On Wed, 1 Aug 2007 21:52:28 -0400, "Wilbur Hubbard"
wrote:


"Geoff Schultz" wrote in message
. ..
"Wilbur Hubbard" wrote in
news:46b1165c
:


"Paul Cassel" wrote in message
...
Wilbur Hubbard wrote:
Much extraneous matter snipped


There are also times when you NEED a reliable phone connection to
resolve a problem. You can't rely on e-mail. You need to discuss
issues with people and get them to do things in real time. One time I
needed to talk to someone to find out of some rollers on the top of
the
mast would support my weight as my main halyard was jammed and I
needed
to go up the mast while underway to un-jam it (I only have 1 main
halyard).

Sailing by committee. Oh yes, that's the way it's done today. That's the
way people these days think it should be done. What ever happened to
self-reliance, personal responsiblity and knowing your boat? You should
already know if the halyards and sheeves can hold your weight. You
should have installed mast steps beforehand oo you would not have to
wonder if relying on halyards was safe. But you didn't and you didn't
because your phone allows you to sail by committee. It allows you to be
uninformed. It allows you to be slothful. That's not sailing.


Wilbur Hubbard

Wilbur, you just to get another boat! Or at least hang around a bigger
boat for a day. I'm sure that when you are sitting on that overgrown
dinghy with no amenities and a 9.9 H.P gasoline outboard as your only
power source you might be deluded into thinking that you can fix
anything that breaks but if you were ever on a real boat you'd find
that you were woefully ignorant of how things work.

In the example cited above, if you are going to depend on a rope to
hold you some 50 or 60 feet in the air you certainly should be aware
of whether it is going to hold, or not. Watch any professional rigger
get ready to make a climb -- watch them check the safety rope foot by
foot.

And, mast steps? Have you got mast steps on that trailer-sailer you
have lived on for 20 years? What a waste. A real sailor would just
grab the shrouds and climb the mast - don't even try to say this can't
be done because I watched a Frenchman do it in the Singapore Straits.
A 25 ft. boat and up the mast he went, no steps, no ropes, just
reached out and grabbed the shrouds and up he went.

Wilbur, old boy, if you are going to talk the talk you got to walk the
walk. No more sitting in the bayou there, you got to get out here on
the water with the rest of us.


Bruce in Bangkok
(brucepaigeATgmailDOTcom)