boaters have a limitless air supply scrubbed so clean we can taste it, and every moment of our journeys are a journey of rocking movement telling us we’re no longer in Kansas any more.
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Leifur Thor Sailing Dolphins.jpg
