Right after this happened, I was telling myself that I was never going
to tell a soul and glad that I was alone on board. Later, I realized
that, if it had happened in an airplane, I would have been posting it
immediately in one of the aviation groups. Pilots spend a lot more
time thinking and talking about safety than boaters. Back (not very
far back) when I was flying planes, I was very interested in the human
factors. So, in the spirit of aviation, here is this story which
illustrates some of them:

Http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/Sailing0606.htm

When I was flying, I noticed that my best performance was usually when
a late passenger or other delay gave me time to hang around the plane
doing a leisurely preflight and just getting into the mental space of
flying. This shows that it applies to boats, at least in the other
extreme.

It also shows the insidious effects of cold and discomfort which begin
creating mental tunnel vision and deteriorating performance well
before the onset of actual hypothermia.

I haven’t had a lot of experiences like this on the water. My first
thought when I got settled down and on course again was that I had
experience exactly the state of mind many pilots were in just before
they took a perfectly functioning and on-course aircraft and either
flew it out of control or into a mountain. It can happen on the water
too.

--

Roger Long