Category Archives: Sailing

Crossover Dreams and Rescue

Rubén Blades in a NYT interview suggested it is best to self-motivate to survive:

That’s what I think the whole trick of saving oneself comes down to. If you’re going to swim, you don’t expect to be picked out of the water by a boat that may never come.

At this point I feel like I should translate the lyrics to Pedro Navaja.

It’s the story of a small gangster, of whom the song makes us a very successful portrait, who attacks a prostitute. In the aggression, the girl defends herself by shooting Pedro Navaja. They both die, while a drunk finds the bodies, searches them, and sets out again while singing out of tune what immediately becomes the chorus of the following ‘montuno’.

Instead, I think I will just say that swimming is not something that gets easier through collaboration. The more people in the water, the more they ultimately still have to save themselves or perhaps just one other — may the strongest swimmer survive. They may even interfere. A boat (e.g. technology-enhanced processes that can be leveraged by people trying to save themselves or others) is an entirely different story — may the strongest sailors provide value unto others and be justly rewarded for his/her collaborative efforts.

Irish Coastguard Rescues 110 Children Sailors

The BBC reports that all were wearing safety gear, and all survived.

A major rescue operation was launched off the Irish coast on Thursday after 110 children were swept out to sea.

About 20 people were reported missing shortly afterwards, though Ireland’s coastguard later said everyone had been rescued safely.

Since lifevests are mandatory to race sailboats it is easy to see why they were all prepared.

Relishing the lack of safety, privacy

The BBC paints a distinct portrait of the people working on a viking ship reconstruction adventure:

Every member of the crew has less than one sq metre in which to live, sleep and eat.

“It’s hard to get proper rest, sleeping conditions are hard – you don’t get the rest that you need,” says Erik, one of the older members of the crew.

“Often you don’t get as much food as you need and this is cumulative, so as days go on, it gets worse and worse.”

Privacy is also impossible in such close quarters. The ship has no shelter from the weather, no cleaning facilities and no lavatories.

They will be living virtually on top of each other for six weeks and this will test their friendships to the limit.

All of the crew are volunteers and despite the difficulties involved, most are relishing the prospect.

Some might even say the conditions are no worse than a modern office building anyway.

Phone Photos

It is nice to have such a small form factor camera handy, but it can be tricky to get the thing to perform well with lighting variations.

I don’t know if these are really worth a thousand words, but here are a couple of my favorites that came from experimenting with low and high light conditions:

bush_st
Bush St at Sunset

sc_harbor_night
Santa Cruz Harbor at Night

Together they remind me of an e. e. cummings’ poem:

now is a ship

which captain am
sails out of sleep

steering for dream