On Thu, 27 May 2004 10:26:57 -0400, "Skip Gundlach"
skipgundlach.sez.remove.this.and.the.dots.to.mail
wrote:

Life is what happens when you're making other plans...

Most of you know that Lydia and I have bought our boat and expect to get
aboard and cut the cords. Target departure date is November 1, with a
[...]
partly drive our decision, should we decide to go ahead. Either way, if I
go under the knife, we'll not be outta here in November as we'd planned. If
I don't, my arm will never be better than it is today...

Not to get into the medical details but a couple of years ago I lost
some use of my right arm. There was no pain at all but I was unable to
raise it up and could definitly not lift anything above my head. I
couldn't even lift my right arm up to the steering wheel of a car. I
had to use my left had to lift my right arm and place it on the wheel.
Once there, I could use it fine to drive but I'd use my left to do most
of the steering. And while I couldn't even lift my arm above my head,
hauling in an anchor was not a problem.

Anyway, I did try sailing a few times in that condition and found that,
while it's possible, it really slowed me down in doing a lot of things.
My boat is mostly manual operation though, not even a roller furler. I
could do everything I needed to do but some things, like just lifting
the headsail from below out onto the foredeck through a hatch, were a
real problem.

I love single handing but decided not to do that until I got better
since I didn't want to get stuck in an emergency situation alone that I
couldn't deal with due to my arm. It would take me at least twice as
long to reef a sail since there's a lot of overhead work involved.
There's just about nothing I can't handle alone when in good shape. It
took about a year for my arm to get back into shape enough that I'd
consider sailing alone again for more than a day sail.

So, my advice to you is to get your arm back at least to the point where
you can function before going on an extended cruise. Day to day
activities may be no problem. But you'll want to have use of both arms
when the sh*t hits the fan.

Steve