Thinking too much about Danger

[zeehag]

fear holds folks to shore.
anxiety holds folks within their comfort zone.
if you think too much about scary stuff gonna happen, then you watched dead calm way too many times.
usually isnt the boat that fails, it is the soul driving said boat that fails. might wanna get off yoo toob and practice if you want to make a life on water.
always have a safe harbor chosen for emergencies..mebbe 2 or 3 of em.....

or stay home and re-watch dead calm and all is lost yet again and verbalize that you are happy not to be out here

[mikereed100]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

If I wrote a book it would be called "My circumnavigation. It was Nice. Nothing Bad happened"
I wonder if I would sell any copies?

Awesome video Mark, pretty much covers everything. (Including your nipples. Thanks for keeping your shirt on until filming was done).

[sailorboy1]

I've started similar threads in the past and people don't seem to like to admit that overall they have nice passages. Guess it doesn't make you a salty sailor if you don't plan your trips so they have bad weather and therefore you don't have an credibility.

On the other hand maybe the fools that can not plan better just have more need to share the fact.

[zeehag]

all my passages are nice whether i have weather or not and whether i have wind or not.
a passage is just that..a passage, you arrive you thrive.... alternatives kinda suck.
yet we dont sit and stew about those alternatives, as that is not an option. sail , play, anchor, play .. live the life.
we encounter many souls out here and enjoy them as friends...

i dont say good bye to my friends out here, i say happy sails or smooth sailing or something good for we all see each other many times in this small world in which we live. fare well works well....
we say some final good byes to friends and acquaintances along our way,and we celebrate their lives. .... the folks i have said final goodbyes to have died of natural causes involving health. i said those final
good byes not to their faces but to their memories.

celebrate life and living.
may we each die doing that which we want to be doing at that time.

[roverhi]

Let's see, got bitten by a wasp whose nest I was throwing rocks at on Fatu Hiva, long story, and ran out of peanut butter and hot sauce almost simultaneously in Moorea. The pb & hs emergency resolved itself when we ran into a cruiser heading home who traded us their ample supply for some stuff we weren't using.

If you take your time, make your passages when the weather is benign and don't hang out in hurricane alleys during the season, having too much fun is your greatest worry.

[Blue Crab]

I am terrified of hurricanes.

I can't afford to haul out every time there's some hot air coming off the African continent. Hope to get some southing and find a hidey-hole for Fall.

Hope I'm not over-thinking it.

Great video, Mark. Thanks.

[zeehag]

our biggest threat here in furycameville is agace at present.. they due in the marina today...lol now, THAT is danger....lol
we also have winds from wrong direction, and we have.....

omygawds and the huge octopus and the giant squid......oh puleeze....sooner will ye fall off the edge of our flat earth.

[valhalla360]

Anyone else terrified by the idea of being stuck back on land?

[zeehag]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

Anyone else terrified by the idea of being stuck back on land?

oh please...i will borrow a dinghy , activate my spot and go to sleep in the sea..... you can find the dinghy by oh. thats right. i have to push the button...lol oh well..i guess i just stole a dinghy..i will write from where i get it inside dink... it will be a rowing one, so not too far, unless swept by currents......unless of course i still have my own, in which case....

[FSMike]

Scariest thing so far is the size of the boatyard bill.

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by tuffr2

I have been spending time on youtube trying to learn about living aboard. But when I watch sailing videos sooner or later I run into danger (sailboat fails). So those of you that are out there doing it what dangers have you faced? Whales, Lightning, Pirates, Giant octopus, Bermuda triangle, Rouge waves, scary storms, hitting a shipping container, hitting a log or other debris, running aground, getting lost, no wind, too much wind, or is your nightmare danger running out of rum?

I think there is a tendency to overthink the danger thing. OTOH... not a bad thing really.
My scariest things experienced have been mostly the sea itself... and a few lightening storms!
My nightmares? being accosted aboard by the killer mentality I suppose. Leeshores in huge seas or heavy weather.

I think the biggest threats are the operator not coping or the ship failing in some way. (dismasting, broken rudder, chainplate fail etc)

Oh... and then there's the time the Kraken grabbed the ship and tried to pull her under.... but that's a differnt story!

[fishin4bogey]

Well said Zeehag!!

[Jim Cate]

I have done nothing at sea that is as inherently frightening as driving at legal highway speeds on two lane roads: meeting and passing hundreds of strangers at a closing speed of circa 130 MPH and a clearance of a few feet. Out of the hundreds that one encounters in a passage of a few miles, there gotta be a few nutcases, drunks, anti-social psychos and incompetents. That's scary, and beyond your control.

The sea is fairly predictable, and most really threatening situations can be avoided.

What's not to like?

Jim

[Andrew Troup]

There are a few categories of scary stuff for me at sea:

1) Things in the tropics: revolving storms which change course capriciously, poisonous fish, blood poisoning and diseases and parasitic infestations ... for some reason, my brain interprets threats like these as malevolent, plus my body HATES excess heat.

2) Things to do with thin water: land, shoals, reefs

3) Things to do with top predators: mainly the two legged variety, especially those with a state-delegated or self-appointed monopoly on violence, and not necessarily in the third world ... and, of course, cruisers who enthuse about guns

I am remarkably philosophical about weather (outside the tropics) because I manage to not take it personally. And I am lucky with my relative freedom from seasickness, which becomes almost absolute when I'm on long trips, even coastally. I never cease to be astonished at, and grateful for this fortune, and it would be churlish not to demonstrate my gratitude and make use of my fortune by aiming to spend the maximum possible time at sea (consistent with designing and building the means to do so).

So ... I steer clear of item 1) pretty religiously, although I'm prepared to make a beeline between hemispheres, far from land and pirates, outside the hurricane seasons.

Item 2) I also steer clear of, trying for a balance consistent with not having a miserable time, but this often creates interesting tensions when sailing with others to whom the proximity of land is a source of psychological support.

And I do find it truly delightful when a rare weather pattern (in my part of the world) means that wind direction over most of the Tasman can be virtually guaranteed to remain from the east for several days, allowing sailing down, say, the highly interesting west coasts of any of the main islands of NZ for extended distances, close inshore: it's rare and precious, like eating a forbidden fruit ...

Item 3) Is a problem more in theory than in practice, in my experience. I do have to confess though, some decades ago, I was surprised when what I mistook to be dolphins arrowing towards our little boat turned out to be comparable in size with it.

I unexpectedly found my ribs freezing up with a primal fear unlike anything before or since, but once I realised they were just checking us out, I gradually regained normal function.

In theory, I should probably add Fog, as I quite often still sail on boats without radar, and in any case I hate having only one line of defence, but AIS has become a damn good complement, and shipping is kinda seldom, most places I like sailing.

In any case, up until now I have been astonisingly lucky not to encounter fog in conjunction with one of my listed scary things, touch wood...

- - - - -

I still find the sea horizon magnetic and enchanting, and most times I'm sailing out of a harbour at the start of a coastal passage I almost have to win an internal tussle in order not to just carry straight on.

I find it mindbending to think that the individual molecules of water rushing past the hull have been absolutely EVERYWHERE with a coastline.

Similarly mindbending is to reflect that the boat sailing "back" in, while most probably it just left from my same departure point a few hours or days before, nevertheless MIGHT not have touched land since leaving weeks, months or theoretically years ago, from pretty much any of those same places water comes from, and goes to ...

[rw58ph]

I have found the more I learn and understand the more cautious I am. Many way I would like to go back to being a metro sexual newbie as I tend to over plan and think, which can/does keep us tied to the dock. However, I have not had a accident, break down in 19 year. My wife does not worry as she know I do enough worrying for both of us, and if something happen she knows I have a back spare part and/or plan.

The near mistakes where the first time I changed the filter, did not know to bleed the air, so the engine died. However the good think is we floated into the Lake Union Seattle police dock. Good way to get to know the local authorities. We almost ending up on the rocks because I did not know understand single engine reverse prop walk. Thank God for bow thrusters. The main gen set died because it though a belt, so I switch over to the cruise gen set powered by the main 671. Installed the new belt while we were underway. So it’s good to over think, be cautious, have spare parts/tools and have alternative plan. Oh! I prey to God before we leave the dock. "Please don't let me screw up!"