Anxiety Attack from Sailing Magazines

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by William Youmans

What worries me the most thumbing through the magazine pictures is seeing all the sailors, cruisers, racers not wearing lifejackets while out at sea. That’s what gives me the most anxiety. You want your picture in a sailing mag- you must have a life jacket or harness on.!!

Always required at night, but during the day they’re not required in the safety of the center cockpit unless the wind picks up and the captain decides everyone needs to wear one.

[SVTwilight]

I find as soon as I stop reading and start sailing, all the anxiety melts fully away.

Your anxiety likely is not fully from the reading. The reading only augments your pre-existing feelings.

Nothing I have ever experienced in sailing is any worse that regular real life and most of it is far better!

Get experience, get prepared (all fun!) and most importantly: just get out there! :-)

If you are going to read go for the likes of the Pardeys and John Kretsmer, not the sounds bite magazine articles!

And remember, if the bovine residue does hit the fan, fear and dread can keep you sharp provided you keep them in check!

Fair Winds!

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by Fiftybucks

I have to explain... I am in the market for a 38 sailboat for wife and I. I let a good friend know about our search. He, being a current owner of a large motor yacht and former sailboat person, has kept huge inventories of sailing magazines since the early 1990s. I am talking, hundreds of issues. So, last weekend he (actually his wife) proceeded to gift to me canvas sail bags full of old issues of Cruising World, Lattitudes & Attitudes, Ocean Navigator, Living Aboard, 38 Degrees North, 48 Degrees North, Practical Sailor Boat Buying, and other publications. I live in Idaho in the mountains, it is way way below freezing, and snow is so deep that the Jeep was buried until a week ago. I started the fireplace, and sat nearby, and proceeded to dive into all these issues, not in any particular order or date.
Late evening after the second day and perhaps 50 - 70 issues of the above, I noticed I was kind of trembling, and also questioning our longtime decision to 'get a nice boat on the ocean' and explore. I being influenced by all the articles and all the issues.
The magazines could be categorized as either sales brochures for boats I would never be able to own, with idealistic scenes with the girl on the bow and white sandy beach, or the nitty gritty, types with tales of cheating death and pirate attacks. Over the years of issues and types of magazines, I found that almost always they explained in great detail;

de-masting
sinking
collisions ( rocks, docks, other boats)
navigation system failures
horrid weather and narrow escapes
broken pumps, alternators
burned wiring
pirates and corruption of officials
man overboard and deaths
torn sails
dinghy theft
running out of provisions and water
horrible boat survey results
refrigeration failures
poor weather forecasting
poor anchors dragging
poor dirty facilities and marinas

and one story in Cruising World in the July issue 2010 page 34 sent me over the edge that I just refused to read anymore. The article was called 'Jonah on Board'.
The story was about a couple while sailing south on the Sargasso Sea towards Caribbean destination, was befriended by a small bird seeking refuge. Cool, story with a great pic. The bird stayed for days, while accepting water, bread crumbs and other tid bits, and often roosted below in the cabin. Then one day, Jonah took flight off the sailboat skimming across the water for a few hundred yards and then a gigantic fish jumped up out of the ocean and swallowed Jonah. Another tragic story. I've had it. No more magazines. No more stories of overcoming adversity for me.
Thousands of people own sailboats and apparently survive and actually enjoy the time, experience and the people. I am never going to read such stories again, but I may thumb thru looking at pictures and equipment ads.
Just my 2 cents.

Stuff happens while cruising, so if the stuff you’re reading about has truly put you into denial/anxiety attack, you might seriously want to reconsider your boat purchase, because it doesn’t sound like it’s going to be very enjoyable or safe for you. IMHO.

My wife and I don’t go out looking for bad weather, BUT..... stuff happens, and when it happens.... you can’t be falling to pieces emotionally.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=roLIEIjsd18

[chuckr]

Originally Posted by William Youmans

What worries me the most thumbing through the magazine pictures is seeing all the sailors, cruisers, racers not wearing lifejackets while out at sea. That’s what gives me the most anxiety. You want your picture in a sailing mag- you must have a life jacket or harness on.!!

we each have our thoughts on this. When we do a day sail or ever a long day sail we do not wear them even thorough we are off shore a bit - But come night or a big storm we get them out -

[chuckr]

Originally Posted by mglonnro

For me this leads back to the primary question: why do you (or I or anyone) sail?

I'm sure there are tons of different answers to this question, but it's interesting still.

People climb mountains as well.

Well use to climb mountains and a bit of rock - why do it - hummmmm because they are there and from the top you get a great view - a bit of a test for yourself -

As for sailing - to take my home and sail to distance ports. It is a very inexpensive way to see the world - we have sailed to over 47 different countries and visited a bunch more inland - do realize what that would have cost us? And that does not count the thousands of ports we have been to and the people we have met is beyond anything imaginable.

[Wyamba]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

Stuff happens while cruising, so if the stuff you’re reading about has truly put you into denial/anxiety attack, you might seriously want to reconsider your boat purchase, because it doesn’t sound like it’s going to be very enjoyable or safe for you. IMHO.

My wife and I don’t go out looking for bad weather, BUT..... stuff happens, and when it happens.... you can’t be falling to pieces emotionally.

You still have your push-bikes rigged!

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by Wyamba

You still have your push-bikes rigged!

They rusted up completely the day after the gale, so we’ve been using Brompton folding bikes ever since, which can be stored in padded bags in the forward cabin.

[fish53]

Fake news, try watching FOX you'll feel better immediately.

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by Fiftybucks

I do appreciate the wisdom and need to be prepared that these articles are intended to convey. My point is, its OK perhaps to take these articles in monthly doses, but when hit with 100 issues of impending disaster in a period of 2 days it just had an unintended effect.

You're alright and normal. We've all been there. You recognize that it is the dose that makes the poison.

A famous modern intellectual and linguist (Chomsky) has written/spoken extensively on the subject of the psychological manipulation employed by ad firms, which effectively is what magazine are. Ultimately if you pick up that magazine and end up in the cruising community, then the money in your pocket will be more distributed to the cruising community than to wherever else the money in your pocket might have ended up. (I don't mean to promote Chomsky per se but he's "right on the money" on this specific nexus)

Man vs nature stories appeal to the innate call of the wild narrative that all humans carry...to some degree. Jeep and Harley Davidson sell you an idea (specifically a false paradigm or dichotomy). The idea is that if you buy their product, you will suddenly become more independent, manly/womanly, strong. If you have what it takes to enter their community...money...whoops I mean if you're strong enough...then you will be in an elite group better than the rest who don't have a Jeep or Harley Davidson. Doesn't matter than a 50 year-old truck will get you 98% of the places that a Jeep can or that used (i.e. less expensive) Prius gets better gas mileage than many motorcycles (certainly more seat miles to the gallon) while providing a safer mode of transportation.

Some people who own Jeeps and Harley Davidson motorcycles actually buy into this psychology nonsense...whole hog. They spend money to buy an identity and will point to perils of their existence to show how strong their are. They may bolt huge car jacks to the side of their Jeep so that you can see. They may ride their bikes without a helmet to exaggerate their willingness to temp the odds so that you can see. They will tell "there I was" stories to evidence how strong they are. When such stories scare people away it only reinforces in the mind of the afflicted Jeep/Harley owner that indeed they are in an elite group that not everyone has the capacity to join.

But such a narrative is horse$hit. Fact is 95% of able-bodied people with an IQ over maybe 90 or so have what it takes to sail the open seas (assuming no drug/alcohol problems), or to ride a motorcycle, or to traverse off-road terrain in an old truck. Judgement is another matter altogether that isn't directly linked to psychology (per se).

Consider ignoring the people that tell you that you "might not have what it takes" to join their elite club. At best they don't understand the innate capacity of humans to get things done; at worst they have their own agenda that you can plainly recognize when you learn how to look for it...as outlined above. You see this evidenced in this forum just as you can recognize it when interacting with some Jeep or Harley Davidson people. People are people and this phenomenon knows no boundaries.

[hpeer]

Dog bites man is NOT interesting.

Man bites dog IS interesting.

You are reading about it because it is rare.

[hellosailor]

fiftybucks, if you want scary?
Just move to a big city (NY, Boston, DC, Chicago, Seattle, LA...) and spend a week as a taxi driver. You'll be eager to rejoin the lions and tigers and bears oh my.

I'd forget about buying sailboats until I had some time spent on them. That should mean sailing school to ASA 104-106 range, then a week or two of chartering to see how you actually like being on the water. Or not.

As my nephew told me, when I was teaching him to drive his first stick shift: "Whoa! This is nothing like Grand Theft Auto!"

Some things, you won't ever find in a book.

[hpeer]

My Wife has anxiety, especially about sailing at night. I know it infects me, I get anxious that she will be miserable. It’s getting better, slooooowly, as she becomes more accustomed to the boat. But the anxiety means she learns sloooowly, which sometimes ignites the fireworks. But without her I would not be here.

I guess we are all like that a bit, we have internal anxieties, which is why we write and read disaster at sea stories.

As a youngster I was an aircrewman on USCG SAR flights. After one especially bad flight to locate a dismasted ketch I vowed I’d never go sailing. For 30 years I kept an cover from National Fisherman posted on my desk, always went with me when I changed jobs. It was of a 70’ish long liner half outta the water ready to crash into the next wave. I said I kept it to remind me there are worse jobs. Eventually it didn’t work anymore. The anxiety over having periodic misery was deadened by having daily misery.

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by chuckr

we each have our thoughts on this. When we do a day sail or ever a long day sail we do not wear them even thorough we are off shore a bit - But come night or a big storm we get them out -

Healthy dose of reality here. Thanks.

[CptCrunchie]

Originally Posted by Fiftybucks

Late evening after the second day and perhaps 50 - 70 issues of the above, I noticed I was kind of trembling, and also questioning our longtime decision to 'get a nice boat on the ocean' and explore. I being influenced by all the articles and all the issues.
The magazines could be categorized as either sales brochures for boats I would never be able to own, with idealistic scenes with the girl on the bow and white sandy beach, or the nitty gritty, types with tales of cheating death and pirate attacks. Over the years of issues and types of magazines, I found that almost always they explained in great detail;......

Paraphrasing Gloria Steinem, "My own writing keeps from believing everything I read."

FiftyBucks, you have no clue how true any of those stories are, much less whether they even happened. Magazines buy articles that sell magazines. I too like to think the world is honest, but not when it comes with an obvious agenda.

The same can be said about the writer:

"A bird landing on our boat. We fed it, played with it, and even brought it inside for a while. Then, it just flew away."

Or ....."When it flew away, a giant fish swallowed it."

Which one has a better chance of being published? Moreover, which one has a better chance of being remembered, ...then relayed?

Not saying it happened, and not saying it didn't. Just saying that when it comes to publications, there are usually ulterior agendas at work.

[Checkswrecks]

Like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn65ca92Ld0