Has anyone considered their Multihull as last refuge in Global Pandemic?

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

We were not " lucky " , Ebola is a containable treatable disease , not some mumbo jumbo plaque that's kills everything in sight. It has a specific source and transmits by contact with primarily body fluids

And " prepers "'are crazy, you can't prepare for the unexpected. , but a sense of community , order and purpose can help most societies get through difficult times,

While it's amusing to assume looters will take everything , in general societies don't respond like that. Morality doesn't disappear when you get hungry. Yes certain sections try and " take " what's not theirs, but they quickly run into the end of a gun.

As for multihulls and global pandemics , I burst out laughing

Dave


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I'm not sure if you're cut off from the world and don't get any news or current events, but riots are going on every day for all kinds of reasons.

Just ask the business owners who got looted right after Hurricane Katrina hit, or the business owners who got looted in Ferguson. I bet they're so amused they're still chuckling. The entire infrastructure collapsed in Haiti after the earthquake, if foreign aid had not arrived, who knows, they might have eventually gone to the extremes that the Donner Party did.

Riots and looting have been going on for centuries. The fact that we have locks on our doors, cars, windows, bikes, boats, portable generators, etc proves that there are a LOT of thieves out there roaming around just waiting for the opportunity. You know that old saying, "Keeping honest people honest." That's a sarcastic way of saying that people are basically dishonest.

Morality disappeared a loooong time ago. Want proof? Just leave your laptop anywhere in public and see how fast it disappears. 2 minutes? 5 minutes?

You call that morality? I call that thievery, and the fact that so many people are willing to do it that a laptop that clearly doesn't belong to them will be found by a thief within minutes tells the whole story.

Now throw in civil unrest, and the mob mentality just gets even worse. Not only do they steal, but they burn the store down, or the whole neighborhood. Some people are moral, but they're in the very tiny minority. Most people will rationalize to justify their actions. I've talked to a LOT of people about this subject, and a surprising number of them told me they would do ANYTHING, including steal, and possibly kill for food if their child was hungry. Think about that. They had already thought about it while their bellies were full, and decided they would be willing to kill to feed their children. I don't know if they really would, but the interesting point was their first reaction to a scarcity of food was not to pull together as a community, but to take from others by force, by murder if necessary. It wasn't a scientific survey by any means, but I sincerely hope these people were being honest with me.

At any rate, it doesn't take much to spark looting, you can see it on TV almost any day. Between that and "upstanding" people who readily profess they'd steal or kill to feed their children, I see a lot of wisdom in being prepared for any unforeseen event, including stockpiling food and water, being well armed and well protected.

[s/v Beth]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

We were not " lucky " , Ebola is a containable treatable disease , not some mumbo jumbo plaque that's kills everything in sight. It has a specific source and transmits by contact with primarily body fluids

And " prepers "'are crazy, you can't prepare for the unexpected. , but a sense of community , order and purpose can help most societies get through difficult times,

While it's amusing to assume looters will take everything , in general societies don't respond like that. Morality doesn't disappear when you get hungry. Yes certain sections try and " take " what's not theirs, but they quickly run into the end of a gun.

Dave, I think you and I would get along just fine on a multi in the Caribbean (where I have just been for a week) Its all good maan... but just to address you points in a friendly way...

"Ebola is a containable treatable disease" Correct. We are getting better at treating it. So is the plague. But neither one were treatable when they first erupted. The next virus will be different, and may be less treatable, or even untreatable. Just like getting hit by space rocks, a risk.

"prepers are crazy, you can't prepare for the unexpected" I think you can, in that most disasters follow a set format of loss of electricity, food, water, shelter and sanitation or some of the above. If you are directly in the earthquake/kill zone it won't help you, but most of us will be in the periphery when disaster strikes. We can prepare for that.

"but a sense of community , order and purpose can help most societies get through difficult times" Bingo! Would it surprise you to know that I live in a community that has plans for most types of disasters (including riots, toxic spills etc) and we already have "staffed" our micro city and have the facilities to carry on? A community has a much higher change of surviving a disaster than an individual- including interesting enough, security reserves and stations. We have 4 physicians in our community, and I feel confident that I can go down to work at the hospital without my family getting in trouble.

Be prepared. It's a nice feeling. And yes I am one of those damn mormons...

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

I'm trying to not think too much about any underlying thought on this comment.

It is the reality though, he is correct. I have no idea of the numbers, but believe a lot of the mortality rate has to do with being malnourished and the lack of care, so have a substantial increase in population but no increase in food production and care facilities and it could be a disaster.

Years ago I read that sending starving populations grain and rice to eat may in fact be a problem in itself, at starvation levels and without adequate protein, the brain doesn't develop? So you may end up with a population that isn't well equipped to feed and care for themselves?

Also read a long time ago that the dark ages ended when the cultivation and consumption of beans began, and maybe it was a stable supply of protein for the common person that ended the dark ages?

[Sea Frog]

Originally Posted by socaldmax

Morality disappeared a loooong time ago. Want proof? Just leave your laptop anywhere in public and see how fast it disappears. 2 minutes? 5 minutes.

Saw a video on youtube a coule days ago, filmed with a hidden camera. Someone "left" a laprop in a cafe and "went to toilet" and then another guy tried to "steal" it. No chance. Every time people got alarmed, and few times people tried to stop the guy, once he almost got beaten. That was an interesting experiment. It happened in Russia, I don't know reaction would be the same elsewhere.

As for me, I finally finished my "prepping" in my city appartment. I now have a year worth of food for my family, various emergency stuff, water filtration systems and drinking water for up to 2 weeks, and I just finished an emergency power supply system for my fridge that will take care of it for up to 2 days. I guess I could buy more stuff but I am not interested any more. What I have done is already enough to take care of us in case of relatively serious sh@t of up to 1 year. And I will definitely do the same when I finally get my boat. That being said I do not consider myself any sort of prepper at all. Just being a mental health professional, I know way to well what to expect from fellow humans

[s/v Beth]

Welcome aboard Frog (said the newt! ) As soon as you get you own boat, let's go fishing. I've got the extra hooks and line...

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by hpeer

If by living off the land you mean "hunter gather" I think that ship has long sailed. If you mean "start my own self sufficient farm" then you may be onto something. Too many who go down this farming path end up worrying about someone taking their farm, and then invest in gun fantasies.

We are the only ones that can live that fantasy though. "They" have all decided that the public can't have them. It is a fantasy for "them", unless in the Middle East where joining one or the other malitia group gets you armed.

Originally Posted by a64pilot

It is the reality though, he is correct. I have no idea of the numbers, but believe a lot of the mortality rate has to do with being malnourished and the lack of care, so have a substantial increase in population but no increase in food production and care facilities and it could be a disaster.

Years ago I read that sending starving populations grain and rice to eat may in fact be a problem in itself, at starvation levels and without adequate protein, the brain doesn't develop? So you may end up with a population that isn't well equipped to feed and care for themselves?

Also read a long time ago that the dark ages ended when the cultivation and consumption of beans began, and maybe it was a stable supply of protein for the common person that ended the dark ages?

I read some of that too but it seemed so "inhumane" (what a ridiculous word) that no one wanted to discuss it. The jist of a lot of the discussion is that it is just like our (US) Welfare system. Great humanitarian gesture that is now
the 500lb Gorilla.

Also read a theory that not only learning a bit about sanitation, but the introduction of coffee was a stimulus (Heh). It became popular and people were drinking boiled water (safe to drink) instead of small beer (safe to drink, well, err... you know what I mean) or wine, or GIN (heavin [] forbid). Apparently there was little drinking of water in any urban areas.

Originally Posted by Sea Frog

Saw a video on youtube a coule days ago, filmed with a hidden camera. Someone "left" a laprop in a cafe and "went to toilet" and then another guy tried to "steal" it. No chance. Every time people got alarmed, and few times people tried to stop the guy, once he almost got beaten. That was an interesting experiment. It happened in Russia, I don't know reaction would be the same elsewhere.

As for me, I finally finished my "prepping" in my city appartment. I now have a year worth of food for my family, various emergency stuff, water filtration systems and drinking water for up to 2 weeks, and I just finished an emergency power supply system for my fridge that will take care of it for up to 2 days. I guess I could buy more stuff but I am not interested any more. What I have done is already enough to take care of us in case of relatively serious sh@t of up to 1 year. And I will definitely do the same when I finally get my boat. That being said I do not consider myself any sort of prepper at all. Just being a mental health professional, I know way to well what to expect from fellow humans

Crazy animals we are eh? ( I just do OR - helping to dilute the gene pool)

Originally Posted by s/v Beth

Welcome aboard Frog (said the newt! ) As soon as you get you own boat, let's go fishing. I've got the extra hooks and line...

I'll bring a skill, maybe two if I can come too. (sneak me the address)


So back on topic.

I think a well prepared cat that can stay out for a few months or even a year would save whoever was on board. No need to sail anywhere really. Just go a good long way and with the proper seasonal patterns known can spend most of the time just hove-to. Little wear-and-tear on the vessel. Sounds good.

Me? My Jon boat won't help much and I have looked at the food (that is good for years and years - not just a couple!!........like someone said) and water straws and storage and all sorts of stuff. I don't have most of it. But being a good American and staying in shape exercising my rights, I do have some bullets and the things that use them...........and the license to drive the things and have put miles on that odometer too.

[s/v Beth]

Address sent Therapy...
I will PM you when we are down there fishing. Was just in Honduras 3 days ago...

[K_V_B]

Originally Posted by socaldmax

I'm not sure if you're cut off from the world and don't get any news or current events, but riots are going on every day for all kinds of reasons.

Sure. But there are less of them, and they are less violent. What is up is reporting about violence, not violence itself. We're getting increasingly peacefull.

Just ask the business owners who got looted right after Hurricane Katrina hit, or the business owners who got looted in Ferguson. I bet they're so amused they're still chuckling. The entire infrastructure collapsed in Haiti after the earthquake, if foreign aid had not arrived, who knows, they might have eventually gone to the extremes that the Donner Party did.

The stories about the violence and looting during Katrina were mostly that: Stories, exaggerated by a media keen to be able to report something.
Later it was found out that most of the stories were false, had no base in reality. The truth is that communities pulling together, and people helping each other was the norm during Katrina. it was also the norm during the earthquake in Haiti.
It just doesn't make good headlines however.
Ferguson is a different case. That is not a natural disaster, but a group of people feeling that they have been treated unjustly. You cannot use that as a template of how people react when facing a natural disaster.

Riots and looting have been going on for centuries. The fact that we have locks on our doors, cars, windows, bikes, boats, portable generators, etc proves that there are a LOT of thieves out there roaming around just waiting for the opportunity. You know that old saying, "Keeping honest people honest." That's a sarcastic way of saying that people are basically dishonest.

Most people are basically honest. Some people are dishonest, but generally speaking the world is becoming less violent.
A century ago something like the Ferguson riots would already have seen tens of deaths.

Morality disappeared a loooong time ago. Want proof? Just leave your laptop anywhere in public and see how fast it disappears. 2 minutes? 5 minutes?

I've left my iPhone on the train three times already. Got it back each time. I've also once left it in a restaurant in Paris. Got it back then as well. A friend of mine left his wallet on top of a ticket vending machine. Got it back too. People normally to do the right thing.

At any rate, it doesn't take much to spark looting, you can see it on TV almost any day.

Yes, we see it on TV everyday. That's the main difference between now and then: there isn't more violence, there is less. But there are more cameras pointed at the violence then ever before.

[Blue Crab]

"Most people are basically honest. Some people are dishonest, but generally speaking the world is becoming less violent."

Cite?

[robert sailor]

Originally Posted by Blue Crab

"Most people are basically honest. Some people are dishonest, but generally speaking the world is becoming less violent."

Cite?

Don't have the backup handy but everything I have read suggests the world is safer now than in anytime in history.

[robert sailor]

Here you go
The world is actually safer than ever. And here's the data to prove that | Public Radio International

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Therapy

We are the only ones that can live that fantasy though. "They" have all decided that the public can't have them. It is a fantasy for "them", unless in the Middle East where joining one or the other malitia group gets you armed.

Greeting access to firearms to hunt, it available to almost any member of the public , in most democratic countries. Most people of course prefer the supermarket. In smaller more densely cultivated countries , there would be insufficient wildlife to feed more then a fraction. ( this is true in bigger countries too ) , one of course could take to hunting cows

Dave



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by socaldmax

I'm not sure if you're cut off from the world and don't get any news or current events, but riots are going on every day for all kinds of reasons.

Just ask the business owners who got looted right after Hurricane Katrina hit, or the business owners who got looted in Ferguson. I bet they're so amused they're still chuckling. The entire infrastructure collapsed in Haiti after the earthquake, if foreign aid had not arrived, who knows, they might have eventually gone to the extremes that the Donner Party did.

Riots and looting have been going on for centuries. The fact that we have locks on our doors, cars, windows, bikes, boats, portable generators, etc proves that there are a LOT of thieves out there roaming around just waiting for the opportunity. You know that old saying, "Keeping honest people honest." That's a sarcastic way of saying that people are basically dishonest.

Morality disappeared a loooong time ago. Want proof? Just leave your laptop anywhere in public and see how fast it disappears. 2 minutes? 5 minutes?

You call that morality? I call that thievery, and the fact that so many people are willing to do it that a laptop that clearly doesn't belong to them will be found by a thief within minutes tells the whole story.

Now throw in civil unrest, and the mob mentality just gets even worse. Not only do they steal, but they burn the store down, or the whole neighborhood. Some people are moral, but they're in the very tiny minority. Most people will rationalize to justify their actions. I've talked to a LOT of people about this subject, and a surprising number of them told me they would do ANYTHING, including steal, and possibly kill for food if their child was hungry. Think about that. They had already thought about it while their bellies were full, and decided they would be willing to kill to feed their children. I don't know if they really would, but the interesting point was their first reaction to a scarcity of food was not to pull together as a community, but to take from others by force, by murder if necessary. It wasn't a scientific survey by any means, but I sincerely hope these people were being honest with me.

At any rate, it doesn't take much to spark looting, you can see it on TV almost any day. Between that and "upstanding" people who readily profess they'd steal or kill to feed their children, I see a lot of wisdom in being prepared for any unforeseen event, including stockpiling food and water, being well armed and well protected.

The relatively modern US society has really nothing to base or backup what you said, if one looks at other parts of the world, where revolution, war or widespread disease occurs, you do not see a mass breakdown of public morality. Yes pockets of it break out. , but communities quickly establish some form of rules and regulations , large impoverished groups of people can and do co -exist together.

The " prepers" base their whole idea , that society disintegrates under some form of pressure. The fact is that there is no historical evidence to support this. In that respect, in my view , the ideology is closer to alien abduction than anything else.

The funny thing is that it's quite prevalent in the USA, yet of all the places , given its size , nature resources and wealth, it's the least likely to ever suffer such consequences.

Personally I think Hollywood are to blame.. Essentially prepers believe in Zombie movies.

The solution to overcoming community wide or larger disasters is sharing not hoarding. History shows that hoarders typically get it all taken off them at the end of a pitchfork and a guillotine, thankfully most humans find sharing to be preferable.

The fundamental fallacies of prepers is that somehow will fail enough to justify their decisions , yet somehow not degenerate enough. So that the " angry armed mob" doesn't appear and " demand" you share it. That law and order has broken down yet haven't.

Simply arming yourself isn't enough either, the " mob" is always bigger. ( see historical precedents )

It's even more amusing to see boaters believing a boat is a sanctuary, a boat is a modern machine and a product of the industrialised world. Personally I'd always want dry land first.

Dave


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[robert sailor]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Greeting access to firearms to hunt, it available to almost any member of the public , in most democratic countries. Most people of course prefer the supermarket. In smaller more densely cultivated countries , there would be insufficient wildlife to feed more then a fraction. ( this is true in bigger countries too ) , one of course could take to hunting cows

Dave



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Its actually not true in all bigger countries. Coming from Europe it is very easy to understand your thinking as there is little space that has not seen a shovel. In Canada most of us live on strips of land within a few hundred miles of the USA border and we have thousands of miles going north where there is next to nothing. Many people used to live in these areas and had the skills to live off the land and have done it for centuries but those skills have all been lost to all but a very few. So is it possible?, yes but in all probability for 99% of the people who have absolutely zero outdoor skills the answer would be no!

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Blue Crab

Lemme see ...



Dave lives in the UK somewhere, and is not a physician.



Newt lives in the US, teaches survival training, and is a physician.



Dave generally writes as tho he's the last word on every subject.



Newt doesn't.



Who ya gonna call?





I'll give Dave credit: he's a sharp guy no doubt, and he's spent some time here in the US. That doesn't qualify him as any more than another opinion on the subject, however. Same as everyone else. Thanks for sharing Dave.



Gots to go shopping today for some healthier noodles. Mebbe those veggie ones.

Leaving aside your admittedly gentle ad-hominem attack. ( Monty Python would describe it as being head butted by a dead sheep )

Yes I write definitivelyI speak that way too, I research my topics and inform my views.

Yes all you get are my views, you will not get your views from me , that's for you

I have lived and worked in the US long enough to better understand the psyche, I also shoot and therefor I tended to gravitate to that community and many in the US in that community are often of the survivalist persuasion , I got to know a few quite well.

The trouble with survivalism and or prepping , is that it is based on a flawed assumption. The assumption being that some unmentioned disaster will remove functioning society and therefore only those prepared to exist by their own means will survive.

The fallacy of course is that no historical event like that has ever happened, even where considerable destruction of functioning societies occur, people group together, share resources and reestablish order. ( and yes often in am imperfect way )

So survivalists always seem to imagine some form of zombie apocalypse , plague being a common one , where somehow the streets are filled with drooling idiots mindlessly taking what's theirs.

In the US where these notions are more popular , a lot is tied to Hollywood dystopian movies, a general unease and fear of the " world at large " a persuasive lack of understanding of foreign cultures and a peculiar insularity. Many of these are very strange to a European perspective , coming as we do from a far more densely populated area of the world. Funnily Europeans have far more experience of strife, revolution, dissension and plaque. The white US experience domestically is actually one of public stability and the benefits of wealth accumulation.

The other fallacy of group survivalism, is that somehow in the face of mass hunger or poverty coupled with strife, is that you will get to " keep" your resources, hence the focus on protection and firearms amongst many of this persuasion. The reality, shown in generations of worldwide strife, is that sooner or later , the " mob" , who are not actually mindless , and are now more numerous then you, will come and take all your hoarded resources. You simply cannot exist as some fortress in the middle of a dystopian Australian dessert.. !!!

Personally, I followed the recounting of my elderly relatives accounts of living through two world wars , an experience that is uniquely European . It's clear that even when food became extremely short , heating and lighting scare , whole houses were demolished and what remained was a very very frightened population, community, sharing and respect prevailed. If anything regard for private possessions increased , people accepted rationing ,and actually grouped together for warmth and companionship.. Order and tradition remained.

Now I accept this experience is not all encompassing nor all -relevant , but it is something the average US person has no experience of. In Europe the experience of rebuilding and maintaining societies in the face of destruction, is almost a race one. It's , by the way, primarily the reason the social welfare system emerged as it did in Europe and why in Europe , despite peoples quibbles , no one from left to right will dismantle it.

As for my skills , I am not a doctor , as for survivalist skills, well I have the benefit of a farming and very rural childhood and parents that went through a period of self sufficiency ( and it taught me it was nonsense too ). I can catch , skin and cook animals, I can fish , i can forage etc, I have a reasonable collection of firearms too, even though these days I don't support blood sports and don't hunt anymore. ( I kill a shed load of paper targets though and orange disks as well ) . I personally feel , I could survive quite well. But I don't believe it's the way to rebuild a society. , nor have I ever felt the need to use a boat as a sanctuary ( or the sea for that matter ). Having sailed more miles then a lot of people here , I feel comfortable in that view too.

As I said at the outset, prepping is crazy., I remember asking my gran , did she " prepare " for world wars, she said , " no one believed it would happen , and I was too busy dancing " ," when it did happen, we all just pulled together and mucked through "

That's the great thing about the human spirit. It's generous, kind, humane and sharing, all the other qualities are aberrations.

Dave


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