Why Sailing Should Embrace the Mainstream Media
“The mainstream media?!” You may be asking yourself. “The same media that ruined every sport more exciting than croquet by drowning it in Mountain Dew and plastering it with variations on the word ‘extreme’? The same media that make Presidential elections look like horse races and celebrity slip-ups look like cataclysmic events?”
Yes, I say. Those media.
There has been a lot of controversy surrounding Laura Dekker's desire to try sailing around the world. Everybody seems to have some opinion on this matter, from the media to social services to the courts.
I believe that the people who are best suited to judge whether Laura is ready are Laura and her parents. It is simply wrong for anyone else to sit in judgment of her capabilities and stop her from reaching for her dreams.
Does anyone remember William F Buckley ripping into Jim Dickson for attempting to sail across the Atlantic?
I had an experience recently that really made me think about preparedness, one of the most important aspects of sailing any kind of boat.
I’ll start the story at the end: we were three dripping wet people, all face-palming about losing those valuables around which so much of modern life is centered. Thankfully no one was hurt, but in the drink somewhere near somewhere near Sippican Harbor were a pair of new shoes, three pairs of sunglasses, three cell phones, a purse, two wallets, medicine, and a set of keys.
The soap opera that is the Americas Cup takes a turn even more bizarre today, as Alinghi today announced the venue as Ras-Al-Khaimah in the UAE. In case you have never heard of this place before, check the map below:
I recently put up a poll on the homepage to see what readers thought of the current situation with the America's Cup. The results are I think telling, with 59% of readers saying that the America's Cup has become bad for the sport. Granted this is a small sample size, but 20 years ago I would be surprised if 10% of people felt this way.
When I was a teenager, I spent a summer teaching sailing to the blind. This was 35 years ago, and at the time was a fairly revolutionary idea. Conventional wisdom says to steer anything, you need to be able to see. My experience that summer, and the experiences of countless others has proven that to be a very limited viewpoint.
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