The power of tech
by John Curnow, Sail-World.com AUS Editor 2 Jul 15:00 PDT
Pwllheli Sailing Club members undertake World Sailing Offshore Personal Safety and Sea Survival training © Nick Smith
If you were around when CDs arrived, you'll remember that they were hailed as, 'it and a bit'. The idea was great, the execution, in a perfect world was immense, especially if it was digitally mastered (DDD). Thing was, just a mere scratch, especially one in radii, not circumference, could render the whole thing useless. Doh.
Tech is not cheap, but it can be utterly marvellous. Yes, there is a distinct chance it will be rendered obsolete before you know it. Try getting something taken off U-Matic tape these days. Finding a working machine is just half the joy, and if it breaks, where are the spares coming from? I know there are people stockpiling them now, but sooooooo many were trashed over the years that there is just not a pool to draw from anymore.
Jumping along the tech curve at regular intervals is, to put simply, just plain advisable. In the case above I shot something on film, turned into a reel on U-Matic, it was then later placed onto to a DVD, is now on an HD, and I think I will have to have it on SSD very soon. Crazy thing is that it is simply not that old. Just nudging 20 years. That's all.
Taking the 'S' out of 'SAR' is just plain smart. More efficient, and way faster. No need to search, just Rescue. If you end up in the drink, the best asset to retrieve you is the one you just left. If your PLB has AIS, the alert and competent crew can you have you back in a jiffy. Case in point, Porco Rosso in last year's Hobart.
No one would want to have to contemplate what goes through your brain when you watch your vessel sail off, and you're bobbing around, displaying less visible area than your average mooring. If it was you, you'd want to be as tall as the Eiffel Tower, and lit up like the Christmas Tree in the Rockerfeller Centre. If you were the on the craft, you would not have to think of your reciprocal, you could just point and shoot. Yes. Much better.
At that point, the investment in the new tech just became priceless. What cost? Only benefit. Little wonder it is a 100% requirement for the Hobart now, and also races like the impending Gold Coast to Mackay event. Offshore it can be remote. Why go looking in the thousands of square kilometres out in the back paddock when you can simply ask someone to meet you at the cattle crush right next to the main road?
Here in Oz, the first Safety and Sea Survival Courses were run after the '98 Hobart. Volunteers put in their time to create and run them, and there were cost to hire pools and repack rafts, but how invaluable have they been since? Many consider that it should be a 100% requirement of all crew in any ocean race, and that logic is sound.
If you have to do a compulsory qualifying passage to partake even in a rally these days, then why not make SSSC compulsory too? It is not a cost impediment at all. If the assets have to go and get you, then we are all coughing up as the taxpayer. Wear it now or wear it later, we are all paying sometime, somewhere.
Safety is safety. We all get a bit blasé, and go 'she'll be right', but will it? Raising my hand, I know I don't pay attention to the safety briefing on the kerosene canary, yet just a tad later I do check the card to make sure I know which model we're on, and that no new 11 secret herbs and spices have arrived in the last 50 years. (They haven't BTW).
Safety has a cost. You take your car to the track, and the huge sign has all the details, then you sign your waiver, realise your insurance is now useless, put your helmet and suit on, and off you go. You get concrete rash and it's on your head, as well as the panels, obviously. Same too if it is a trip to the hospital, or worse.
I would not want to be there when a craft loses a rig, nor turn turtle, but stuff does happen at sea. Always has. Always will. God bless the insurers, is all I can say.
As big events become even more of a bucket list item, and we attract more people to the sport who have not done it all their lives, then the onus is on us to ensure the standard. Alas, if we do not, then other parties will come in and apply theirs to us. This will undoubtedly have a cost implication, and it might also be not simply added on, but taken away, as well. A classic would have to be the loss of the ability to underwrite the insurance. If no one wants to play in the space for it has all got too hard, then who does one turn to? Self-insured? Creation of one's own pool? Now there's a massive expense.
Hard charging is fast and fun, but does involve bouncing off the rev limiter much more than many people would think. Especially in a black boat with a black stick, fat head main, and a triple head configuration. More strings going everywhere than a 49er after a tough race. Ping once too often, then it all goes awry, and you bend some valves and mash a head as a result. That saying applies to humans, just as much as it does to engines.
I do not know whether I have become more considered over time, or less gunfighter? Who can tell? We used to talk about the ones you'd go to war with. If those certain sailors were on, you'd step on, too. What I do know is that risk and reward have a very different profile nowadays. Today, I'd probably talk with the Sailing Master at length to get a handle on where they sat on that spectrum before committing. No. I am not saying I'm wiser, by any means, just able to have a different outlook. A little less myopic, shall we say...
So, it does mean there is more stuff on board, and that means more things to organise. A place for everything, and everything in its place. Right. You turn turtle, and if something was not secured where it needed to be, then good luck finding it. Best it be near the companionway or escape hatches. Equally, a lot of it can be a tad fragile, especially aerials, so does that mean we need redundancy for some things? More than likely. A lot of stuff can be hired, which lowers the overall burden, and let's face it, in that scenario it is all way cheaper than an HF set, anyway.
Everything has gotten more expensive. Milk, bread, and a few things at the supermarket is now like 50 bucks. I used to fill the car for less than that. Now that same sum might get me 300km down the road, on a good day.
So why should we think we're excluded from it. The wind might be free, depending on your methodology, but that's where it ends. We need to be grateful that for now no one has worked out a process for taxing it, because they surely will if they can.
Please enjoy your yachting, stay safe, and thanks for tuning into Sail-World.com
John Curnow
Sail-World.com AUS Editor