On Thu, 12 Aug 2004 04:22:50 GMT, wrote:


I've just read "The Voyage of the Northern Magic" which
is about a Canadian family sailing around the world in
a 40-year-old sailboat. Their entire sailing experience
before taking this journey consisted of 6 afternoons in
on the Ottawa River. (See www.northernmagic.com)

Yes, and I spoke to Diane Stuemer shortly before she died, and she
admitted that this was in fact a foolish way to learn on a heavy
displacement boat. Her husband had some experience...she was
essentially the weak link, but learned quickly AND the hard way.

I think the tale of Northern Magic is very inspiring, but it is about
how the process of sailing with one's family and encountering foreign
peoples in distant places can be transformative...it is NOT in my
opinion a great book loaded with seamanship tips. The husband,
Herbert, seems to spend most of every chapter puking into the bilges
because he's trying to repair an alternator upside down in a heavy
following sea while his wife and kids hand-steer. Sorry, but if you
plan properly and don't insist on computers and refrigeration 24/7,
you don't spend much of your trip repairing expensive and dodgy
equipment. More than once they seem to have bought fifty kilos of
frozen meat, only to have the compressor or some related gadget fail
again. The Stuemers had a very interesting and memorable trip, but
their inexperience made it more difficult, IMO, than it needed to be,
if the book is anything to go by.

Give me a windvane and a can opener and maybe a Koolatron for the
beer, and I'll be a happier cruiser.

Having said that, I'm not a Luddite: radar and weatherfax and SSB are
the cruiser's mates, but more stuff means more complexity and more
crap that breaks in the middle of heavy weather.

R.