Making a list, checking it twice

Sailing folk are notorious for making lists. Spares, provisions, waypoints, litres used, litres not used (see "liquor consumption"): It's all grist for the methodical sort of mind associated with sailing. It's also emblematic of the aging mind most typical of the cruising set: There comes a point in life, well before one is truly senile, when in order to remember something new, like the code for the critical filter you have to acquire for that...thing...that needs the critical filter, you have to forget some older, arguably less important factoid.

You just hope it's the name of your Grade Two teacher and not how to tie a rolling hitch to snub off a flaying rode.

Someone who appears to have remembered more than me is Beth A. Leonard, who with her life partner Evans Starzinger, has sailed capably around 100,000 NM in what must be approaching 20 years of ocean sailing. She's done it in two boats, a Shannon 37 called Silk, and an aluminum Van de Stadt 47 called Hawk. Both can be considered "nice boats", but are rather different just as our classic plastic sloop is rather different from our steel pilothouse cutter. The couple have an extensive web presence here, so I'll quit with the biography and make with the book review.

Leonard appears to have used the long passages to make notes about nearly every aspect of passagemaking in smaller (under 50 feet) yachts. She delves into the psychology of the successful cruiser, "successful" here implying an enjoyment of the sometimes frill-free lifestyle in a manner not endangering the self or others. Healthcare, watering and feeding of the crew is also covered in details that might not occur to the more casual sailor, such as "keep your own water bottle filled and drained twice in a day and don't share its germs". Medical issues are discussed (perhaps even some related to bottle-sharing), as is the reality of foreign bureaucracies, i.e. when to bribe, who and why it might be a good idea.

She has some great, rarely seen analyses of the true expense of acquiring, fitting out and cruising on yachts (in my ongoing experience, three different and not closely related cost centres) geared to different levels of equipment, luxury and convenience. This is the part (along with the seamanship tips, which I read like it's the wisdom of the boudoir) I really enjoyed: You can extrapolate the numbers in whatever edition you find (I have the 2nd edition) to whatever national currency and/or state of inflation you are trying to flee, but I found the examples of the "budget", "typical" and "high-end" cruisers' budgets to be close to what I read on the blogs, and close to what my current fitting-out expenses are.

If nothing else, those considering the cruising lifestyle could use Leonard's book to test-drive their economic assumptions, as well as their opinions on the level of seamanship required.

Speaking of which, Leonard and Starzinger are quite happy to avail themselves of the armoury of communications and navigational aids geared for cruisers. Seamanship to them appears to be a combination of prudence and familiarity with a variety of "inputs" in order to make the least hazardous decisions. The book is filled not only with their opinions on what works and what doesn't, but "case studies" and surveys from the wider cruising community on what device, technique or habit paid dividends...and which have not. Caveat sailor, I guess. Were I a windvane maker, for instance, I would hand Leonard a plaque, or maybe a free windvane.

The Voyager's Handbook is rightly praised as a "must-have" on the shelves of many a cruising boat and I have to concur: It's coming along not only as an aide-memoire, but as a compendium of nautical tips and ways to think about living aboard in safety and good humour. You can argue that Leonard and her man may not be the best sailors on the oceans, but you would be hard-pressed to find ones who seem to have thought about all aspects of the undertaking. And thus it makes this list.

Planning for the worst via a good read

A good boating buddy of mine, David George, gave me this book as a present a few years back, and coincidentally, I received another copy when I took a Safety at Sea course in 2010. I noticed that despite its 2003 publishing date, and the fact it's still pretty relevant, this book has been remaindered at my local nautically themed bookshop (see here), and so it's certainly cheap to acquire.

Written by Chris Beeson, a professional sailor and journalist, The Handbook of Survival at Sea combines clear illustrations and no-nonsense prose into a very good reference book most distance sailors should consider carrying. Frankly, most distance sailors should already know most of this stuff, or they risk themselves and others by their ignorance, but that is just the previous post soaking into this one.

Beeson assumes that your boat has gone and you've taken to dinghy or (more likely) a lift raft. His focus is less on getting somewhere than it is on maintaining health and attitude long enough be found. As was seen in the sinking of the S/V Concordia (which sank just over a year ago from this post), it was a triumph of training over sudden misadventure that everyone aboard got into the rafts, but even 40 hours on the ocean made for depression, salt sores, exhaustion and lethargy. Attitude, inventiveness and fitness are key, says Beeson in his book, and some of the tales of long survivals at sea were based on this inner fortitude. Today, of course, it's the rare sailor that doesn't carry an EPIRB or even a satphone into the raft, but that doesn't mean it will work, or, as has been known to happen, that the various search and rescue (SAR) services will be able to co-ordinate your recovery in a timely fashion.

In addition, there are still many places in the world beyond the ability of rescue helicopters or planes to reach, and seeing a raft from a ship (which may have to divert hundreds of miles to attempt to see what is in essence a speck on the ocean) may not go off well on the first tries. You may be adrift for some time in a very hostile environment, and so Beeson gives descriptions of supplies, tools and gear to consider bringing, such as medical kits, fishing gear and how to ration vital things like water, and how to collect fresh water via condensation at sea. He breaks down the book into "coastal" (where more accidents happen due to the number of sailor and, perhaps, their relative level of experience), and "offshore", where the better-prepared sailor may nonetheless spend a longer time prior to rescue.

Fishing, obviously, is one way to keep occupied, particularly as the food brought into the raft is exhausted. Care is needed using hooks and improvised spears on a rubber liftraft, obviously, and Beeson spends a lot of time explaining how to manage this, how to handle larger catches and when and why a fish would not be good to eat. Attracting rescue is discussed (again, flares in a raft can be hazardous!), as it the possibility and the dangers of self-rescue, in which a liferaft is cast ashore, but far from habitation or aid. Something I knew, for instance, but hadn't integrated into my "mental survival kit" was that if you can spy a creek or river emerging from an otherwise coral reef-strewn shore, make for it, because corals won't grow in fresh water, i.e. no reef there to cut your raft to ribbons. Small stuff, to be sure, but a measure of how the book logically tackles possible real-life contigencies.

In many ways, this book reminded me strongly of one a fair bit older, Survive Anywhere Safely. Written by a British former commando, it's a compendium of survival techniques in nearly every environment that not only assumes that you won't be rescued right away, but that it would be a bit of a letdown if you hadn't built a condo out of twigs, skins and skulls by the time you were.

Survival At Sea, being a more recent book, is more focused and likely more relevant. I can't recall any situation in which advice on how to remove a pinned arm with a penknife was given, but nonetheless I endorse this book (particularly as it's now in overstock) as a way to sensibly prepare one's safety gear, survival supplies and oneself should you have to step up into your raft from a deck awash with the sea.