Peeing at sea.
I have heard, and I well believe it, that the highest risk of falling overboard in the non-racing world is associated with drunkenness. Not surprising. But I have also heard that the riskiest activity among the non-inebriated is the act of taking a leak. Most of us much prefer urinating over the side of the boat, rather than going below. This act is always a pleasure, not only because you are relieving your bladder, but also because you are taking a break. Because you cannot do anything else while you are peeing, it is one of those rare moments when you can survey the ocean with virtually zero chance of being able respond to what you see. The boat can be off course, the sails improperly trimmed, the coffee spilling, whatever. You can't help. There are exceptions to this rule, though (see below).
So you stare at the waves and the wind and the motion of the boat. You can't help but feel the poetry, especially as your bladder becomes more comfortable. But this reflective moment is also the one that can pitch a sailor overboard. Of course we are all aware of that; we generally use our harness to buckle in so we don't go anywhere if we fall off, but I do have to admit that sometimes, in fair daylight weather, I just get up and pee.
Everyone has a preferred position. My dad and most others I know prefer the steel rail around the transom. The "pee rail". I prefer the leeward midship position. There I can wrap a couple of arms around the shrouds (the wires which go from the mast to the deck, and help keep the mast in place), making balance less of an issue. There, the act is less public. It is also closer to the bow, whose sound tells you volumes.
But no matter where you stand, you are vulnerable. I remember one afternoon on Siwash when my dad owned her. We were headed toward Catalina Island under power, but with a light westerly filling the main, jib, and mizzen as we motor-sailed along. The sea was very smooth as it is most mornings in the summer in Southern California. I was contemplating that sea, and whether we might get enough wind so Dad would shut of the engine for an hour of real sailing.
Now urinating is a sort of automaton behavior; what we call in the neuroethology business a "fixed-action pattern." One of the tenants of such a behavior is that once started, it is very difficult to stop. So there I am communing with nature as I pee over the leeward rail. Suddenly I notice a foot-long jet plane screaming right at me. At first glance, it appeared to be a heat-seeking missile headed right for my hot spot. Luckily, its flight leveled out and it hit the rail at my feet, knocking itself out, and falling harmlessly into the sea.
But virtually every time I go to pee, I contemplate what it would feel like to fall into that deep, endless ocean and be left behind.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Sunday, June 24, 2007
TranspacII-8
TranspacBlogII-8
More on Sharks
The other shark story I carry around in my head is from my high-school friend Rob Rebstock, way back in the mid 70's. A couple of years after the attack I am about to describe, Rob and his brother came up to Santa Cruz, and told us this story. Now, I first got to know Robbie as a full-back on the "C" football team (the smallest and youngest division; he was a freshman, I was a sophomore). I was a guard, and watched him slam through the smallest of cracks I had made for him. My point is that Robbie was, and, I imagine, still is, very tough. He is an avid surfer and diver. I surfed with him several times in my youth, but haven't seen him in quite a few years, now. A few years after graduating from high school, he and his brother and two friend were in a small outboard just inside Point Conception, up the coast from Santa Barbara. Look at any map of California and you can see Point Conception. It's the big right angle bend that separates Southern California from the rest of California. The surf was flat, so the boys decided to go scuba diving.
They anchored inside Government Point (the inside eastern point of two) next to another diver who was warming himself in the sun. They asked him how the diving was. He said "Great, except I ran into a big white shark down there who kept tugging at my fin." He bent his fin, displaying an impressive set of razor cuts. Now, this diver was a "hookah diver", one of these crazy guys who hooks up an air compressor to a hose that gives him an unlimited supply of air. Now I call them crazy, because these guys typically play Russian roulette with their "dive tables", which scientifically tell you how long you can be at any particular depth before you will get the bends (the bends is a horrible condition that comes from nitrogen gas suddenly forming bubbles in your blood stream, typically as you come up after a stupidly long dive). Scuba divers usually pay attention to their tables, partly because they are just diving for fun, and don't have to stay down until they find enough catch to pay for their new car; but also, because they run out of air and have to come up to change air tanks, They have the luxury of looking at their table and saying, oh, rats, I can't dive anymore, today. By contrast, hookah divers are diving, not for fun, but for a living. In those days it was abalone, nowadays it is sea urchins. This dinner-table perspective, combined with the fact that they don't have to ever come up for want of air supply, means that they often exceed the maximum safe time specified by their dive tables. Some of these divers get the bends and die, but lots and lots of them just kind of lose their brains. I'm not sure whether this is urban legend, but most of my fellow surfers assume that hookah divers were all getting little mini-bends in their brains, kind of like mini-strokes; the legend is that this makes them get dumber and dumber, and more and more aggressive (they are pretty anti-social to begin with, but the veterans are really knarly).
Anyway, Robbie and brother and two friends weren't all that sure this guy's story was reliable. But just to be safe, they decided to motor another couple of miles around the point, toward Jalama State park. Later, they pieced together that the hookah diver had actually been diving in exactly the same location as Rob and company ended up. Anyway, they set their anchor, and Robbie was the first one in the water. He had his weight belt and fins and tank on, but was treading water while his brother Scott fetched his mask and snorkel. So at this point, it is worthwhile to consider the story from two points of view.
Rob's little brother Scott describes how he was just about to hand Rob his mask, when Rob erupted from the sea. When Scott tells the story, his wide eyes get really wide. In some way this story is more traumatic for him than it is for his brother. Scott describes an image that is forever emblazoned in his memory. He swears that from where he was STANDING, he could see both the shark, in its entirety, and Rob, with the horizon, unbroken, underneath them. When Rob hit the water, Scott and the friend were frozen by fear. They could not do anything. At all.
Photo by E. Cheng;
http://echeng.com/journal/2006/07/12/great-white-shark-breach-false-bay/
Rob's perspective is, of course, the scariest of all. He remembers that the harbor seals were all up on the rocks, but he never thought about sharks. When Rob described this experience, he was standing with his shorts on. He describes how the shark hit him from below at an incredible velocity. He shows how one leg was pinned in a bent position, while the other dangled way down into the gullet of the shark. The veracity of this story is SLAMMED home when you see that the tooth scars of this attack; which run down one side of his body, and up the other; come into perfect register when he bends his leg into the position in which it was pinned. There is the outline of this monster's jaws. This huge mouth covers three quarters of Rob's body length, from just under his arm-pit, to below his knee. I remember my mouth dropping to the floor when he did that little dance.
Here's another memorable detail of this attack that really gets me. Rob remembers the sensation of being lifted out of the water at an incredible speed. Ok. He says that it felt like he had been hit by something inanimate, the space shuttle, or a train or something. That's pretty amazing. But the thing that kills me is that he talked about the one and only hint that this ride was perpetrated by something living. Rob says that he could feel the torque of the head moving back and forth as the shark beat its tail on the way up.
The shark spit Rob out in midair, perhaps because he got bumped in the nose by the scuba tank Rob had on. Rob said he "flew" back to the outboard, and found himself on the floorboard, staring at his three catatonic crew. Rob had to exhort them to pull up the anchor, turn on the engine and drive full speed back to Point Conception, where they beached the outboard, and flagged a ranch hand for the two-hour ride to the hospital. They wisely decided to leave Rob's wetsuit on. That decision very likely kept Rob from bleeding to death. They sewed him up at the hospital with a million (plus or minus) stitches, further outlining the mouth of this behemoth. By the jaw size (actually the distance between the teeth), so accurately recorded, they estimated the shark to be 19 feet long. They were anchored in 18 feet of water. If you want the objective details of this and other California White Shark attacks on folks I never knew, i.e., if you are the kind that has to look at a car wreck when you drive by, check out:
http://www.sharkresearchcommittee.com/unprovoked_diver.htm
So, back to the Man Overboard scenario. To distort an old saying, knowledge is fear. You have just fallen off the Psyche, the boat has disappeared from sight, and you are looking under water for the torpedo.
More on Sharks
The other shark story I carry around in my head is from my high-school friend Rob Rebstock, way back in the mid 70's. A couple of years after the attack I am about to describe, Rob and his brother came up to Santa Cruz, and told us this story. Now, I first got to know Robbie as a full-back on the "C" football team (the smallest and youngest division; he was a freshman, I was a sophomore). I was a guard, and watched him slam through the smallest of cracks I had made for him. My point is that Robbie was, and, I imagine, still is, very tough. He is an avid surfer and diver. I surfed with him several times in my youth, but haven't seen him in quite a few years, now. A few years after graduating from high school, he and his brother and two friend were in a small outboard just inside Point Conception, up the coast from Santa Barbara. Look at any map of California and you can see Point Conception. It's the big right angle bend that separates Southern California from the rest of California. The surf was flat, so the boys decided to go scuba diving.
They anchored inside Government Point (the inside eastern point of two) next to another diver who was warming himself in the sun. They asked him how the diving was. He said "Great, except I ran into a big white shark down there who kept tugging at my fin." He bent his fin, displaying an impressive set of razor cuts. Now, this diver was a "hookah diver", one of these crazy guys who hooks up an air compressor to a hose that gives him an unlimited supply of air. Now I call them crazy, because these guys typically play Russian roulette with their "dive tables", which scientifically tell you how long you can be at any particular depth before you will get the bends (the bends is a horrible condition that comes from nitrogen gas suddenly forming bubbles in your blood stream, typically as you come up after a stupidly long dive). Scuba divers usually pay attention to their tables, partly because they are just diving for fun, and don't have to stay down until they find enough catch to pay for their new car; but also, because they run out of air and have to come up to change air tanks, They have the luxury of looking at their table and saying, oh, rats, I can't dive anymore, today. By contrast, hookah divers are diving, not for fun, but for a living. In those days it was abalone, nowadays it is sea urchins. This dinner-table perspective, combined with the fact that they don't have to ever come up for want of air supply, means that they often exceed the maximum safe time specified by their dive tables. Some of these divers get the bends and die, but lots and lots of them just kind of lose their brains. I'm not sure whether this is urban legend, but most of my fellow surfers assume that hookah divers were all getting little mini-bends in their brains, kind of like mini-strokes; the legend is that this makes them get dumber and dumber, and more and more aggressive (they are pretty anti-social to begin with, but the veterans are really knarly).
Anyway, Robbie and brother and two friends weren't all that sure this guy's story was reliable. But just to be safe, they decided to motor another couple of miles around the point, toward Jalama State park. Later, they pieced together that the hookah diver had actually been diving in exactly the same location as Rob and company ended up. Anyway, they set their anchor, and Robbie was the first one in the water. He had his weight belt and fins and tank on, but was treading water while his brother Scott fetched his mask and snorkel. So at this point, it is worthwhile to consider the story from two points of view.
Rob's little brother Scott describes how he was just about to hand Rob his mask, when Rob erupted from the sea. When Scott tells the story, his wide eyes get really wide. In some way this story is more traumatic for him than it is for his brother. Scott describes an image that is forever emblazoned in his memory. He swears that from where he was STANDING, he could see both the shark, in its entirety, and Rob, with the horizon, unbroken, underneath them. When Rob hit the water, Scott and the friend were frozen by fear. They could not do anything. At all.
Photo by E. Cheng;
http://echeng.com/journal/2006/07/12/great-white-shark-breach-false-bay/
Rob's perspective is, of course, the scariest of all. He remembers that the harbor seals were all up on the rocks, but he never thought about sharks. When Rob described this experience, he was standing with his shorts on. He describes how the shark hit him from below at an incredible velocity. He shows how one leg was pinned in a bent position, while the other dangled way down into the gullet of the shark. The veracity of this story is SLAMMED home when you see that the tooth scars of this attack; which run down one side of his body, and up the other; come into perfect register when he bends his leg into the position in which it was pinned. There is the outline of this monster's jaws. This huge mouth covers three quarters of Rob's body length, from just under his arm-pit, to below his knee. I remember my mouth dropping to the floor when he did that little dance.
Here's another memorable detail of this attack that really gets me. Rob remembers the sensation of being lifted out of the water at an incredible speed. Ok. He says that it felt like he had been hit by something inanimate, the space shuttle, or a train or something. That's pretty amazing. But the thing that kills me is that he talked about the one and only hint that this ride was perpetrated by something living. Rob says that he could feel the torque of the head moving back and forth as the shark beat its tail on the way up.
The shark spit Rob out in midair, perhaps because he got bumped in the nose by the scuba tank Rob had on. Rob said he "flew" back to the outboard, and found himself on the floorboard, staring at his three catatonic crew. Rob had to exhort them to pull up the anchor, turn on the engine and drive full speed back to Point Conception, where they beached the outboard, and flagged a ranch hand for the two-hour ride to the hospital. They wisely decided to leave Rob's wetsuit on. That decision very likely kept Rob from bleeding to death. They sewed him up at the hospital with a million (plus or minus) stitches, further outlining the mouth of this behemoth. By the jaw size (actually the distance between the teeth), so accurately recorded, they estimated the shark to be 19 feet long. They were anchored in 18 feet of water. If you want the objective details of this and other California White Shark attacks on folks I never knew, i.e., if you are the kind that has to look at a car wreck when you drive by, check out:
http://www.sharkresearchcommittee.com/unprovoked_diver.htm
So, back to the Man Overboard scenario. To distort an old saying, knowledge is fear. You have just fallen off the Psyche, the boat has disappeared from sight, and you are looking under water for the torpedo.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Transpac Blog II-7
Man Overboard II: Sharks.
You've fallen overboard, the Psyche is gone from view. You are on the verge of panic. You begin to recall all you know about sharks.
Sharks. These things give EVERYBODY nightmares. How unlikely it is, in our industrial world, to be seriously considered as lunch. Yet there is a decent possibility that any snorkeller in any out-of-the-way tropical marine setting will get this experience. I've never been seriously threatened by a shark. My worst experience was a snorkel around a semi-sunken volcano crater in the Galapagos Islands, called the devil's crown. A friend and I had been invited to join my parents on their boat Compadre. We were snorkeling around the outside of the crater in 50 feet of very clear water. Big fish, lots of species, volcanic beauty. Then, at the very bottom there came into view a line of a dozen hammerhead sharks, 6-10 feet each. Very impressive; they were swimming single file. It reminded me of the dance in West-side story. "When you're a Jet you’re a Jet all the way from the…" These guys were totally in charge. My friend and I closed ranks. We both had pretty puny broom poles with spearheads on their ends. Suddenly the biggest shark veered away from the line and came RIGHT AT US! I pointed my legs and puny spear-head right at him, but on he came. Then about 15 feet from us, he suddenly veered back down and rejoined his line at the bottom. The rest of the dive was pretty jumpy. I spent a lot of time doing quick 360 degree surveys of the surroundings.
http://www.maneatingsharks.com/Hammerhead_Sharks.htm
I once got to be friends with a South African, Bobby Fridjon. He was a competitive free-diver, and in South Africa, that's a pretty macho thing to be. South Africa has lots of sharks, and competitive free-divers swim with them every day. Each shark seems to have its own personality, and now and then, one of them wants to eat you and the fish you just speared. The shark comes right at you. Bobby told us how you're supposed to carry a little explosive-loaded "shark-banger" with you as you descend to spear a fish. When a rogue shark comes at you, you discharge the banger on its nose. He said the shark banger really works, but the whole operation scares the shit out of you. Usually, he says, the sharks don't really bother you, but sometimes they do.
Shark Sticks
Man Overboard II: Sharks.
You've fallen overboard, the Psyche is gone from view. You are on the verge of panic. You begin to recall all you know about sharks.
Sharks. These things give EVERYBODY nightmares. How unlikely it is, in our industrial world, to be seriously considered as lunch. Yet there is a decent possibility that any snorkeller in any out-of-the-way tropical marine setting will get this experience. I've never been seriously threatened by a shark. My worst experience was a snorkel around a semi-sunken volcano crater in the Galapagos Islands, called the devil's crown. A friend and I had been invited to join my parents on their boat Compadre. We were snorkeling around the outside of the crater in 50 feet of very clear water. Big fish, lots of species, volcanic beauty. Then, at the very bottom there came into view a line of a dozen hammerhead sharks, 6-10 feet each. Very impressive; they were swimming single file. It reminded me of the dance in West-side story. "When you're a Jet you’re a Jet all the way from the…" These guys were totally in charge. My friend and I closed ranks. We both had pretty puny broom poles with spearheads on their ends. Suddenly the biggest shark veered away from the line and came RIGHT AT US! I pointed my legs and puny spear-head right at him, but on he came. Then about 15 feet from us, he suddenly veered back down and rejoined his line at the bottom. The rest of the dive was pretty jumpy. I spent a lot of time doing quick 360 degree surveys of the surroundings.
http://www.maneatingsharks.com/Hammerhead_Sharks.htm
I once got to be friends with a South African, Bobby Fridjon. He was a competitive free-diver, and in South Africa, that's a pretty macho thing to be. South Africa has lots of sharks, and competitive free-divers swim with them every day. Each shark seems to have its own personality, and now and then, one of them wants to eat you and the fish you just speared. The shark comes right at you. Bobby told us how you're supposed to carry a little explosive-loaded "shark-banger" with you as you descend to spear a fish. When a rogue shark comes at you, you discharge the banger on its nose. He said the shark banger really works, but the whole operation scares the shit out of you. Usually, he says, the sharks don't really bother you, but sometimes they do.
Shark Sticks
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Man Overboard
MAN OVERBOARD!!
Go there in your imagination, and it sweeps you away. You imagine it happening while you're on the foredeck in heavy weather helping to take down the jib. Your harness isn't fastened right, a steep wave comes aboard green, knocks you down, and the next thing you know, you are in the water. By the time you come up, the boat is out of reach. If you aren't coughing you yell as if it is your last. The crew activates emergency measures to get the boat turned around to pick you back up, but you know all the things that can go wrong. Your personal flotation harness inflates as it should when it hits the water. You knock off your shoes or boots so you can swim. You swim for the man-overboard drogue that a crewmember has deployed. Its high flag and strobe calm you. You know you are much more visible than you were without it. Now you find Psyche with your eyes. By this time, she is surprisingly far away. The spinnaker halyard appears to have been fouled, and the crew is struggling to get the flogging spinnaker down. You only see these friends for the short moments you and Psyche are on top of waves. Most of the time, the waves hide all but the mast.
Although I have never fallen overboard from a moving vessel, I have jumped overboard to fetch a dropped bucket. This is a different story for another time; but suffice to say I know what it feels like to have that eye contact with your life support broken. It feels very lonely. Very scary.
Not as scary, I imagine as if you lose contact with the entire boat. That would be oh-so-awful. It is difficult to even think of that feeling, but it is like a car wreck on the freeway, you just have to look. Feel the adrenaline. The spinnaker doesn't come down, the engine won't start, or the propeller fouls on a line and stops spinning, killing the engine. The crew tries to tack back to the GPS position that was dutifully "marked" by a conscientious crew member, but the stuck flogging spinnaker is too much for the main; Psyche can't scratch back upwind against the 20 foot breaking seas. Your friends can't see you, and they don't know how far you've drifted from that position. It might take an hour or more to get back to that GPS, if the snafu is really bad. You aren't there, of course, so they slowly go down wind from that position, hoping to find you.
You have only seen the first part of this foiled rescue attempt. You try to keep your eyes on the sail, but soon, you only see it now and then. If you are in the coastal waters, you start trying to conserve heat. If you are in tropical waters, you start worrying about sharks. If it is night, you just worry. If it is day, you worry AND look. I figure the only thing worse than being eaten by a shark is being eaten by one you don't see. I've always fantasized about punching an attacking shark in the nose; I guarantee that I don't want to be eaten without at least trying it.
Sitting in bed staring at the ceiling, thinking about how scary the ocean can be. It's a little like a haunted house on Halloween. Kind of scary, but also somehow invigorating. More about sharks next time.
(p.s., my daughter and best blog-coach suggests I shorten my blogs and publish them more often.). I am taking her advice.
Monday, June 18, 2007
TranspacBlogII-4
Command structure B. The net.
This is what it sounds like sailing Psyche.
"What do you think about loosening the outhaul some? The main seems too tight," asks Bill.
A beat while the crew considers the question. "I was just thinking the same thing," replies Steve.
"What's the windspeed now? " asks Jim. "We aren't pointing with our competition right now."
"5 knots, down a couple from 5 minutes ago," replies Andrew.
"Ok, let's do it," says any one of us.
Whoever is nearest the outhaul loosens it.
We all watch what happens.
"I'm thinking we should stay on port tack awhile; this time of year the wind usually shifts to the right in the afternoon; that would give us a huge advantage."
"No, our competition is all over on starboard tack, I think we need to stay with them."
"Ok, alright. We don't want to sail too far from them, but let's stay to the right of the fleet so that the shift will still favor us."
"Ok, let's wait 2 min and then tack."
On Psyche, information flows from the ocean, and wind, and sails, and the behavior of our competitors, to the sensory inputs of each of us. It gets interpreted, and then converted to words, allowing the other four sensory inputors (is that a word?) a chance to verify the same information, confirming or weakening the impression. Conversely, impending decisions flow like nerve impulses from any one of us, through the evaluation process of each of the rest of us. The proposed decision is weighed carefully by each crew, interrogated verbally; often creating a backwash of alternatives that must similarly spread to each of the crew to be evaluated; and finally, either embraced, or rejected. Decisions are made by consensus. If one of us doesn't quite buy the decision, we say "I agree we should make the move, but here's what I'm afraid will happen if we do this." That reservation becomes part of the ongoing information exchange, as the decision is executed.
You see, on Psyche, the entire crew is a parallel processor, an interactive net. We are like the world-wide web, kind of loosey goosey, but ultimately a surprisingly powerful way to make decisions. We really got into this groove in the 2005 Transpac, but it wasn't until after talking to other crew members that we began to understand that such a network command structure is very, very rare.
Now, how, you might ask could such a loosey goosey command structure come to be? Surely, Psyche, like most other ocean racers, is owned and operated by successful capitalists in the market economy that is the USA today. Yet here I am describing a system that sounds remarkably like communism! The answer to this puzzle seems to reside in the personalities of Steve Calhoun, Jim Barber, and me.
Steve is the owner of this beautiful Cal 40. She is his child. He pours attention and time and money into her. Psyche originally belonged to another Los Angeles Yacht Club (LAYC) sailor, Don Salisbury, who, besides racing and cruising locally, won the Transpac overall in 1965 with a crack crew. That race has become something of a legend (you may read my account of it in the 2005 Transpac Blog #4; http://www.layc.org/docs/BillyBlog.pdf). Don treated Psyche well, but nothing like the princess treatment she is getting now. It seems that there is a bit of a friendly competition going on at LAYC for who can have the finest Cal 40. Fin Beven's Radiant, and Jim Eddy's Callisto, and Psyche; all contenders in the 2005 Transpac; are in the front row of slips, and they are just beautiful creatures. Conquest and Melee round out the fleet (though they didn't do Transpac). Glistening topsides, flawlessly varnished wood trim, shiny rigging and winches, perfectly organized halyards, etc. I am always somewhat awe-struck by this kind of care, partly because I have a hard time doing it myself on my own boat (more on Siwash in future blogs). This beautiful maintenance is, of course, a direct reflection of these vessels' owners. On Psyche, Steve Calhoun's care of the cosmetic/aesthetic features reflects his unceasing attention to every single detail of Psyche. He has an almost obsessive desire to make this boat be better and better with every passing year of his ownership. The water maker has to be tested and retested. The electrical system and generator must be perfect, or we risk losing power. Not having power in a modern ocean racer is like not having a fuel injector in a NASCAR racer. The boat will still go, but you will be left behind. Just ask the crew of Radiant in the 2005 Transpac. They lost their power and fell steadily from second to way back. Attention to this detail is critical, but it is just one of an oppressive list of details that need attention in a successful Transpac vessel.
Now, although Steve's did not grow up racing small sailboats, like Jim and I did, his racing experience in large boats is substantial. Yet he really wants to win. Most importantly, he wants to have fun winning. That means he wants to have an integral role.
How does he do that? To his enormous credit, Steve has assembled a crew of equals. The first element of his crew is a smart, competitive, yet somehow miraculously self-effacing ocean racer. My admiration for Jim Barber knows no bounds. He is probably the coolest guy to have on an ocean race in the world. He has a great sense of humor, is very much aware of everyone else in the crew, and also wants to have fun. But he never, ever, stops making the boat go faster. He tunes and tweaks and worries all the lines all the sails, everything, constantly improving the performance of whatever boat he is on. One more significant detail; when he is tweeking, he is talking. Chattering up a storm about what he sees, and thinks. The final VERY significant detail: he listens.
Listens. What a concept. Don't think of your crew-members as a way to extend your ego. Think of them as collaborators in a competitive sport. A team sport. The more each crew member participates, the smarter we sail. The only way to insure that participation is to make each participant comfortable to contribute in any and all ways. How does Jim do that? He listens. He considers every hypothesis, no matter how crazy, or against his own view.
Why would such an accomplished sailor ever want to approach racing this way? Why waste time with some crazy idea from some upstart greenhorn with decades less experience than he has. This is a general question, asked by every veteran sailor in any ocean racing fleet. As I have intimated, most sailors don't answer that question in the same way as Jim does.
Instead, Jim's answer is, why NOT listen to that sailor's crazy idea? How is that wasting time? All we've got is time on an ocean race. Time to explore every new idea to its core. Time to give every participant a sense that his idea just might be the one that wins the race. Time to make everyone else grow accustomed to thinking hard about every idea that comes up. Jim really does see the entire crew as a resource, but not in the way that Mean Andy Green did (previous blog). Mean Andy Green wanted his resources to be ultra-tuned to Mean Andy Green, thereby improving their responses to his orders. Andy saw, Andy decided, Andy ordered, the crew obeyed. On Psyche, everyone looks, everyone sees, everyone talks about what they see, everyone discusses the decisions. Ideas are aired, some silly, some crazy, some brilliant. I submit that this kind of a net, if properly practiced will almost always beat the hub. That is because the net, if it is well tuned, will find the best solution to virtually any problem.
So how did I (Billy) contribute to this command structure, that is perhaps just crazy enough that it just might work? I can't tell for sure; I like many in my generation, have a deflated sense of my impact on the world; but I will grant that I was probably critically permissive. This is science-speak for "it wouldn't have happened without me being there encouraging it, but by no means did I cause it to happen."
Finally the bottom line on this diatribe (apologies to those that want more salt water and less salt): This net command structure is just plain fun. Experiencing it is like those rare occasions at a party when some boor isn't dominating the conversation; rather a cluster of friends suddenly starts building on a crazy riff that comes out of nowhere. Perhaps a joke cascades into a kind of temporary social memory that gets born by laughter into its own intensive life. Such an ephemeral riff can live and breathe; it dances over the crowd, a wonder to behold, spontaneous, forever surprising, and profoundly human. It is hilarious and light. It is thought provoking and deep.
This is what sailing on Psyche is like. I can't wait till we do it again.
Command structure B. The net.
This is what it sounds like sailing Psyche.
"What do you think about loosening the outhaul some? The main seems too tight," asks Bill.
A beat while the crew considers the question. "I was just thinking the same thing," replies Steve.
"What's the windspeed now? " asks Jim. "We aren't pointing with our competition right now."
"5 knots, down a couple from 5 minutes ago," replies Andrew.
"Ok, let's do it," says any one of us.
Whoever is nearest the outhaul loosens it.
We all watch what happens.
"I'm thinking we should stay on port tack awhile; this time of year the wind usually shifts to the right in the afternoon; that would give us a huge advantage."
"No, our competition is all over on starboard tack, I think we need to stay with them."
"Ok, alright. We don't want to sail too far from them, but let's stay to the right of the fleet so that the shift will still favor us."
"Ok, let's wait 2 min and then tack."
On Psyche, information flows from the ocean, and wind, and sails, and the behavior of our competitors, to the sensory inputs of each of us. It gets interpreted, and then converted to words, allowing the other four sensory inputors (is that a word?) a chance to verify the same information, confirming or weakening the impression. Conversely, impending decisions flow like nerve impulses from any one of us, through the evaluation process of each of the rest of us. The proposed decision is weighed carefully by each crew, interrogated verbally; often creating a backwash of alternatives that must similarly spread to each of the crew to be evaluated; and finally, either embraced, or rejected. Decisions are made by consensus. If one of us doesn't quite buy the decision, we say "I agree we should make the move, but here's what I'm afraid will happen if we do this." That reservation becomes part of the ongoing information exchange, as the decision is executed.
You see, on Psyche, the entire crew is a parallel processor, an interactive net. We are like the world-wide web, kind of loosey goosey, but ultimately a surprisingly powerful way to make decisions. We really got into this groove in the 2005 Transpac, but it wasn't until after talking to other crew members that we began to understand that such a network command structure is very, very rare.
Now, how, you might ask could such a loosey goosey command structure come to be? Surely, Psyche, like most other ocean racers, is owned and operated by successful capitalists in the market economy that is the USA today. Yet here I am describing a system that sounds remarkably like communism! The answer to this puzzle seems to reside in the personalities of Steve Calhoun, Jim Barber, and me.
Steve is the owner of this beautiful Cal 40. She is his child. He pours attention and time and money into her. Psyche originally belonged to another Los Angeles Yacht Club (LAYC) sailor, Don Salisbury, who, besides racing and cruising locally, won the Transpac overall in 1965 with a crack crew. That race has become something of a legend (you may read my account of it in the 2005 Transpac Blog #4; http://www.layc.org/docs/BillyBlog.pdf). Don treated Psyche well, but nothing like the princess treatment she is getting now. It seems that there is a bit of a friendly competition going on at LAYC for who can have the finest Cal 40. Fin Beven's Radiant, and Jim Eddy's Callisto, and Psyche; all contenders in the 2005 Transpac; are in the front row of slips, and they are just beautiful creatures. Conquest and Melee round out the fleet (though they didn't do Transpac). Glistening topsides, flawlessly varnished wood trim, shiny rigging and winches, perfectly organized halyards, etc. I am always somewhat awe-struck by this kind of care, partly because I have a hard time doing it myself on my own boat (more on Siwash in future blogs). This beautiful maintenance is, of course, a direct reflection of these vessels' owners. On Psyche, Steve Calhoun's care of the cosmetic/aesthetic features reflects his unceasing attention to every single detail of Psyche. He has an almost obsessive desire to make this boat be better and better with every passing year of his ownership. The water maker has to be tested and retested. The electrical system and generator must be perfect, or we risk losing power. Not having power in a modern ocean racer is like not having a fuel injector in a NASCAR racer. The boat will still go, but you will be left behind. Just ask the crew of Radiant in the 2005 Transpac. They lost their power and fell steadily from second to way back. Attention to this detail is critical, but it is just one of an oppressive list of details that need attention in a successful Transpac vessel.
Now, although Steve's did not grow up racing small sailboats, like Jim and I did, his racing experience in large boats is substantial. Yet he really wants to win. Most importantly, he wants to have fun winning. That means he wants to have an integral role.
How does he do that? To his enormous credit, Steve has assembled a crew of equals. The first element of his crew is a smart, competitive, yet somehow miraculously self-effacing ocean racer. My admiration for Jim Barber knows no bounds. He is probably the coolest guy to have on an ocean race in the world. He has a great sense of humor, is very much aware of everyone else in the crew, and also wants to have fun. But he never, ever, stops making the boat go faster. He tunes and tweaks and worries all the lines all the sails, everything, constantly improving the performance of whatever boat he is on. One more significant detail; when he is tweeking, he is talking. Chattering up a storm about what he sees, and thinks. The final VERY significant detail: he listens.
Listens. What a concept. Don't think of your crew-members as a way to extend your ego. Think of them as collaborators in a competitive sport. A team sport. The more each crew member participates, the smarter we sail. The only way to insure that participation is to make each participant comfortable to contribute in any and all ways. How does Jim do that? He listens. He considers every hypothesis, no matter how crazy, or against his own view.
Why would such an accomplished sailor ever want to approach racing this way? Why waste time with some crazy idea from some upstart greenhorn with decades less experience than he has. This is a general question, asked by every veteran sailor in any ocean racing fleet. As I have intimated, most sailors don't answer that question in the same way as Jim does.
Instead, Jim's answer is, why NOT listen to that sailor's crazy idea? How is that wasting time? All we've got is time on an ocean race. Time to explore every new idea to its core. Time to give every participant a sense that his idea just might be the one that wins the race. Time to make everyone else grow accustomed to thinking hard about every idea that comes up. Jim really does see the entire crew as a resource, but not in the way that Mean Andy Green did (previous blog). Mean Andy Green wanted his resources to be ultra-tuned to Mean Andy Green, thereby improving their responses to his orders. Andy saw, Andy decided, Andy ordered, the crew obeyed. On Psyche, everyone looks, everyone sees, everyone talks about what they see, everyone discusses the decisions. Ideas are aired, some silly, some crazy, some brilliant. I submit that this kind of a net, if properly practiced will almost always beat the hub. That is because the net, if it is well tuned, will find the best solution to virtually any problem.
So how did I (Billy) contribute to this command structure, that is perhaps just crazy enough that it just might work? I can't tell for sure; I like many in my generation, have a deflated sense of my impact on the world; but I will grant that I was probably critically permissive. This is science-speak for "it wouldn't have happened without me being there encouraging it, but by no means did I cause it to happen."
Finally the bottom line on this diatribe (apologies to those that want more salt water and less salt): This net command structure is just plain fun. Experiencing it is like those rare occasions at a party when some boor isn't dominating the conversation; rather a cluster of friends suddenly starts building on a crazy riff that comes out of nowhere. Perhaps a joke cascades into a kind of temporary social memory that gets born by laughter into its own intensive life. Such an ephemeral riff can live and breathe; it dances over the crowd, a wonder to behold, spontaneous, forever surprising, and profoundly human. It is hilarious and light. It is thought provoking and deep.
This is what sailing on Psyche is like. I can't wait till we do it again.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
TranspacBlogII-3
Command structure A. The hub.
In the Transpac Yacht race of two years ago, (see posted Blog Transpac 2005 on sidebar, if you will) when everybody had arrived in Honolulu, we all (the crew from a wide variety of competitors) sat around drinking and gossiping. What was it like on YOUR boat? What kind of skipper is so and so? He did WHAT? Are you joking? These conversations reminded me that very few boats have the command structure we have on the Psyche.
Command structure in ocean racers is not talked about much; yet it directly determines the nature of the ocean racing experience for all aboard. I raced once, back in 1973, with a Texan named Mean Andy Green. His boat's command structure was the polar opposite of Psyche's.
I was that summer's head sailing instructor at the Fort Worth Boat Club, and Andy was the father of two of my students, Lee and Leslie (or was it Nancy?). Both kids were natural athletes, and focused sailors. They learned fast, and sailed with a natural grace. I verily remember Lee sailing a high-performance 14 foot sloop (a 420 class). Normally, these are two-man boats (helmsman and crew). They have a "trapeze", a wire that goes to the top of the mast to give the crew the leverage to really "hike out". The crew places his/her feet on the side of the boat, and suspends his/her body out over the water on a harness attached to the trapeze. Here's a picture.
Now just imagine this sail boat, not with two adult sailors, hanging on for dear life, but instead, one snotty-nosed 11-year old, not more than 70 pounds, sailing with both sails up, going like a bat out of hell. Now just one more detail. Unlike the helmsman in the above photo, who is sitting on the weather rail, Lee was hooked up to the trapeze with his feet on the gunnel, just like the guy up there in the front. He had one hand on the tiller extension, and the other hand on both the sails (the jib forward and the main aft). The boat was so light that it just screamed along; Lee had know idea that what he was doing was incredible, he was just messing about in boats.
So you can see by this vignette, that young Lee Green was fearless. I watched him catch turtles and snakes in Eagle Mountain Lake without a second thought. But when the topic came around to his dad ('can't crew with you in the twilight race tonight, Dad wants me home'; 'can't come to sailing school tomorrow, Dad grounded me.'), he was sore afraid.
Mean Andy Green's reputation for being mean extended well beyond his nuclear family. Every Texan that knew Andy Green knew that he was mean. And in Texas, mean means mean. Wives shoot their cheating husbands in Texas. With guns. Dead. All the time. To a Texan, that's not mean, it's normal. My take on Texas is that it has some of the biggest hearted, wonderful, souls on this planet; AND the biggest assholes. Suffice to say when a Texan says somebody is mean, you'd best pay attention. Well, I didn't know Mean Andy Green, except by his reputation. But one day he up and asked me, through his two kids, to crew on his ocean racer in a race from Galveston to Corpus Christy, the two main ports on the Texas Gulf coast. I gulped and said "sure."
Andy was a Southern boy; I don't know if he is still alive. He sailed with Ted Turner as a youth. He was pretty outrageous. Prone to Texas pranks and slander, and just, well crazy. He was THE CAPTAIN. He demanded full obedience from his crew, and really, really hounded them to do things right. Well, I had not raced many overnight races at that time (1971), and hadn't really done much ocean racing at all. But I knew how to make a sailboat go fast (dinghies and small keel boats), and knew a lot about round-the-buoys strategy, and a ton about how to teach snotty-nosed kids how to sail fast. So aboard I went. How bad could it be?
I soon found out. This guy was intense. Really intense. He hazed and hounded and yelled and berated and carried on like a maniac. I had butterflies in my belly the whole time. But he also told stories and joked and laughed and made everyone else laugh when they weren't cringing. In short, he was the CENTER of attention. All information originated with him. Everyone else was so nervous about screwing up their job that they turned off all other channels, save the one going to THE CAPTAIN.
Well, there was a pretty sizeable fleet, maybe 15-20 boats in each of three different classes. We got a good start, and were sailing fast, maybe third in our class. The race course itself is a boring reach for the most part, but round about midnight, the wind had backed a bit (now coming from just a little behind the beam, meaning the ballooning spinnaker (first picture below) is better than the more wing-like jib (second figure below) and we were set to raise the spinnaker. Andy told me to take the sail up to the bow and hook up the halyard and sheets. These are ropes (called lines); the halyard pulls the sail up (you pull down on the halyard which runs through a block at the top of the mast and back down to where you have tried to attach it to the head of the spinnaker; pulling down on the halyard pulls the sail up), the sheets pull the sail back. Assigning me to attach these lines was a mistake on Andy's part. I knew it when he told me to do it, but of course, I didn't say anything. Until you've sailed on a particular boat or type of boat a good many times, you are really missing important ingredients, like the details of the fasteners used on working lines; essential details for properly fastening a halyard to a spinnaker.
"Ok, now hoist the spinnaker!" Someone hauled hard on the halyard. Up the halyard went like a rocket.
But without the spinnaker attached.
Shit, that's my fault. I'm sorry, Andy.
Oh, but that is not what Mean Andy Green needed. He needed that halyard to be not up the mast, but right here on the deck, attached to the spinnaker head.
"Don't you have another spinnaker halyard," asked I?
"NO!"
I can still recall how sick I felt, how utterly dismayed I was.
In those days, I was pretty strong and agile. Lots of pole vaulting, wrestling, surfing, all meant that I could climb. So I decided I would fucking shinny up the mast, and get the goddamn halyard.
Now this was not a good decision, but Mean Andy Green did not say no, so up I shinnied. The mast was REALLY smooth; there were absolutely no hand-holds. Getting to the first spreader was really difficult (see photo above), but shinnying up the second section of mast was even more slippery, and the boat's action over the seas was magnified, and I had to actually catch the loose halyard as it swung back and forth half-way up the mast. Understand that this was "free climbing" at its very worse. I could easily have lost hold and fallen a good many feet to the deck. Ooof, or likely worse.
But I actually did it. I caught that damn halyard and brought it back to the deck. We attached it to the spinnaker, hoisted it, and I dunno, I guess we got second or something. But I was very, very rattled by the whole experience.
This long diatribe is meant to illustrate to you the polar opposite of the command structure on the Psyche, the boat we are racing to Honolulu in 20 something days. The Psyche has no Mean Andy Green on board. Many among you might shudder at the thought of such a "leadership vacuum". Many of us have an ingrained assumption that a clear hierarchical command structure is the most efficient way to run a ship. Of course the situation 35 years ago in Texas didn't really represent a hierarchical structure. Information simply flowed from the hub, Mean Andy Green, to all of us on the rim of the experience, and at the rim of our own sanity. We on the rim were not trying to make the boat go fast. Andy in the hub was. Our job was not to pay attention to how to make the boat go faster; rather it was to minimize our losses in our dealings with Andy. This command structure is the one that most ocean racers adhere to, perhaps in less extreme form.
It is not the command structure of Psyche. On Psyche, information exchange is chaotic, completely unstructured, spontaneous. More on this in the next blog.
Command structure A. The hub.
In the Transpac Yacht race of two years ago, (see posted Blog Transpac 2005 on sidebar, if you will) when everybody had arrived in Honolulu, we all (the crew from a wide variety of competitors) sat around drinking and gossiping. What was it like on YOUR boat? What kind of skipper is so and so? He did WHAT? Are you joking? These conversations reminded me that very few boats have the command structure we have on the Psyche.
Command structure in ocean racers is not talked about much; yet it directly determines the nature of the ocean racing experience for all aboard. I raced once, back in 1973, with a Texan named Mean Andy Green. His boat's command structure was the polar opposite of Psyche's.
I was that summer's head sailing instructor at the Fort Worth Boat Club, and Andy was the father of two of my students, Lee and Leslie (or was it Nancy?). Both kids were natural athletes, and focused sailors. They learned fast, and sailed with a natural grace. I verily remember Lee sailing a high-performance 14 foot sloop (a 420 class). Normally, these are two-man boats (helmsman and crew). They have a "trapeze", a wire that goes to the top of the mast to give the crew the leverage to really "hike out". The crew places his/her feet on the side of the boat, and suspends his/her body out over the water on a harness attached to the trapeze. Here's a picture.
Now just imagine this sail boat, not with two adult sailors, hanging on for dear life, but instead, one snotty-nosed 11-year old, not more than 70 pounds, sailing with both sails up, going like a bat out of hell. Now just one more detail. Unlike the helmsman in the above photo, who is sitting on the weather rail, Lee was hooked up to the trapeze with his feet on the gunnel, just like the guy up there in the front. He had one hand on the tiller extension, and the other hand on both the sails (the jib forward and the main aft). The boat was so light that it just screamed along; Lee had know idea that what he was doing was incredible, he was just messing about in boats.
So you can see by this vignette, that young Lee Green was fearless. I watched him catch turtles and snakes in Eagle Mountain Lake without a second thought. But when the topic came around to his dad ('can't crew with you in the twilight race tonight, Dad wants me home'; 'can't come to sailing school tomorrow, Dad grounded me.'), he was sore afraid.
Mean Andy Green's reputation for being mean extended well beyond his nuclear family. Every Texan that knew Andy Green knew that he was mean. And in Texas, mean means mean. Wives shoot their cheating husbands in Texas. With guns. Dead. All the time. To a Texan, that's not mean, it's normal. My take on Texas is that it has some of the biggest hearted, wonderful, souls on this planet; AND the biggest assholes. Suffice to say when a Texan says somebody is mean, you'd best pay attention. Well, I didn't know Mean Andy Green, except by his reputation. But one day he up and asked me, through his two kids, to crew on his ocean racer in a race from Galveston to Corpus Christy, the two main ports on the Texas Gulf coast. I gulped and said "sure."
Andy was a Southern boy; I don't know if he is still alive. He sailed with Ted Turner as a youth. He was pretty outrageous. Prone to Texas pranks and slander, and just, well crazy. He was THE CAPTAIN. He demanded full obedience from his crew, and really, really hounded them to do things right. Well, I had not raced many overnight races at that time (1971), and hadn't really done much ocean racing at all. But I knew how to make a sailboat go fast (dinghies and small keel boats), and knew a lot about round-the-buoys strategy, and a ton about how to teach snotty-nosed kids how to sail fast. So aboard I went. How bad could it be?
I soon found out. This guy was intense. Really intense. He hazed and hounded and yelled and berated and carried on like a maniac. I had butterflies in my belly the whole time. But he also told stories and joked and laughed and made everyone else laugh when they weren't cringing. In short, he was the CENTER of attention. All information originated with him. Everyone else was so nervous about screwing up their job that they turned off all other channels, save the one going to THE CAPTAIN.
Well, there was a pretty sizeable fleet, maybe 15-20 boats in each of three different classes. We got a good start, and were sailing fast, maybe third in our class. The race course itself is a boring reach for the most part, but round about midnight, the wind had backed a bit (now coming from just a little behind the beam, meaning the ballooning spinnaker (first picture below) is better than the more wing-like jib (second figure below) and we were set to raise the spinnaker. Andy told me to take the sail up to the bow and hook up the halyard and sheets. These are ropes (called lines); the halyard pulls the sail up (you pull down on the halyard which runs through a block at the top of the mast and back down to where you have tried to attach it to the head of the spinnaker; pulling down on the halyard pulls the sail up), the sheets pull the sail back. Assigning me to attach these lines was a mistake on Andy's part. I knew it when he told me to do it, but of course, I didn't say anything. Until you've sailed on a particular boat or type of boat a good many times, you are really missing important ingredients, like the details of the fasteners used on working lines; essential details for properly fastening a halyard to a spinnaker.
"Ok, now hoist the spinnaker!" Someone hauled hard on the halyard. Up the halyard went like a rocket.
But without the spinnaker attached.
Shit, that's my fault. I'm sorry, Andy.
Oh, but that is not what Mean Andy Green needed. He needed that halyard to be not up the mast, but right here on the deck, attached to the spinnaker head.
"Don't you have another spinnaker halyard," asked I?
"NO!"
I can still recall how sick I felt, how utterly dismayed I was.
In those days, I was pretty strong and agile. Lots of pole vaulting, wrestling, surfing, all meant that I could climb. So I decided I would fucking shinny up the mast, and get the goddamn halyard.
Now this was not a good decision, but Mean Andy Green did not say no, so up I shinnied. The mast was REALLY smooth; there were absolutely no hand-holds. Getting to the first spreader was really difficult (see photo above), but shinnying up the second section of mast was even more slippery, and the boat's action over the seas was magnified, and I had to actually catch the loose halyard as it swung back and forth half-way up the mast. Understand that this was "free climbing" at its very worse. I could easily have lost hold and fallen a good many feet to the deck. Ooof, or likely worse.
But I actually did it. I caught that damn halyard and brought it back to the deck. We attached it to the spinnaker, hoisted it, and I dunno, I guess we got second or something. But I was very, very rattled by the whole experience.
This long diatribe is meant to illustrate to you the polar opposite of the command structure on the Psyche, the boat we are racing to Honolulu in 20 something days. The Psyche has no Mean Andy Green on board. Many among you might shudder at the thought of such a "leadership vacuum". Many of us have an ingrained assumption that a clear hierarchical command structure is the most efficient way to run a ship. Of course the situation 35 years ago in Texas didn't really represent a hierarchical structure. Information simply flowed from the hub, Mean Andy Green, to all of us on the rim of the experience, and at the rim of our own sanity. We on the rim were not trying to make the boat go fast. Andy in the hub was. Our job was not to pay attention to how to make the boat go faster; rather it was to minimize our losses in our dealings with Andy. This command structure is the one that most ocean racers adhere to, perhaps in less extreme form.
It is not the command structure of Psyche. On Psyche, information exchange is chaotic, completely unstructured, spontaneous. More on this in the next blog.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
