Does this sailing thing make sense?

It is forty days since departure deadline, and things start to look busy here at the boatyard.

The Covid-19 arrived in the US in full blown mode as it is in the rest of the World. Italy just confirmed that school will be closed till April 15th. They have been closed since February. Friends from Hong Kong tell me that the country is fearing a second bout of infections brought by people coming from abroad. As I am writing the Azores are closed to arriving vessels, as many other countries are denying arrivals to sailors. This concerns me a little since the Azores are my next port of call.

I’ve been dodging this Coronavirus since my departure from HK in February. Then I got out of Italy just in time before the great lockdown. Now it has finally caught up on me, even if in this dire scenario my life changed very little. I noticed that by talking with friends whose life have radically changed since it has been confined between four walls. For one time I feel my experience to be more similar to other people’s.

Maybe the difference is just that I was already self isolating in an old boat in rural Georgia. My day goes by tending to a small vessel by myself, I move stuff around, build things, repair objects, redesign systems. I consume my meals alone or seldomly with other self isolated sailors. My life changed very little because my plan to upgrade Tranquility and cross the Atlantic is still underway.

The past weeks were key in trying to get everything here, materials, tools and equipment, and I am still planning ahead and guess what I exactly need in case distribution grinds to a halt, a remote possibility to be frank but I prefer not to take chances. Now I am finally putting things together slowly and painfully as usual, trying to cram together way too many projects.

It is a process I know well since it is the fourth time I take apart and put together this boat in order to make her better. The first time was when Kate and I bought Tranquility as an unfinished restoration project in Fairhaven, MA. The second time in the marshes of Glynn where we performed the heaviest rebuilding. The third one in Panama where it became clear that this crazy project was becoming mine only as I could not stop messing around with this boat despite my failing marriage. Maybe because of my failing marriage I found solace in even more boat projects. It is hard to tell which. The current refit is getting bigger than expected, which is not a surprise as my imagination often gets wild when it comes to boat improvements.

This thing called sailing

After ten years of this sailing life spent repairing boats and sailing them I still struggle to explain to others what is this thing I am doing. My family has still not gotten used to it either, in fact they met this whole idea of an Atlantic crossing on a small boat with skepticism, worry and even anger.

What is this thing I am doing?

I feel I am moving between an obsession that forces me to isolation and a blissful existence in Nature that for one time help me stay away from the danger of human contact. It makes financially no sense as the money poured into my old boat will never come back and it keeps me away from employment for long bits. It is not a socially relevant quest as it involves mainly myself and I. It adds very little to the progress of human knowledge as sailing is an obsolete technology. All these sound like red alerts and yet I can’t keep away confronting this questionable choice.

To be honest I am not completely alone. Bill my neighbor is doing exactly the same thing. He is also fixing his boat all over again, to take it across an ocean once again. The same is true for some people I have met of that I am aware of. We are a small number but we tenaciously stick to this nonsense.The comfort of knowing that others are engaged in a similar pattern is not enough and questions keep showing up.

Even if I can’t understand what this is, I know where it comes from.

It comes from visions inside my head, daydreams which I am not fully responsible for that clog my judgement and hijack the focus on building a socially respectable life. Those are visions that taken literally would drive you to madness but if harnessed with caution can propel you to great achievements. Or at least this is my hope.

The technical finesse behind the discipline of sailing is a never ending climbing route to perfecting many skills. It is so incredibly vast involving knowledge that span through so many departments that an expert sailor becomes close to be a master-of-all-trades. I like this idea.

Sailing takes you in the heart of the present moment, as you insert yourself in the ever changing reality of water and air, the breathing apparatus of planet Earth. This experience reminds me that I grew out of it and I am equipped to find my way between wind, waves and currents. I can say that I have the biggest home there is.

It can be done. Necessary knowledge can be acquired, discomfort and fatigue are a just transitory moments and we as humans can adapt and thrive in many situations. These experience are good tests to take and help building personal resilience. Resilience and resourcefulness is becoming so important in the current world where reality changes at a very fast pace and we are often not prepared for what comes next.

Despite the isolation from common human experience and the difficulties of this life I take great pleasure and pride in what I am doing. The effort of writing and documenting my experience are an attempt to fill this communication gap. So maybe for one time my family or friends will tell me: ”I understand what you are doing and I am proud of you”.

In the meanwhile I look for other signs that tell me I am on the right route. I think I found one in the irony of sailing. Contradiction and Paradox are the essence of life and the ironies of sailing, one of the most expensive way to feel uncomfortable and risk your life, expose its nonsensical nature.

If years ago sailing was the only way to move people and goods across long distances, today sailing loses its meaning and role. Is sailing a sport or a hobby? Is it both? If so, why all this discomfort and even danger? Despite these drawbacks sailing did not disappear in history because it still has a lot to say about us as human beings. There is a community of people involved in this nonsense, so there must be a little sense after all.

And if all this fails to provide sense, I will stick with Good Old Gandhi, who seemed to have learned quite few things about life and humans beings:

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.” ― Mahatma Gandhi