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Learning: The Next Challenge

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dlucier
Master Marine Consultant

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Virgin Islands (United Kingdom)
7583 Posts

Initially Posted - 03/03/2003 : 21:17:43

Here is a Sailnet article by John Rousmaniere that I thought was rather interesting. Maybe I should shut up every now and again, and learn something! <img src=icon_smile_approve.gif border=0 align=middle>

Learning: The Next Challenge
by John Rousmaniere

<img src="http://www.sailnet.com/images/content/authors/rousmaniere/030303_jr_learning.jpg" border=0>
Why are so many sailors resistant to new learning? According to the author, we're an opinionated bunch, far more eager to impart our views to others than to be receptive to diverging opinions.

New learning is not as valued as it should be. Before recommending some venues for gathering it, I want to speculate about why so many sailors resist it. The answer, I think, is that sailors are by nature an opinionated lot. Scratch a sailor and you will draw not blood but a prejudice. Mention "life jacket" around the bar and though nobody knows much about different types of PFDs, everybody will have something to say—and vehemently, too. Some will demand laws requiring everybody to wear a PFD all the time. Others will shout that such rules are an unconstitutional and even immoral restriction on their God-given right to go out and commit nautical suicide. Your ears ringing from that quarrel, you quickly change the subject to keels, only to be hectored about the perfection of multihulls. Say something nice about a catamaran and someone starts pounding the bar about tris. Time to change the subject again, but don’t mention the America’s Cup (unless of course you want to start a riot).

If you think I’m exaggerating, invite some friends aboard your boat and ask them to describe the vessel of their dreams. Notice how opinionated they are. Some will insist that the perfect boat must be this or have that, while others will demand that the ideal vessel must be that and have this. As the debate warms, notice how irritated you are at your friends who ignore your broad hints that they need look no farther for perfection because they are already in the greatest yacht ever built.

Other barriers are set up around seamanship, and that’s not a good thing. Close-minded, proud sailors may be entertaining companions around the bar, but they also may not be the best shipmates. Seamanship is a universal art learned by being open-minded and thoughtful, not argumentative and contrary. If you read this column regularly, you know that I like to seek out seamanship tips in events outside our usual experience. After one column about lessons learned from the Volvo race around the world, a reader vehemently protested that it had nothing to teach us because such a race is totally unseamanlike. I beg to differ. Though the boats and situations of the America’s Cup and the 'round-the-world races may be remote, they do challenge flesh and blood sailors at least as much as an afternoon squall. Like the average weekend cruiser or racer, the Russell Couttses, Dawn Rileys, Ellen MacArthurs, and Stan Honeys struggle with hard chances and balky gear. They became good because they spend enough time on the water in challenging situations to realize that the best way to become an able seaman is to be humble and never stop learning. They take chances, they endure knocks, and they permanently prop open their eyes and ears and minds to new experiences and new lessons.

<img src="http://www.sailnet.com/images/content/authors/rousmaniere/030303_jr_mark.jpg" border=0>
There's always more to learn when it comes to trim fundamentals and sail controls, or for that matter, any other seamanship area.

This does not mean that you should take stupid risks. When Joshua Slocum advised, "To young men contemplating a voyage, I say go," he was writing as a competent seaman who would expect that his “young men” would learn some sailing before heading out to sea. But Slocum’s faith and optimism are not often expressed today in sailing, where “caution” has become a synonym for “fear” and the worst-case scenario has become the rule for not just some decisions, but all of them. We must remember that broad, sensible, and well-traveled road that runs between silly risk-taking and, on the other side, knee-jerk alarmism of the contemporary sort that expresses itself in the notion that safety lies in writing more regulations.

Moderation counts. Ralph Waldo Emerson did not say that consistency is a “hobgoblin of little minds.” He said that about foolish consistency. The same goes for foolish caution, which can be constipating. Caution is a good thing, but not the only good thing. What we need more of is learning and challenge. Two very different modern-day sailors regarded them as twins. One is the late Tristan Jones, whose roster of maritime accomplishments (at least as he described them in his many books) is legendary. As it turns out, “legendary” is the right word to describe many of his tales, which are as false as his romantic Welsh name. Arthur Jones of Liverpool wanted to write books. Requiring a subject to write about, he invented one: himself. Yet as he labored at fabrication, Jones also gathered some 75,000 miles of small-boat voyaging in his lifetime, all the while working hard to make himself into a fine seaman. As Anthony Dalton says, “Tristan Jones was an enigma,” but that is no reason to entirely discard him, or to learn from him.

<img src="http://www.sailnet.com/images/content/authors/rousmaniere/030303_jr_macarthur.jpg" border=0>
British sailor, Ellen MacArthur, who was recently forced to abandon her Jules Verne attempt, evidenced once again why she has become such a sailing icon when she referred to her disheartening dismasting as a "learning experience."

Compare Tristan Jones with today’s sailing star, Ellen MacArthur. Now only 26, this slightly built, headstrong Englishwoman did not just leap out to sea. Once she discovered in her mid-teens that she wanted to spend her time in boats, she went to sailing school. Once she had grasped the basics in the classroom and her early sails, she bought a little boat and went sailing. Then came her phenomenal record of offshore triumphs in which, along the way, she realized that she was where she belonged. She loved sailing so much, in fact, that she worried that she was not pushing herself hard enough in long races. Her competitors ended up hating the experience, but she has written, “I hadn’t wanted the race to end.” The best way to measure people is how they respond not to success but to failure. By that standard, Ellen MacArthur is a giant. In late February, while trying to break the record for nonstop circumnavigations, her 110-foot catamaran Kingfisher 2 was dismasted in the Southern Ocean. Her hard-won maturity showed in her response. Once she had vented her understandable fury, she became reflective: “It's a funny feeling sitting out here thinking about all that has happened, and wondering what might have been. But then the ‘what ifs’ will always exist in life. They will never disappear, but you can choose to ignore them. What's done is done and, however you want to look at it, you learn from it, we have learned from it. We must just get up and on to the next challenge." "On to the next challenge."

If such a sailing star can benefit from a little classroom work and book learning, so can any sailor.

<img src="http://www.catalina25-250.org/c25sm.gif" border=0>Don Lucier<img src="http://www.catalina25-250.org/c25sm.gif" border=0>
<img src="http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b2cc32b3127cce92e981259d130000001010" border=0>
North Star SR/FK

Edited by - on

ronrryan
Admiral

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USA
561 Posts

Response Posted - 03/03/2003 : 21:30:39

Don, thank you for sharing this excellent article. I find sailing an soul satisfying activity and always feel like a beginner. Ron SW FL

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Gloss
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
1916 Posts

Response Posted - 03/03/2003 : 21:54:12

Hey Don, thanks for the article.

One of the reasons I have become passionate about sailing is that it is new to me, and there is so much to learn. Every few years I discover a new sport and become consumed to learn all I can about it. Why I may even try racing to learn more, if I can stand the whining and protesting involved.

If I may close with one of MY favorite quotes:

"Everything in moderation, including moderation" Benjamin Franklin

I for one enjoy the opinionated views of sailors as it shows that they are alive, and believe in something, and most of all, are passionate about our sport. You don't see that much in the everyday powerboater. Not much passion in turning the key and pushing the throttle to get there faster. We sailors are already there.

How's that for opinionated?

Keep up the good work my friend

Frank Gloss
89WK/TR

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Arlyn Stewart
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
2984 Posts

Response Posted - 03/03/2003 : 21:56:31

Thanks Don....good stuff.

Arlyn C-250 W/B #224
<img src="http://www.stewartfam.net/arlyn/rr.jpg" border=0>
N/E Texas and Great Lakes

[url="http://www.cox-internet.com/arlynstewart/"]Arlyn's C250 Mods n Cruisin Stories[/url]

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Dave Bristle
Master Marine Consultant

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Djibouti
10005 Posts

Response Posted - 03/04/2003 : 09:49:43

I have admired a good friend of mine--a sailor, who, in adversity that would send many men into uncontrollable strings of epithets, would give a wry smile, calmly assess the situation, probably say something like "Well, there goes Plan A...", and immediately set about implementing a Plan B.

I've been trying to demonstrate that I'm learning that lesson, but finding that, for me anyway, it's a lot tougher than learning to trim a sail. I know this: When other acquaintences are planning to take their boats over the horizon, they want my friend with them. So would I.

Dave Bristle - 1985 C-25 #5032 SR-FK-Dinette-Honda "Passage" in SW CT

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tinob
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
1883 Posts

Response Posted - 03/04/2003 : 10:32:58

I learned early that my Dad's plan "A" failed when he muttered under his breath...DAGNABIT

Val on the hard DAGNABIT

Val Bisagni]<img src="http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b3df11b3127cce94709c5ff2e90000000010" border=0>

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