Where Has the Cruising Counter-Culture Gone - Is It Too Late?

[Pblais]

1) When you decided to go cruising you quit your job, there was no other choice, thus cruisers were more committed.

Not really, they ended up back home at about the same rate. Going broke has not changed in a very long time.

2) You had to know how to navigate, generally in learning this you picked up a few other skills along the way, thus the standards of boat handling and seamanship were higher

Risk taking and irresponsibility are basically the same. No one learned how to navigate except because they had to and being lucky still counts.

3) Insurance was unheard of, thus the standards of boat handling and seamanship were higher

The relationship between insurance and risk taking is unfounded. Dead is still dead. You'll need to prove that premise.

4) Rescue was largely impossible, hence the standards of boat handling and seamanship were higher

So how many people get rescued as a percentage? I'm not seeing the relationship to being better. People today are smarter than they used to be and that may explain a lot. World communication has increased you hear about the rescuses as much as you hear about the fatalities now. Much of that news was not possible to report of even known about.

5) Cruising evangelists tried to convince people to go cruising, many bought into it, there are maybe 4-5 times as many full time cruisers now as then, and untold many more short term warriors, it's harder to avoid them.

Full time cruisers were always a myth. Average was maybe 3 years if that. There are / were always a few (very few) that stuck with it. I'm not sure that is a valid yard stick. Average numbers I get are 3 to 5 years and they they come back home. I know people that did 8 to 10.

6) the surge in numbers also as a result of technological changes (comms, nav, watermakers).

No, in the end it really is all about the money. More people can afford to do it - so they do. The percentage of stupid people out there has not changed in 70,000 years. People are no better or worse. Maybe less constrained is the way to put it. Worse yet those of the 70's (me included) are not out there and long to know why they are not. They need to feel things used to be better - and it's not.

Cruising is and always has been - mostly about showing up. This concept that people are not as justified as before is a lot misguided information. It's not necessary to insult a whole group of people getting started by saying those that came before were / are better than those that choose to go similarly.

The speech about knowing your "betters" is and always has been lost in a group of cruisers. That much has not changed.

[dana-tenacity]

I did my first offshore passage in 1975, been at it pretty much ever since. Those comments were my opinions formed from direct observation. So far nothing that would cause me to change them.

[osirissail]

- - Speaking of young folks yearning for the "counter culture" - what can they do? I just watched Tina Turner in concert in London - now here is your great-grandmother in spandex and mylar tights rock and rolling to 40,000 people screaming their lungs out in ecstasy. Now what can the younger generation do to top that? Every generation must rebel against their seniors - some kind of natural law there. So how can they rebel except to become conservative capitalists. So the counter culture will pass when we old-folks pass. But the great grandchildren - now there is an opportunity for the next batch of counter culture.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by osirissail

- . Now what can the younger generation do to top that? .

Those old rockers are not counter culture!
I got the Joe Cocker autobiography at a cruisers book swap and there the photos of him looking counter culturish at Woodstock.... then a few years ago he's getting a Doctorate of Letters at some pommyUniversity!!!! Looking all pretty in an academics gown and mortar board! DOCTOR Joe Cocker!

Counter culture?!!!

Take Tina Turner out of that Spandex and Gravity will Counter! She will look like any other great grandmother multi millionaire business woman!


They all grew up.





mark

[osirissail]

Well, we were . . . . . then we got respectable - yuck. What can you do? Now we have upscale catamarans and beamy monohulls with air conditioning, refrig/freezers, and even washing machines on board. But we still wear ratty, torn clothes and tee-shirts - freshly washed of course.
- - As a poster said way back when in the thread - that "counter-culture" lifestyle in unsustainable and eventually we all have to come back to real life.
- - And that is why the discussions of Cost of cruising are so indeterminate. We started out thinking of "free oceans" and eating coconuts, cooking fresh fish on a deserted island and found out later that there are fees everywhere, the fresh fish are few and far between, and the deserted island has a thriving T-shirt shop on it.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by osirissail

then we got respectable - yuck.

LOL The scream of a loud reality! ROTFL

[Dave]

Wow...Great thread...I'm new to this one.

When I read the opening post I read "counter culture" and took it to mean "pioneer". To me anybody who follows a different path is traveling "counter culture".

I've had the pleasure of pioneering a lot of new sports in my local area. Hang Gliding in 1970 when getting 100 feet in the air was a big deal. Windsurfing in 1978 when getting on a plane was "extreme", Snowboarding in 1983 when they were still banned from ski hills. Kite boarding in 1997 when it was like hooking onto a freight train...all of them "counter culture" at the time.

In all cases these activities evolved in ways that, in hindsight, seem to me, to have lost the spirit in which they were invented.

The same can be said for anything new that with time, becomes accepted by the masses. Music is another good example. Going "main stream" is always seen as a "sell out" to the original concept. It would seem even pioneer cruisers lament the spirit that a select few recognized before cruising became popular.

Now a days, I'm ready to start something that is already tried and tested. I think the ccc is a great group. It's all new to me.

My thanks to the sailors who paved the way.

Dave

[Jerry Woodward]

The day that Jerry Garcia died.

But his music lives on..........

[jrmirq]

The only constant in life is change.

[Inkwell]

Paul you are so right!

[andreavanduyn]

Originally Posted by Inkwell

Paul you are so right!

and isn't it great!

[Stillraining]

Originally Posted by osirissail

We started out thinking of "free oceans" and eating coconuts, cooking fresh fish on a deserted island and found out later that there are fees everywhere, the fresh fish are few and far between, and the deserted island has a thriving T-shirt shop on it.

Stared buy the Guy and Gal ahead of you thinking they were the Counter Culture as well...LOL

"There is nothing new under the Sun"

(Ecclesiastes 1:9-14 NIV) What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

[S&S]

Originally Posted by osirissail

. We started out thinking of "free oceans" and eating coconuts, cooking fresh fish on a deserted island and found out later that there are fees everywhere, the fresh fish are few and far between, and the deserted island has a thriving T-shirt shop on it.

Nuts. Seems like the Coconut Run has gone commercial.

Jan Mayen- here we come.

[mrohr]

everyone wants to go back to nature ,but not on foot!

[Not Sure]

Originally Posted by Vasco

DPMatty asks "where has the cruising counter culture gone?"


Perhaps they came ashore, applied themselves, made a load of money, and are out there cruising in Oysters. And maybe complaining that it's too crowded.

Show me a person that "applied themselves and made a load of money", and 99% of the time I'll show you a person that actually made their money 'by hook or by crook', take your pick.