Way overtime, overbudget and over any attempt in predicting, controlling and scheduling boatwork Tranquility and I finally hit the water.
We dance with the natural change of the tides and the winds in a quasi stationary equilibrium tethered to the muddy bottom of the North River. Here we are merging again, as she is back doing what she was designed for and I reunite with the familiar feeling that I had not experienced since Hong Kong: The sensation of resting on the surface of water supported by the Archimede’s principle is engraved in my vestibular system as for the most part of the last 11 years I lived on floating objects.
Tranquility is not just my home, my mean of transportation and my survival pod, she is an extension of myself through which I explore the cosmos, and now that we are back in our element the senses are enhanced.
Since floating in the river dreaming activity surged together with levels of relaxation that I have not felt for months. Tranquility rig are the strings that capture atmospheric variations, the hull a sound box that amplifies the waves of the liquid environment. Her shell enhances my connection with the environment: enough to be dry and comfortable but inadequate to mask environmental changes around me.
The preparation to voyage has officially ended. As other times before I pushed the bar a little over my actual capacities, tried some weird experiments and dealt with the consequences. I take all this as a game. It is serious playing because financial risks and potential danger are part of it, but my inner child would not let me play safe or lower the bar. I like to keep learning so I push a bit over the comfort zone.
Andy, a very generous solo sailor and pizza tinkerer here at the boatyard, allowed me to use his dinghy to move back and forth to the shipyard for the last showers, laundry, errands and farewells. Rowing to get ashore is a degree of separation that helps detach from land life.
In few hours I will bring onboard the line that ties me to the muddy bottom, brave few shoals and turns for roughly three miles before I enter the St Marys river. There the outgoing tide and the favorable SW winds should push me effortless East through the inlet and out in the Atlantic Ocean en route to the Azores lying some 2700 nautical miles away.
From the Azores I will point to the island of Tenerife, where a special person has been waiting for too long for me to reunite in that wonderful place. This is the main aim of this voyage, the energy that kept me motivated to overcome the endogenous and exogenous variables I encountered, and for which I am extremely grateful.
There are however other reasons behind this voyage. One is that I am moving my home from America back to Europe. I spent more than a decade in the New World an exploration that put me in touch with new experiences.
I had the fortune to be welcomed wherever I went and be brought into homes regarded as a family member. The level of generosity I experienced is overwhelming and when I tried the exercise of bringing to mind all the people that helped me on this side of the world I felt overwhelmed and tears came up.
In the Americas I encountered the most friendly and generous people, people who never hesitated in making me feel welcomed and at home. For seven wonderful years I also had in Kate a generous, loving and brilliant companion and wife who shepherded me through this unknown continent. Adoptive parents and family, mentors, friends and comrades, they all allowed me to see life through their eyes and opened up their hearts to my presence.
I am not painting an idealized picture of my recent years. There has been incidents, suffering, discomfort and cultural shocks. Positive experiences though outweighed negative ones by far. This continent is still vast and rich and mysterious, full of magical energy, both good and bad, and I bathed in it.
Welcomed by the bald eagle, I am ushered to the door by the vulture. This magnificent bird, so ugly and clumsy on land and so graceful when it glides, is a rare sight in the Old World where I come from. In North and South America different species of vulture are instead very common. I grew accustomed to see them on the side of roads taking care of the business of life, dismembering corpses, removing harmful bacteria and diseases from the environment, and complying with the rules of transformation we all obey to.
I will leave part of my soul to the spirit of this bird for it to be digested into the ethereal connections of my legacy, so the last remaining ties will be severed.
After more than ten years it is time to move on. My rootlessness is taking over supported by the desire for more solo sailing, this uncommon human experience full of discomfort and awe. It will take few days of laziness and uneasiness for my vestibular system to incorporate the sudden changes of direction and acceleration experienced on a vessel that sails offshore and to fall into the routine of the watch system.
The southernmost outpost of Europe is waiting for me. It will be a long journey during which I will be removed from the usual flux of information that connects us all, suspended in the parallel reality of this planet without the chatter of society, to exercise my right and responsibility to awe in this incredibly beautiful universe.
Building the hard dodger for Tranquility is a project made possible by a chain of events that stretches several months in the past. A key element to this transformation was the dinghy, also knows as auxiliary boat or tender.
Tranquility in Fairhaven MA
Looking at this older picture of Tranquility you can notice that the plastic Walker Bay dinghy sat on top of the companionway, in a very secure spot, but making it impossible to protect the cockpit and companionway, and forcing the crew to duck considerably to get in and out. On small boats like the Columbia 29 the stowage of dinghies is not a trivial matter, as the auxiliary boat is an indispensable tool on any cruising vessel and the space on deck is limited.
The 8 feet long Walker Bay is a dependable and solid dinghy, and I grew accustomed to its carrying capacity and good rowing abilities. I was not ready to renounce such luxury. The solution to this problem appeared to be a nesting dinghy, an auxiliary boat that is comprised of two parts that can be nested one inside the other, reducing its length when stowed. It was basically impossible to find a nesting dinghy where I was on the Atlantic Coast of Panama. Building one became the only option.
I built that boat out of fiberglass and nida-core panels while in a secluded marina surrounded by jungle, a project that took a lot of time, money and energy, but that unlocked the possibility to both have a decent size dinghy (8 feet in length) and a future dodger. As I was building it from scratch I decided to make it also a sailing dinghy, putting together pieces that people almost spontaneously donated.
I have never shared the details of the building in this blog and I will not do it now. Those months spent in the Panamanian jungle coincide with a very difficult time for me.
As many key moments in one’s personal life those times are colored by often extremes emotional tones that progress on their own course. Kate and I were finding more and more difficult to work as a team in life and the dinghy project became for me both a refuge and a statement of identity.
What I will do instead is telling a story that came from that time. It does not describe technically the building process nor the chronology of the events, but it gives an idea of the motives and the discoveries that happened inside and around me while building a small boat.
THIS IS THE STORY OF ARCTIC TERN
Arctic Tern is a little boat.
She was born near Nombre de Dios in Panama, under a roof between two containers, surrounded by a 15 meter mast and assorted junk coming from boats in advance state of abandon.
Kind souls donated the elements that put together gave her wings: A fiberglass tube that a Spanish Explorer had no use for, a beautiful sail with the emblem of a horse offered by an Argentinian Sailing Teacher, a dagger board forged by a Polish Engineer in the sultry womb of a steel ship, a weird looking rudder from the nautical collection of an Australian Firefighter.
Giving birth to Arctic Tern was a lot of suffering and pain. It of course cost a lot of money to buy the materials, a lot of sweat in transporting them, and to put them together.
Arctic Tern was also the last nail in the coffin of a failing relationship. She gave her creator spiritual and physical wounds, broken hands and even a chemical burn in one eye from a drop of resin. Many tools broke and clothes were destroyed in the process.
But it was also fun. In those long weeks that stretched into months the creator was busy overcoming design and construction problems, in endless discussions with curious standbyers, crossing all the boundaries from feeling hopeless and stupid to be elated and proud.
When Arctic Tern was born she was ugly.
It is better said she was not symmetrical and she was on the heavy side, definitely sturdy.
“Ogni scarrafo’ è bello a mamma soia” say people from Naples. Every cockroach looks beautiful to its mom.
She was immediately loved. Not just by the creator who built her from stem-to-stern, but from the neighbors who saw the long process unfolding, both the enthusiasts and the naysayers.
It was a fool’s idea, with no logic whatsoever and it could not be stopped. The mothership Tranquility was ready to let go of Walker Bay, the reliable companion of many landing and explorations, and she welcomed the weird looking boat made of two halves.
The launch was a long awaited moment.
When Arctic Tern touched the water she started flying. She is very good at it.
The creator sat in her lap and he was very afraid of going out in anything blowing stronger than a mild breeze, doubting the abilities of his creature and his own’s as sailor.
Arctic Tern was born ready.
Her flat belly dances on the surface of the ocean. She almost takes off when her two wings start to act in harmony in a lively wind.
The big one opens catching the breath of the sky, the small one points down in the deep ocean gripping invisible streams.
The two wings balance each other and so the dance is possible.
The creator took Arctic Tern out for more and more dances, sitting in her lap while she was doing what boats do.
Through Arctic Tern the creator is learning to fly, and when he is with her out In the ocean, the real teachers come to see them.
Ospreys, terns, pelicans, the graceful gliding vultures. The masters of Air.
They look down to watch Arctic Tern and the creator progress.
They show them how to dance in the currents, how to float about.
They are always vigilant as they glide undisturbed.
The creator down below feels very nervous, scared of the big waves, afraid of breaking a bone or a wing of Artic Tern.
They see each other and a feeling of communion is established. They are the same even if they fly for different purposes.
They are all part of the Great Dance, a dance that follows different rhythms and that contains them all.
THE GREAT DANCE
The creator of Arctic Tern learned that in those very moments on the surface of the ocean by the rocky headland all the freedom lanes become one.
How simple it was just to be out there doing their part!
He understood that we share the dance with everybody even those who try to be small and invisible, and that everything, even his sturdy little vessel and not just himself, is temporary.
It doesn’t matter if you are on a tiny sailboat on the surface of the ocean, a petrel swooping on the crest of a wave or if you are a bluefin tuna just below it.
You are just doing your part, so why worry?
It was then that he felt bizarre thoughts invading his head, as if they were coming from the outside. He felt a question brewing.
What if the Mighty Tuna comes and swallows us all? The Slim Sardine asked in the Creator’s mind.
After few second of perplexity he welcomed this alien consciousness as a guest.
What Can you do about it? Not a whole lot, Slim Sardine. Yes, you can swim away from the Mighty Tuna mouth and look for shelter in tube-like swirling spirals, with family and friends, in your community of sardines.
But when the The Mighty Tuna is coming for you… What you can really do Slim Sardine is keep swimming, keep rowing, keep sailing.
You’re doing it good or doing it bad, but you’re doing it, as long as you won’t stop dancing.
Be a little patient and keep swimming. keep rowing, keep sailing.
It is as simple as that.
The same is true for me, thought the Creator. My hands will hurt, my eyes will be dry and red, my buttocks will be sore and sun and dry air will crack my lips and tangle my hair.
And when the storm comes I might drown. What can I do about it?
Keep swimming keep rowing, keep sailing.
The creator’s eyes turned wet by the upwelling of emotions. Salty jewels from the body poured back into the ocean.
The Heron taught him how to be patient, that good positioning and one precise strike is worth much more than a lot of fussing around. He heard the Heron’s thought merging with his own’s.
He felt this idea was beautiful and true, so he decided to address the Mighty Tuna itself…
Do you Mighty Tuna worry about the little sardines you’re swallowing whole? You follow your hunger Mighty Tuna.
But look behind your back, the Savage Shark may be coming soon for you. So what you can really do is to keep swimming, keep rowing, keep sailing.
After all, even if the shark may never find you, nothing’s going to change you are still going to disappear. Maybe you’re good. Maybe you swim fast because you are mighty. But if you’re in the wrong place then you get swallowed.
You may think you have to leave the dance floor because there are more important or more urgent things do. Serious business.
You are running and you are doing a good job, and maybe you are so good that the shark is going to miss you, and you’re not going to bite the hook. You know better than that. You’re faster than the spear. You’re the best. Nothing can touch you.
You are just fooling yourself Mighty Tuna, you’re going to end up digested by something. Microbes, bacterias, mushrooms, something is going to chew you to bits.
And even when you are the Savage Shark you are not safe. Maybe you will bite a hook on a fishing line. Maybe it’s the Killer Whale. Maybe it’s a disease, or some plastic in your guts. It doesn’t matter.
Swimming, rowing, sailing… you skim the surface and participate in the Big Dance.
Everybody’s dancing. Birds in the sky, people holding cocktails, monkeys in the jungle.
So again Mighty Tuna, Savage Shark or Slim Sardine. It doesn’t matter what you do or what you think.
Keep swimming.
Keep rowing.
Keep sailing, and keep dancing.
Escaping death just for one day wont’ grant you a special treatment. Just do what you want. Somebody is going to swallow you and there are no medicines, Science can’t stop that.
Nothing can cure you from the disease, because there is no disease.
There’s enough beauty in a single note of the music and in each single step of the Great Dance to keep you raptured forever. Every day is a gift, and for every bad day you can be happy that you don’t have to live it again.
Keep swimming, and stretch your wings
Keep rowing, and learn
Keep sailing and dance with me.
The music keeps playing. You want change. Everybody is still dancing and you can decide to do whatever you like because this is not going to affect the dance, it keeps going with or without you
You can be in the dance or out of the dance.
It doesn’t matter what you do, all you have left is to keep swimming, keep (G)rowing, keep sailing.
The Slim Sardine, the Mighty Tuna and the Savage Shark said goodbye to Arctic Tern and the creator and swayed back into the Great Dance.
The creator realized he just lectured a bunch of fishes and a heron, who could care less about the lecture as she was catching dinner. For some reason it didn’t feel as strange as it sounds.
The creator eased the line that controlled Arctic Tern’s air wing to catch the following breeze while he raised the water wing. He felt the acceleration radiating through her solid belly as they bounced on the surface of the ocean.
He understood that the logics he told himself and others behind that building endeavor were nothing but wishy washy rationales encircling a deeper motivation. He acted and then needed to justify his actions.
He was doing his thing, taking part in the Great Dance.
<<We are not made of sugar.>> Kate assures me as we are walking on the beach under a heavy downpur. It makes me smile. I should revisit my own attitude towards the rain. Sometimes I just can get soaked, enjoying it for one time, instead of retreating into a dry spot or wearing rain gear.
We are heading back from a walk on the deserted beach between Turtle Cay Marina and the little town of Viento Frio. While rain is coming down I focus on the edge of the dark shelf cloud moving above and past us carrying the shower West. Beautiful black tentacles of vapor hang from it, the new smells coming from the jungle signal that the vegetation reacts to the atmospherical change. Howler monkeys from afar sound their call. Everybody knows it’s raining, even the silver surface of the waves that continue its motion shows a new skin pierced by the raindrops.
I am just getting wet. Water drips from my hair onto my face, my t-shirt gets wet and heavy on my shoulder. I’ll be dry when I get back. It’s no big deal.
Rainy season is on us, and even if it is not yet at its peak we are frequently visited by moisturizing drops falling from the sky. We arrived in Turtle Cay Marina at the beginning of May for a yard period in which we focus on painting jobs. Not the best time of the year to do it, but not the worst either.
Kate overlooks the beach in Turtle Cay Marina, just by the Restaurant
Turtle Cay Marina is a waterfront development few miles off the pueblo of Nombre De Dios. As far as places to haul out our boat it is as remote as it gets on the Atlantic Coast of Panama, ideal for a small boat and her expert crew.
The downside is that if we forgot to get a part in our job list supply we need a taxi and two buses to get to a shopping area probably having to stay overnight in Panama City. The advantage is that we easily put our attention on the work, as there are not many forms of distraction around here, other than wonderful wildlife and landscape.
It is also affordable, which is another good reason to be here.
Tranquility took a ride on the travel lift before being dropped on stands. Gravity pushing her on a hard ground is not the best situation for a boat, but hopefully it won’t last long. We quickly adapted to the tall ladder we have to climb to go in and out of the boat, to the retrofit of the grey water system draining into a bucket and to the fact that as dusk is approaching we have to close down the boat and hide inside, or bugs will eat us.
We also got used very quickly to nice, clean and functioning bathrooms with shower, laundromat, wi-fi, and the view of the beach from the cockpit, and the nice restaurant on the beach. It may sounds weird, but it is exceptional in this area.
It is complicated to rate a boatyard, but so far this has the best views.
Painting the topsides of Tranquility had been a long discussed project. The one part paint we applied prior to the first launch in New Bedford dated 2013 and it was constantly peeling off. Something bogus happened during that first application that messed up the adhesion of the paint. Busy as we were assembling Tranquility like a model boat from a box kit, we slapped that one part grey paint on her and moved to the very next project, anxious to get out of New England before the worst of winter.
Scraping the old paint off Traqnuility. It was a long messy job.
For five years we have seen layers of paint coming off at the slightest friction with a solid object, like the dinghy, anchor chain, the occasional leaning to a hard surface like a dock. That drove Kate crazy as she kept touching up the scratches with the same one part Kingston Grey paint we used originally and Tranquility soon looked like some advanced stealth vessel, with grey camo. It was perfect for Georgia, maybe, but when we decided it was time to pull Tranquility out of the drink, Kate soon lobbied for a brand new paint job.
I resisted at first. Aestethics sits quite down in my list of priority, and I also knew that it was a lot of work, physical, dirty, finicky work. It took days to remove the previous coating, and to prepare the surface for primer, then dry days for application, more sanding, taping. And so on. But eventually I recognized the urgency that Kate was feeling. Most of the times she is right anyway, I am learning as time passes.
Only two coats of Jotun HardTop paint on (and 2to go) for Tranquility
Maria from the vessel Joana recommended Jotun, a brand of paints from Norway which she described as “high quality industrial paint” that was available in Panama. I liked the focus on industrial because back in the States I spent too much time dealing with “spiffy yacht coatings” that eventually did not stand the harsh environment of the ocean and are targeted to people who constantly redo their paint jobs, as if boat owners were damned in one ring of Inferno, forced to constantly repaint their boats, with the diabolic marketers laughing at them. This time we are hoping for a less shiny but definitely more tenacious paint job, hopefully tug boat grade.
Industrial also means cheaper. Jotun serves the Shipping Industry so they sell by the bulk. For tiny Tranquility that translated in the purchase of a 20 liter (more than 5 gallons) drum of self polishing antifouling paint for 650$. It is a lot of money but it is also a lot of paint, and we had no way to purchase less from the warehouse in Zona Libre just outside Colon. 130$ per gallon is not a bad price at all for antifouling, even though now we have at least two gallons more than necessary.
Most cruisers we spoke to suggested that we apply it all, the more the better they say. Following the calculation from our last haul out in St.Marys, GA that quantity should translate in five or more coats of bottom paint. If putting more paint on will grant us more time between haul outs it could save us a lot of cash, so we are going to try the heavy application.
Of course painting outdoor in the rainy season is not the easiest task. It is down right frustrating. But as we cannot control weather we move past frustration and make the best possible with it. I would not have written this post if it wasn’t raining outside, I would be dealing with the next stage of this apparently interminable task.
Writing is a good activity for rainy days. I am working on two publication deadlines for June. One, already delivered, is for Small Boat Monthly, and it’s about a traditional sailing race in Guna Yala, that should appear on June’s edition. Then I also have a long piece about the last two years of sailing for Wand’rly Magazine that I am completing, really hoping to deliver it in time for the June issue too.
If it rains a lot, I have a prompt reason to console me for the delay in painting.
Sometime during long night hours of boat porn on the internet, I feel my interest leaning toward very small craft and crazy long trips. The closer to the water and the narrower the boat, the better. Light displacement, few control lines, and just the ocean. During daydreaming the discomfort of cramped quarters and little equipment it’s not a real thing, I can just focus on the fun part. It’s such a strong dream that I don’t think about anything else and sometimes I find myself spaced out trying to understand what I was trying to do. No, unfortunately it doesn’t happen only when I am sanding.
Right now I feel like I am in a big calm ocean, but I am actually on land. Duties and bureacratic burdens are forcing me to a prolonged stop from sailing, and they call back my focus to proper life challenges, instead of ocean dreamin’. The calm undermine my spirit but calms give people the opportunity to fix things and get their shit together. There’s no time for that in a gale, when you have to run and fight and stay afloat and hope that things don’t fall apart. How to navigate in calms is probably a work of art: better stay calm in a calm but it’s better stay calm in a storm too. That’s why Tranquility is a perfect name for our boat even if Kate and I think about changing it sometimes as she went through too many plastic and structural surgery.
Well, she still is a tranquil old lady, she knows the ocean and what it takes to cross perilous time. In fact according to the legend in 1991 she survived Hurrican Hugo in St.Croix, she was beached, holed but she came back to life. I am somehow beached (luckily not holed) and I am looking forward to a similar destiny of redemption. Chop wood, carry water.
Tranquility Voyage: leg 1 Fairhaven MA to Block Island RI
We finally left on Sunday morning, with SE winds picking up. The morning was warm as we passed the hurricane barrier leaving Fairhaven and New Bedford, our home for the past six months. At first we were a bit surprised of the light wind around the end of Buzzards Bay, but soon the wind speed increased up to 15-20 knots and we reached top speed, our knotmeter and GPS agreeing on 6,5 knots. We encountered some rain along the way but the wind never stopped to push us and we completed the 54 miles of the trip in 9 hours. It was dark at 5:30 pm when we finally docked in Champlin’s Marina, completely deserted in this cold time of the year.
Along the trip we started to adapt to our new sailing home, feeling a bit sea sick and adjusting our gear to better performance. The tiller needed a special modification not to lose precious steering angle. We still have to know how the boat behaves, but so far we keep being astonished by Tranquility’s sailing performances: good tracking; easy sail controls and boat handling; almost no spray coming on deck even in 3-5 feet swell.
Roberto was a fundamental addition to our team. His expertise and energy are helping us a lot underway and at the dock where we keep improving the perfomances and habitability of the boat. It feels great to have a competent and personable crew member to share the joy and fatigue of sailing and he is also a great help in Kate’s italian learning process, as we frequently speak italian onboard.
The weather forecast forced us on a two day stop in Block Island. We spent Monday and part of today fixing things but also enjoying the exploration of the island, a place that sees very few visitors during winter time. We really like the pictoresque island and the locals seems very curious about these crazy people sailing during winter on a small boat. A community of 850 people live year long on the island and you know nothing passes as unseen in this place as we were spotted crossing the south cape pounding into the waves as later somebody reported to us.
Now we are waiting for a good weather window, probably happening later tonight when the wind will decrease and veer to NWN. We are hoping for a good passage to Cape May NJ, aproximately 200 miles away and with the option of closer refuges along the Jersey Shore. You can keep track of our progresses trough our Spot tracking page.
“Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency.”
Natalie Goldberg, Wild Mind
Stress is not a disease you can cure or eliminate, it is a condition we all experience. In sailing, the amount of stress you can experience can drastically build up to a distress situation and the risks and outcomes of such situation can be dramatic. Sailors are well trained and used to cope with potentially stressful situations and their panic threshold is higher than the average person. Sailors and crew, however, are not immune to the dangerous effects of high level of stress exposure.
The ocean is a wild environment that doesn’t forgive errors and forces sailors and crew into extreme conditions. Facing the ocean requires preparation, training and a strong dose of confidence in your ability to cope with the unexpected. While we can control our training, the safety standards and the maintenance of the boat, our rigging and sail trimming, we can’t control the waves, the wind, the tide, equipment failures, medical emergencies and many other variables that can transform sailing into a constant source of stress and danger.
Stress is our reaction to pressure. It is the name given to the experience we have as we physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually respond to life’s tension. We need stress because it has many positive benefits, keeping up the attention level and the reactions of our body. When engaged in a situation where the ability to control and perform are crucial we benefit from the physiological responses of stress. In fact we usually don’t consider unimportant events stressful.
Stress is also a process that occurs when there is an imbalance between environmental demands and response capabilities of the organism, and when the environmental stimuli are likely to tax or exceed one’s personal coping capacities. The ability to endure stressful situations and to accomplish tasks is influenced by individual variables; training and perceived self-efficacy varies from person to person. Crew under stress or experiencing psychological health issues are operating at reduced capacity and can put both the boat and her passengers in danger.
Events that cause stress are called stressors. Events also don’t always come one at a time and don’t leave because another one arrives. Stressors add up. The cumulative effect of minor stressors can be a major distress if they all happen too close together. Too much stress can take its toll on people and their ability to organize. Too much stress leads to distress and often produces a combination of worry, nervousness and fear, emotions that if not controlled effect a sailor’s ability to perform.
Here are some of the effects of the stress:
Difficulty making decisions
Forgetfulness
Constant worrying
Carelessness
Hiding from responsibilities
Stress can be better described as a recursive relationship between environmental demands, social and organizational resources and the individual’s appraisal of that relationship. If you feel the resources are not enough to cope with the problems this evaluation will affect the performance. Sailing requires a huge amount of resources, from the personal ones of the sailor’s to the organizational ones that depend on the owner and the management. In fact the environment that surrounds a crew at work is not limited solely to the natural setting and the boat. The social and organizational environment around the boat can be a source of stress as well or more than a severe gale. Expectations from the others, socio-political and family events, the organizational culture can turn into a hostile and uncontrolled source of stress. We tend to focus on stressors like cataclysms or severe weather conditions but one of the greatest sources of stress is daily hassles that may cause tension, irritation or frustration. Things such as broken equipment, livelihood worries, prolonged isolation or lack of privacy, all these repetitive daily hassles become chronic strains, persistent, difficult and demanding situations where a stressor that we are normally able to handle can turn the situation into a real danger.
Here are some suggestions to keep the level of stress reasonable.
Safety first: all the safety systems are set and operative and crew is trained to use them
Spaces and equipment are kept up and enable the full control of the boat by crew
Prevent crowding – enough privacy when needed, enough social interaction when wanted;
Seek guidance – talk with somebody trustworthy
Prevent overtiring with adequate levels of rest
The livelihood is assured and the work is rewarded
Be real – organization’s goals and tasks should be realistic and achievable
The life of a sailor is very demanding and can be extraordinarily stressful – but we can be better prepared for the inevitable challenges of life at sea by learning how to navigate stress itself, as it can help us perform at our best. The way to safeguard against stress-related symptoms and dangers is build strategies to become more resilient – by increasing the ability to prepare for, recover from and adjust to life in the face of stress, adversity, trauma or tragedy. To build resilience requires personal resources but it’s not only an individual work; it involves families, colleagues, community, and professional counselor when necessary, because the stress management is based on the support of healthy relationships to share in a positive way the amount of stress that life at sea requires.
