Setting Sail

The Ed ruminates...

It’s the question all sailors are asked by a landlubber at some time or another: “Don’t you ever get scared?” To which the only answer, unless you are a stupid and/or unimaginative person, is an honest “yes.” Call it anticipation, call it anxiety, call it a healthy respect for sea and weather, call it what you will; but at its essence, that occasional gnawing feeling in the pit of your stomach, the dry mouth, the elevated pulse—that’s fear, and it’s a good thing.

I’m not talking about the kind of adrenaline-induced fear that heightens the senses and that people who indulge in high-risk, short-duration sports find addictive—the awareness of the potentially terminal consequences of your actions, balanced by your confidence in your ability to avoid them—although there is certainly an element of that in extreme sailing.

There’s a far bigger picture for sailors and it goes way beyond the usual things that non-sailors think are dangerous, like storms (although I defy anyone not to feel afraid of the power of an ocean gale). The mere knowledge that water is not mankind’s natural element is in itself cause for the kind of fear that manifests itself in a heightened awareness of your surroundings—think peacefully grazing rabbit, subliminally scanning for the shadow of a diving hawk.

Even if you’re scarcely aware of it, it’s that underlying fear that hones your senses and has you constantly assessing your environment and the risks and dangers

therein, no matter whether you’re sailing a small boat on a calm lake or a big cruiser on a restless sea. And it can keep you alive.

So, fear is not only normal, it’s desirable, as long as it doesn’t gnaw away at you. It helps keep you out of trouble by making you anticipate the myriad things that could go wrong, which in turn makes you think about how to deal with them. This circles around to preparation for eventualities that you hope will never happen, which is one of the pillars of successful cruising under sail.

I’ve never embarked on a long passage without feeling afraid, though landlubbers will no doubt be disappointed to know that the fears I sublimate are not of massive breaking seas in an Atlantic storm, but of lee shores, dragging anchors, engine failure in tight quarters, losing someone overboard, steering failure and fire. This means I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to deal with each of these situations. I guess we all have our monsters in the closet. It’s good to be afraid, but not very afraid. s