Why Do We Make It So Hard Sounding

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Narfi

Esp. the third one

It's a wise quote, but I rather doubt this is true. Now that we've overthrown the yoke of angels and fairies or gods and demons, as the primary explanations for the world around us, we can look at new phenomena with open eyes.

Thanks to the process of science we now know that we don't know everything. Instead of ascribing some mystical or magical explanation to all unknown phenomena, we can proudly say: I don't know.

"I don't know" is the start of any exploration past the possible.

[Narfi]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Now that we've overthrown the yoke of angels and fairies or gods and demons, as the primary explanations for the world around us, we can look at new phenomena with open eyes.

I am new here, but doubt that we are supposed to be discussing your personal religious beliefs. I interpret the quote differently in that it is just another way of saying,

Originally Posted by Albert Einstein

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.

Which dumbed down in my mind is the same as saying,

Anything is easy if you understand it.

[jmh2002]

Originally Posted by Macblaze

But bad-looking bread tastes just as good. and sailing a poorly trimmed boat (in moderate conditions) gets you just as far and is just as fun.

That of course is plainly 100% false.

If the boat is poorly trimmed it will not be going as fast or pointing as well, so of course you will not get as far in the same relative amount of time as a well trimmed boat.

The fun factor is speculative. Certainly for me it is not at all 'just as fun' to sail on a poorly trimmed boat - even when cruising.

This comes back to the points raised by the various sailors here about proficiency.

Can anyone somehow pull on a rope and move the white flappy thing to get the boat to go somehow over that way - well I guess they can, and do. And some people even make it great distances like this.

But that's not really sailing, and it certainly isn't proficient.

It may however still be called cruising by some people, and not by others.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Narfi

I am new here, but doubt that we are supposed to be discussing your personal religious beliefs. I interpret the quote differently in that it is just another way of saying,

You're the one that brought up Clarke's oft-quoted concept of magic as being the same as advanced technology. I disagree, since we no longer rely on magical thinking to explain the universe.

Religion is just another form of magic or magical thinking. So my comment just followed along from yours. I'm not expressing a religious belief. I'm expressing a non-religious statement of the facts.

[Narfi]

The quote is from a science fiction writer about how he writes, not anything we have ever 'relied' upon.

Religion is a system of beliefs, a system of non-beliefs is still a system of beliefs regardless of how you spin it.

My point however stands, Anything is simple if you fully understand it.

[dannc]

Originally Posted by Davy J

Oh boy, a philosophical sailorboy thread.........

Didn't read all the pages, so may be a repeat.

It's not all that difficult, but here is an experiment.....

Find a stranger on the sidewalk, hand them the keys to your boat and tell them to have a fun day............

How do you think that will work out?? Most folks couldn't figure out how to untie the dock lines. You have forgotten all the little things you learned that now make it seem easy.
....
Like I said, you have forgotten all of the little things.

Bingo, I think you are spot on because sailing is not really easy. It takes work and effort to learn.

The problem with this conversation is that those "talking" are a self selected group of people who WANT to be sailors or are people who ARE sailors. So those who have gone sailing are more apt to think it is easy. Compare this to the vast majority of people in the world who have never sailed, will never sail, and do not want too. The idea of going out on the water scares them. THOSE people will consider it hard and difficult.

This self selected group of sailors, i.e., CF members, will not consider it hard....

But I think it is easy to forget how much work it takes to learn knots, the effort required to learn the language of sailing, figuring out how to sail, even with instruction, weather, COLREGS, etc. Should we mention docking?

It has taken me HOURS and HOURS and HOURS over 2020 to learn how to tie a Brian Toss Button Knot for my soft shackles and I still have to follow SeaWorthyLass's wonderful PDFs. It is NOT easy!

Sailing takes work, effort, study, sometimes physical pain and suffering, and practice. I don't consider that easy.

Later,
Dan

[PLANET EXPRESS]

And here’s your sign.

[dannc]

Originally Posted by PLANET EXPRESS

And here’s your sign.

What is the sign? Care to elaborate?

Later,
Dan

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by PLANET EXPRESS

And here’s your sign.

Is the sign nigh?

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Probably true.

Any specialized community or profession will naturally develop its own lingo or jargon. It's an efficient way of communicating with those of the same tribe.

It's certainly not necessary to know your sheets from your halyards, but it makes it easier. And seriously ... of all the things to learn about cruising, knowing a reef line from a jib sheet is really not much to ask. There's a whole lot more to learn, and most of it is a lot harder than that.

I guess if single handing it doesn't make a damn, If a crew effort it sure does, it can make the difference between life and death in nasty weather.. .

[NedX]

Originally Posted by dannc

Bingo, I think you are spot on because sailing is not really easy. It takes work and effort to learn.

The problem with this conversation is that those "talking" are a self selected group of people who WANT to be sailors or are people who ARE sailors. So those who have gone sailing are more apt to think it is easy. Compare this to the vast majority of people in the world who have never sailed, will never sail, and do not want too. The idea of going out on the water scares them. THOSE people will consider it hard and difficult.

This self selected group of sailors, i.e., CF members, will not consider it hard....

But I think it is easy to forget how much work it takes to learn knots, the effort required to learn the language of sailing, figuring out how to sail, even with instruction, weather, COLREGS, etc. Should we mention docking?

It has taken me HOURS and HOURS and HOURS over 2020 to learn how to tie a Brian Toss Button Knot and I still have to follow SeaWorthyLass's wonderful PDFs. It is NOT easy!

It takes work, effort, study, sometimes physical pain and suffering, and practice. I don't consider that easy.

Later,
Dan

Good points, Dan. Except you're forgetting that lots of people on CF have taken literally _hundreds_ of people sailing to suck them into our dark and cabalistic existence. You get to see firsthand how people handle it.

I have noticed that there are people who nail the knot on the first try, and other people who never get it. Just a few weeks ago, I had someone on board who was tying bowlines behind her back after three tries.

[After 51 years, I still have to visualize the snake coming out of the pond and going around the tree and back in the pond. But I wouldn't call that "hard." I prefer to speak of it as mindfulness]

I have a nephew who figured out how to sail upwind within minutes (and was bored within a few more), and I've sailed with a person who passed ASA 101-103-104-105 and still but still can't tell where the wind is by looking at the eddies on the way.

And then there's this other character who weighs a lot less than me who on her second voyage figured out how to hoist the mainsail on a 37-foot cruiser by using her weight, without a winch, on her own. Does a lot of core exercises I get.

Sailing is easy for people who find it easy. No experience required.

[Bunji]

Surely all the little things only requires in most cases a healthy dose of commonsense, To much information (opinion) absolutely, By making things sound harder than they actually are, To complicate and confuse is to intentionally misrepresent our own perception of how intelligent, capable and switched on we actually are (pretentious)

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Now that we've overthrown the yoke of angels and fairies or gods and demons, as the primary explanations for the world around us, we can look at new phenomena with open eyes.

The "law" says "indistingushable from" not "attributable to"
(as any good stage magician demonstrates. We know it's not, but it still looks "magical" )

"I don't know" is the start of any exploration past the possible.

Or frequently it's "Hmmm, that's funny!"

[StuM]

Originally Posted by dannc

But I think it is easy to forget how much work it takes to learn knots, the effort required to learn the language of sailing, figuring out how to sail, even with instruction, weather, COLREGS, etc. Should we mention docking?

According to the OP and some others, we don't need to know those things to be a sailor.

[MicHughV]

this might not be relative....but for years, I thought that fishing entailed dropping two lines from the stern, with " something" on the end, that was tied on using my best "granny knot" I could think of......and "hoping for the best"...

Then I met a good fisherman, who, unlike Sailorboy, took pity on me, took me under his wing, and endeavored to spend in inordinate amount of time to teach and show me the "correct" way...

it took several months for me to just learn the various ways of tying a line or wire to a hook and learning the names of all these knots...

in the same manner, sure, probably anyone can sail a boat.....pull that thingy....adjust that doodad....and wiggle dat thang..keep your eye on the flappy white thing.....and you can probably make it across the bay...

but to do it proficiently and correctly....that is something completely else..you can read all the books you want, but nothing beats an old salt showing you the ropes..