Girls vs Old Men - The Jessica Watson Effect

[Factor]

Originally Posted by skipmac

... untrained and unprepared wants to sail around the world and SAR has to go bail them out it is my business since that cost comes out of my tax dollars. This is not idle speculation, it happens fairly often.

Not often with your tax dollars actually - about a third of the RTW trip falls in Australia's area of obligation, in fact I cant remember the last time the USA actually did a RTW rescue. And as an Aus taxpayer I am fine with it.

And that is a flimsy point of view anyway

People who sail RTW might cost me money to rescue. The same may be said for people who eat (<<< insert favourite fast food here>>>) - they cost me money in hospital fees cause they get obese - and people who go bush walking - they get loat - and dont start me on people who go snow skiing, motor racing etc etc etc.

[Hampus]

Regardless of age, women are scary. Period!

/Hampus

[surfingminniwinni]

Originally Posted by Factor

Not often with your tax dollars actually - about a third of the RTW trip falls in Australia's area of obligation, in fact I cant remember the last time the USA actually did a RTW rescue. And as an Aus taxpayer I am fine with it.

And that is a flimsy point of view anyway

People who sail RTW might cost me money to rescue. The same may be said for people who eat (<<< insert favourite fast food here>>>) - they cost me money in hospital fees cause they get obese - and people who go bush walking - they get loat - and dont start me on people who go snow skiing, motor racing etc etc etc.

Lets not forget smokers.

[surfingminniwinni]

Interesting points cruisers. Let me add a few more points for your consideration.

Technology argument.

In 1764 Captain James Cook, had criticism aimed against him because he cheated by taking a new fangled gadget called a Chronometer with him to measure lines of longitude.

London Times article, written by an Englishman.
Great Britain's Population: Almost 60 million.

Other article mentioned above, written by American.
USA's Population: Approx 307 million.

Australia's Population: Just over 22 million

My point, Australia always box's above it weight in the world of sporting achievements.
I think its just sour grapes.

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by surfingminniwinni

Lets not forget smokers.

Sorry for the thread drift but I think smokers should be given preferential treatment when you consider they have usually paid a lot more tax than us non-smokers.

I understand JW is a non-smoker (like me) however she is also a circumnavigator (unlike me). I have added this information about JW just to try to keep a little to the thread tropic .

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by VirtualVagabond

Two points:
1) JW obviously wasn't untrained and unprepared, which may have been the point you were making, and
2) It's a mistake to see rescues of people pushing the boundaries as costing us. We get this argument in our papers every time it happens and it fails to recognise that most of the rescue/navy personel are being paid whether they're sitting waiting for a call out, or out rescuing someone. If the budget isn't being spent rescuing people it gets spent trying to create artificial disaster situatioins for them to practice on.

Who would you rather have coming to rescue you, a team that has done all the theory and sanitised risk free exercises, or the team that has loads of experience rescuing real people, even the self destructive idiots, in real time disaster/accident situations? I know which I'd prefer.

Governments waste millions of our tax dollars on all kinds of rediculous causes and activities. Rescue services is not one of them, IMHO.

Hi VV,

Overall am in complete agreement with you. Yes I meant to imply in my post that JW, unlike many adventurers, did seem to be prepared. Also, I do not generally object to SAR even for dingbats, but I think that those resources are sometimes abused. Pushing the boundaries I don't object to at all unless it is done stupidly. As sailors I think all of us do so at least to some degree.

In the case of the climber I referred to, he was untrained, unprepared and went out to climb without checking weather, twice requiring rescue, and when interviewed was planning to try again, asserting SAR was his right regardless of the cost to the cash strapped, local authorities. I never know where exactly to draw the line in a case like this, but the locales said if they had to go after this guy again they were going to send him a bill.

Don't get me started about the money wasted by the government. However I would think that this would be an argument for trying to save a little where possible or at least bill an egregious violator for the costs incurred.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by Factor

Not often with your tax dollars actually - about a third of the RTW trip falls in Australia's area of obligation, in fact I cant remember the last time the USA actually did a RTW rescue. And as an Aus taxpayer I am fine with it.

And that is a flimsy point of view anyway

People who sail RTW might cost me money to rescue. The same may be said for people who eat (<<< insert favourite fast food here>>>) - they cost me money in hospital fees cause they get obese - and people who go bush walking - they get loat - and dont start me on people who go snow skiing, motor racing etc etc etc.

You are quite right. Australia is stuck with a lot of RTW SAR cases. Guess that's just the penalty for being located in such a cool spot for sailing.

I should try to clarify that I am not objecting to SAR in general, just when it's abused. Every time any one of us leaves the dock we have made a personal choice to engage in an activity that carries some risk and might require rescue. I used to do some rather serious cave diving, like 2 Km penetration at 100 M depth with a multi-hour deco. Certainly a hobby that carried a bit of risk but I also carried a significant high risk insurance policy to cover my own costs if needed.

My question is when does risky behavior become irresponsible behavior? When the lives of SAR are risked due to someone's personal choice at what point is this reckless endangerment?

Would you not object to a bush walker that went out every weekend with no map and no compass, got lost and had to be rescued? When has he or she crossed the line; the fifth time, the tenth time, the hundredth time? Obviously an outrageous example but my question is should there not be some limit at some point?

[Canibul]

Originally Posted by skipmac

In the case of JW didn't turn out that way but when someone that is untrained and unprepared wants to sail around the world and SAR has to go bail them out it is my business since that cost comes out of my tax dollars. This is not idle speculation, it happens fairly often.

There is a guy that has "followed his dreams" to climb Mt Ranier and has required SAR a couple of times to chopper him out at great expense. So is it society's job to keep paying for this guy's incompetence?

Okay, so....the problem from your perspective is only if she gets rescued while in YOUR country. Or are you saying you pax taxes to support the SAR capabilities of every country in the world?

Is the Watson family paying for helicopters to save idiots on Mt. Ranier?

How much did Jessica Watson's trip actually cost you personally?


Seems to me the problem is NOT the people who want to take risks with their lives......the problem here is the liberal governments who decide to tax us and then decides what they need to do with OUR dollars/pesos/rubles, etc.

You want a Nanny government there to run a SAR? Fine. You pay for it.

If you don't want to pay for SAR, then why have an SAR capability at all?

Strange, this attitude that we "Need" a SAR capability to save "ME" but I don't want to pay for it to save anyone else.

Too much government.


Simple solution? NO SAR for individuals taking risks. Make them sign a waiver. Or in this case, make their legal guardian sign the legal waiver.

[mintyspilot]

This is getting silly.

[VirtualVagabond]

Originally Posted by skipmac

In the case of the climber I referred to, he was untrained, unprepared and went out to climb without checking weather, twice requiring rescue, and when interviewed was planning to try again, asserting SAR was his right regardless of the cost to the cash strapped, local authorities.

However I would think that this would be an argument for trying to save a little where possible or at least bill an egregious violator for the costs incurred.

Fair comment, skipmac.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by mintyspilot

This is getting silly.

Yep. Think I will sign out of this thread.

[Ex-Calif]

Hi folks,

Let's stick to girls vs. old men and leave the political stuff for other venues.

Thanks!

[Pelagic]

ROTFL Dan….


Nothing political about “girls vs old men”… but we get your point….cheers!

[Hirophant]

Originally Posted by paradix

Here's a much more entertaining version:
Jessica Watson Not A Hero | newmatilda.com

From that article: "What to make of a young girl who gets herself all puffed up just because she sat on a boat eating Spam for a few months?" — Jess really brought that one on herself by famously choosing to take three dozen tins of spam with her! (Not to mention the 5 crates of lollies and unknown tubes of pringles.)

Regarding the Times article, I think the guy sounds more grumpy than scared of girls. He does have a point about the Bonita girl though: if you intersect enough sets then you can achieve a record: she was not the youngest person to climb Everest, nor even the youngest female or the youngest British person, but she was the youngest British female... so what? Next it will be the youngest blonde Patagonian who was born on a Thursday. The Wikipedia entry for Everest is full of such junk, and it's easy to imagine circumnavigation going the same way. In Jessica's case though I think he is just lashing out, since she is not "youngest female" or "youngest australian", she is youngest full stop (and with no caveats like stopping for repairs (Mike Perham) or holidays (Zac Sunderland)).

Actually I think the problem that the Times article really highlights is the stupid way the media report these things. Quote: "There wasn’t anything else to say because all that had happened was that this young lady had got in a boat and sat in it till it had gone round the world, then got out." If you had only seen the UK TV coverage of Jessica's voyage, that's what it does amount to. Two news items "today X set off to sail around the world", followed several months later by "Today X returned from sailing around the world." Now really, anyone can set off in a boat, and anyone can sail back into port. It's the bit in the middle which is the interesting (and hard) bit, but by totally ignoring it the media reduce the whole thing to a meaningless soundbite which leaves people saying "so what?"

[paradix]

Originally Posted by Ex-Calif

Hi folks,

Let's stick to girls vs. old men and leave the political stuff for other venues.

Thanks!

That's great, but do we have to use this thread to re-hash all the already-rebutted comments from the previous threads?

Originally Posted by Ex-Calif

- Suspicion (as in Suspect - maybe), It's clear she was out there alone. But as a "record" or some giant feat I have some suspicion about what it means. Forget the age and the gender. She had 24 X 7 comms, continual weather and route guidance, gps navigation and multiple redundant autopilots. Anyone who did this feat even as late as 1980 (or later) would not have had any of the major technology that Pink Lady had.

This is just plain ridiculous. Jessica's boat was hardly a high-tech SAILING boat. Yes it had a lot of the latest SAFETY electronics, but these weren't sailing the boat for her.

Her principal sailing assistance came from her mechanical wind-vane operated self-steering, variations of which have existed for decades (centuries even?). She also had a couple of simple electrical autohelm backups, but these are hardly "new" technology either, and nothing compared to all the super-systems those "guys on cats doing 35kts" are using.

Weather and route guidance are decades old too, whether by telex / fax / email whatever.

24 x 7 comms may have helped her with psychological aspects of her trip, and quicker access to advice from others. She still had to actually fix all the stuff herself, of course.

We're not in 1980 now, let alone 1880, and Jessica is no different than those who have gone before her, using whatever technologies they had available.

Originally Posted by Ex-Calif

I really don't get celebrity. My dad said two things...

Fool's names and fool's faces always appear in public places.

- and -

Even Heddy Lamar squats. (apparently she was a hottie when the world wasn't quite so warm)

That's too easy to pass up

There's no more public place than the internet, and who's lovely face is that in your avatar, sir?