Rigger and E-46 Owner
E-46 Aiki
E-46 Aiki
A good friend and fellow rigger when walking down the dock I live on asked me; “How is it that you can walk down this dock every day without being horrified”? We both laughed and continued on to dinner on my boat. My friend was speaking specifically about the rigging on the boats on the dock where I live, but it could have been any of the marinas that I visit on a daily basis.
A lot of the rigs were unsafe, and virtually all of them could easily be changed to make the boats sail much easier. The amount of effort to sail some of the boats was evident by the band aid solutions that were applied. Like adding a winch to overcome the friction of an unfair lead through bad blocks, incorrectly installed boom preventers used to overcome a poor mainsheet system. The list went on and on with just a glance. Indeed if I were to dwell on a lot of what I see I would find myself depressed at best, and most likely horrified.
My realization was that the problems in the rigging are often the easiest to see to the trained eye. I teach a seminar on examining your rigging. The two day class is a start into a new way of thinking about rigging. At the end of the weekend most people can see most major and common problems as they walk down the dock. It takes time and training though. Most people comment at the end of that class, that I am really teaching a new way of thinking, not just about rigging, but about boats and sailing in general.
Sail boats are the carriers of our dreams, the magic carpets with the ability to take us wherever we can command them. They whisper to us of far off places with white sand beaches, warm trade winds and new and exotic people to meet. Looking at them we have visions of time with our families, away from the pressures of the modern world, time to be with one another and enjoy the all too fleeting time we have. Quite literally they allow us some way of being the master of our fates and the captains of our souls, if only for an afternoon sail. Yet here they sit, unused and mostly unloved. Most boats leave the dock less than 7 days a year. Why?
I believe the answer is larger than the sum of the parts that make up the question. I see it as part technical skills, part lack of confidence, part our inability to break out of our chaos of living in the 21st century, part of it is much deeper though; a reflection of where we are headed as a culture and the broken ideas and ideals that come with living in it.
I teach, consult and coach people on how to set out on small boats like ours to find the things that are important and bring joy to their lives. Our boats are metaphors for our lives, they are our dreams made real. The smallest technical problems can be reflections of the problems that we face in life, and possible solutions for them.
Sean asked me to start a blog here, something to get the new blogging section of the site off and running. For a lot of reasons I would normally not blog. However the audience here is more a group of friends than my normal magazine audience. When your friends ask you to write something for them, it is harder to say no. So look here for an entry a week, sometimes about the technical side of boats and boating, sometimes about the philosophical side of boats and boating...
Guy Stevens
Alameda California June 8, 2011
You can find out more about what we do, and even more technical and philosophical goodies at www.realworldcruising.com
All Rights Reserved Guy Stevens 2011
A lot of the rigs were unsafe, and virtually all of them could easily be changed to make the boats sail much easier. The amount of effort to sail some of the boats was evident by the band aid solutions that were applied. Like adding a winch to overcome the friction of an unfair lead through bad blocks, incorrectly installed boom preventers used to overcome a poor mainsheet system. The list went on and on with just a glance. Indeed if I were to dwell on a lot of what I see I would find myself depressed at best, and most likely horrified.
My realization was that the problems in the rigging are often the easiest to see to the trained eye. I teach a seminar on examining your rigging. The two day class is a start into a new way of thinking about rigging. At the end of the weekend most people can see most major and common problems as they walk down the dock. It takes time and training though. Most people comment at the end of that class, that I am really teaching a new way of thinking, not just about rigging, but about boats and sailing in general.
Sail boats are the carriers of our dreams, the magic carpets with the ability to take us wherever we can command them. They whisper to us of far off places with white sand beaches, warm trade winds and new and exotic people to meet. Looking at them we have visions of time with our families, away from the pressures of the modern world, time to be with one another and enjoy the all too fleeting time we have. Quite literally they allow us some way of being the master of our fates and the captains of our souls, if only for an afternoon sail. Yet here they sit, unused and mostly unloved. Most boats leave the dock less than 7 days a year. Why?
I believe the answer is larger than the sum of the parts that make up the question. I see it as part technical skills, part lack of confidence, part our inability to break out of our chaos of living in the 21st century, part of it is much deeper though; a reflection of where we are headed as a culture and the broken ideas and ideals that come with living in it.
I teach, consult and coach people on how to set out on small boats like ours to find the things that are important and bring joy to their lives. Our boats are metaphors for our lives, they are our dreams made real. The smallest technical problems can be reflections of the problems that we face in life, and possible solutions for them.
Sean asked me to start a blog here, something to get the new blogging section of the site off and running. For a lot of reasons I would normally not blog. However the audience here is more a group of friends than my normal magazine audience. When your friends ask you to write something for them, it is harder to say no. So look here for an entry a week, sometimes about the technical side of boats and boating, sometimes about the philosophical side of boats and boating...
Guy Stevens
Alameda California June 8, 2011
You can find out more about what we do, and even more technical and philosophical goodies at www.realworldcruising.com
All Rights Reserved Guy Stevens 2011
-
aliki_s.png
