I have been writing about sailing for more than four decades now, and I was just reminded afresh how the written word can touch people. As a journalist, my work goes into print (or onto the blue screen) and there is usually no direct connection to the reader. 

Oh, sure, there are the letters telling me that I’m an idiot for criticizing mommy boats or helicopter parents or for picking on people who want to sail around the world in 10-footers. But those are just snipers.

Musicians and actors who perform live have a direct relationship with their audience: They can see in it the eyes of their audience when the performance connects. Unlike them, when I find out later that I have reached people, it is immensely satisfying. 

Before continuing this thought, I have to say that this has been one of those months when, though the summer heat is upon us, there has been the melancholy of autumn in my heart and mind. It is as though the leaves are already falling, and several of those leaves were friends and acquaintances that passed away unexpectedly.

I suddenly know how my father felt when he decided to stop attending the reunions of his World War II squadron because fewer and fewer were at the gatherings. 

It has been a time of loss in sailing as well, with two sailors on the Chicago-Mackinac race and a teenager off Annapolis, Maryland.  And, if not for a large dose of both luck and preparation, not to mention England’s superb Royal National Lifeboat Institution, there might well have been a crew of 21 lost on the Fastnet Race.

In the midst of this, an e-mail from a man in San Francisco restored the wind in my sails and the joy in my heart. Several years ago, I did a column (you can still find it on the SAILING Magazine website) about Hal, a fellow who was preparing his boat to go cruising. His wife had passed away, his kids were grown, his business had been sold, and he was planning The Grand Adventure. And then, one day, there was a For Sale sign on his boat. He had been diagnosed with The Big C—cancer. He had about a year and the end wouldn’t be fun. He gave up his dream.

I urged him to go anyway and, one day, he took my advice, cast off the docklines and headed for the South Pacific. I got a postcard from him, saying it was the best decision he’d made. The title of my column was Carpe Diem. 

Seize the day.

The email that brought me from the doldrums was from Jim Murdoch, and I think that if you look up “Renaissance Man” in the dictionary, his picture will be there.  He is, in no particular order, a musician on many instruments and a clown for kids shows, a songwriter with albums to his credit and a college lecturer. To give you an insight into this man, consider that he has taught flamenco dancing to seniors at a retirement home. He is not a sailor but, if you listen to his songs, he loves the sea.

More important, however, is that he leads a workshop at the University of California Diller Cancer Center for men whose wives are dealing with the impact of cancer. The group ranges from those whose spouses are newly diagnosed, to dealing with chemotherapy, to some who know the end is near.

In an email, Murdoch told me that he had shared my Carpe Diem story with the husband’s group and said, “I think Hal’s story has seeped into our collective mind in very positive ways.” 

That, to a writer, is pure gold.

He continued, “Our discussions have led us to a point of agreement about the fundamental challenge—the uncertainty of a cancer diagnosis and the difficulty of living in the present with so much uncertainty.

“So by talking about life’s uncertainty, there has come a level of acceptance. People are talking about making plans and going ahead until something stops them rather than taking a wait-and-see attitude.”

And here are the lines that touched me: “My gut feeling is the story of Hal has had an effect on how they tell their own story and, as a result, how they feel about their lives. They are also expressing humor in the stories they tell, recognizing that since we don’t know what will happen, we should enjoy our time together now.”

In the short view, I had written something about sailing and sailors that touched a group of people enduring the worst times of their lives, and had perhaps helped them.

In the larger view, I realized that it wasn’t about me. I could see that Murdoch and his group exposed a greater truth. It isn’t about dealing with cancer. It’s about dealing with life.

Because the diagnosis for all of us, with or without cancer, is the same: we aren’t going to get out of this alive. We just don’t know the when or how. 

And so it brings me back to that essential truth. Carpe diem.

Seize the day. Go sailing. Now.

There might be a torn-out ad tacked on your bulletin board for a charter in Greece or Thailand. You might have always been wanting to spend the weekend anchored in a faraway cove that sounded wonderful. Maybe you’ve been thinking about trying to win the club championships or perhaps even the nationals. Maybe it’s just deciding between mowing the lawn or grabbing the sails and heading for the marina.

Hal knew the answer. And so do the men in the support group in San Francisco.

Carpe diem. Seize the day.

Over the years, She Who Must Be Obeyed has been a pretty good sport about my passion for sailing. She’s endured not getting the lawn mowed because “today is perfect for sailing.” She didn’t get a granite kitchen counter, because the old sails on our racing dinghy weren’t producing the desired results.

Her vacations have been a week on a bareboat charter instead of a week at the Golden Door Spa. Her Christmas gifts run more toward a new set of foul weather gear than a diamond bracelet. And she’s endured weekends highlighted by sodden piles of salty clothes dumped in our laundry room.

Over the years, I’ve tried to justify my addiction to sailing with only limited success. It’s hard to understand, but the idea of getting sunburned and windblown, having cold salt water trickle down her neck, building callouses on her hands from rough lines, and actually cranking a winch, hasn’t quite captured her imagination. 

The excuse for my addiction that seems to work best (occasionally) is “Sailing is just in my blood.” Another good excuse is “I inherited my love of sailing from my dad,” which is running second only because she almost always responds, “If he was alive, I’d shoot him.” 

But it turns out I was right all along. It is in my blood. It was inherited.

I was particularly weak in physical science classes in high school and college, which isn’t surprising because I was pretty much weak in every subject, but damn, science was just incomprehensible. I’m someone who can’t even remember his own blood type, let alone understand the complexities of the human body. 

Adding to the problem were those textbooks (for which I paid a fortune) filled with gobbledygook that might as well have been written in Urdu. Here’s an actual example: “The variable number tandem repeats polymorphism in exon III of the human dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4) has been correlated with behavioral phenotypes.”
Snore.
So what does this have to do with sailing?
Well, it’s not just possible, but more than likely that a passion for sailing can be directly linked to your DNA. DNA, for those of you as science-challenged as this writer, is the molecular chain that determines who you are. It gives you red hair (or no hair, darn it), makes you short or tall, boy or girl, polar bear or Brad Pitt.

I know you’ll appreciate the fact that I have waded through a lot of scientific mumbo-jumbo to bring you the news of a legitimate excuse that you can now use to explain your sailing passion. No, no, hold your applause until the end.

Here’s the essence. As researchers probe the workings of DNA, they’ve started uncovering its effects on human behavior. Certainly the most publicized discovery in recent years was the so-called “warrior gene,” which creates individuals with higher levels of aggression in response to provocation. You know, Navy SEALs, Green Berets, soccer fans. 

For the scientific among you, the gene is monoamine oxidase A or, as those in the research community refer to it, MAOA. It’s been linked to all manner of aggressive behavior: interpersonal, decision-making and political. It’s even been used as a defense in a murder trial.

But wait, there’s more. Other researchers found that the HTR2B gene, known affectionately to the research community as HTR2B, seems to be responsible for impulsive or violent behavior under the influence of alcohol. This is being used to explain why usually peaceful people turn impulsive and aggressive after a few beers, and accounts for your friend who kicks over newspaper boxes outside the bar.

But all this study of genes isn’t new and, in 1919, Charles Davenport, director of the Department of Experimental Evolution at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, wrote a monograph titled Naval Officers: Their Heredity and Development. In this treatise, he identified a male recessive gene that creates seafarers and he even coined a name for their common trait: thalassophilia. 

In his study, which he wrote just after World War I to help the U.S. Navy identify officers who would become superior captains and line officers, he considered sea-craving sailors from Decatur to Dewey to Farragut, and even included John Paul Jones. 

He concluded, as you and I well know, that there are some who have a “genuine mania” for sailing and the sea. These are people who just can’t stay ashore. Especially on good sailing days.

I’m not a genetic researcher, but having distinguished myself with a solid C-minus in biology, I will make this prediction. As we continue to explore the mysteries of DNA, we will discover even more varieties of that sailing gene. I expect that a mutant variation of the MAOA aggressive gene will be used to explain the inexplicable: a hopeless port tack start in a big racing fleet. 

Mark my words, there will be a variation of the HTR2B impulsive gene that can be used to explain to a protest committee why you tried to shove your bow inside at the mark at the very last moment. There will be genetic explanations of why some sailors always anchor out, why some love wooden boats, why some prefer dinghies. 

In the meantime, I’ve discovered a new excuse for leaving the house on those sunny, breezy weekends.

“I’m sorry, honey.  I wish I could help myself,” I will say to She Who Must Be Obeyed on my way out the door with a sail bag over my shoulder.
“But I’m a thalassophiliac.”

For many years, She Who Must Be Obeyed has been trying to get a scientific grant. About what you ask? Well, she doesn’t really care, except that she has two essential criteria.

First, it has to be a really big grant. Think something along the lines of the biggest Powerball Lotto ever won.

Second, it has to be really easy. Something requiring, oh, 15 minutes a day would be acceptable.

SWMBO has, I’m sorry to report, missed out on several great opportunities and I’ve had to speak to her firmly about this. She missed getting the grant that proved conclusively that smokers have less money because they buy cigarettes. I’m cutting her some slack on that one because she doesn’t smoke. 

She also didn’t get the grant to study women’s sexuality in Biblical times, which is a topic of concern among many of our friends, and she completely overlooked the grant proving the longer the ambulance ride to the emergency room, the more likely you are to die. 

But I am particularly miffed that someone else received a grant to produce a study titled, “Postural Effects of the Horizon on Land and Sea.” At first glance by those uninitiated in the mumbo-speak of the grant world, that might be about whether you slouch while looking at the horizon.

Au contraire!

In this study, published in Psychological Science, which, not surprisingly, is the journal for the Association of Psychological Science, the abstract cuts quickly to the chase. Quote: “Motion of a ship at sea creates challenges for control of the body.” 

Well, duh. A lifetime of bruises, lumps and scrapes attests to the fact that when you’re punching upwind in big seas, you have trouble controlling your body. There are times, being tossed out of a bunk or struggling up a tilted companionway, that I’ve had no body control at all.

But here’s the best part: “Anecdotal reports suggest that the body can be stabilized by standing on the open deck and looking at the horizon.”

Are you kidding me? Everyone as far back as those cavemen venturing out on tippy rafts knows that you’re less likely to hurl your lunch of mastodon cutlets if you just look at the horizon. 

Eight gazillion bazillion sailors know this. But, and here’s the catch: only Thomas A. Stoffregen of the University of Minnesota School of Kinesiology, managed to snag a grant to prove it. 

If that doesn’t make you nuts, here’s the frosting on the cake.  He did the testing while cruising the Sea of Cortez in Mexico. Not only did he bag the money, but he got out of Minnesota in the winter. A double score!

The good researcher has been studying “body sway” as related to motion sickness for decades, considering how much people rock back and forth in different situations. He’s found that most people sway about 4 centimeters (1.5 inches) every 12 to 15 seconds. 

I’m sorry that he didn’t consult with me or include some of my sailing buddies (Jon, Eric, you know who you are) because we’ve had decades of practice with body sway, usually at the club bar after the trophy presentation. I concur with Stoffregen that we start at about a 4-centimeter sway, but with the application of certain medications, it isn’t long before our swaying is considerably more than that, often concluding with no sway when horizontal on the floor.

I did learn (for future reference) that a study needs photography to support the thesis and conclusion. In this case, the study has photos of the crew/lab rats standing on a dock in stocking feet with their hands in their pockets while staring at the far horizon. I was particularly impressed that there was an arrow on the photo with the notation “horizon” to indicate where it was for those who have never seen one before.

Stoffregen isn’t alone, however. Dr. Patricia S. Cowings, a research psychologist with NASA, has been working on motion sickness as well. Known to astronauts as the Baroness of Barf, it seems she has her work cut out, because half our astronauts suffer from some form of space-hurl. 

I thought it was bad when I got seasick at the top of a 60-foot mast during an ocean race and, yes, I felt really sorry for the guys on deck. But I wasn’t stuck in a space helmet. Ick!

Dr. Cowings has published her research in the Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, in which she compares the effectiveness of an anti-nausea injection with taking deep breaths of fresh air and, ta-da, deep breathing seems to work. Duh. 

To be fair, the deep breathing is part of biofeedback training for the astronauts but, in grant jargon, I have empirical evidence to share. After hanging upside down in the bilge trying to get a smelly diesel engine to start while our boat was rolling in long swells, I can report that sitting on the lee rail taking very deep breaths of fresh sea air prevented a Technicolor yawn. I don’t remember if I looked at the horizon.

She suggests two seconds of inhale and two of exhale. That’s about the right time, according to my anecdotal data. One Mississippi, two Mississippi is good anti-puke timing.

So there we are.  Stoffregen got some bucks and a midwinter vacation for his study, Cowings is using our tax dollars. One found that looking at the horizon helps quell quease. The other says take deep breaths. 

So. How about “An Empirical Examination of The Effects of Quercus Arboreal Ensconcement on Motion Nausea.” 
It means sitting under an oak tree.
Big bucks, I think.

If you ever wonder what leads to some of my columns, well, it’s sometimes a pretty strange tale. In this case, it starts with an armadillo.

You know, those little mammals with armored shells? They have bad tempers and sharp claws, and when I lived in the Arizona desert, I learned they have a worse habit: when frightened, they jump straight up while rolling into a ball. If you startle one on an empty road, you stand a good chance of having a really angry bowling ball come through your windshield.

Anyway, an armadillo burrowed under a shed against which I lean some of the Caswell fleet of small boats, and She Who Must Be Obeyed reminded me that it wouldn’t have been an issue had I poured the concrete slab I had promised would become my mini-boatyard. Sigh.

As I considered the project, I thought back to building a concrete patio with my dad. Since I was about 10 at the time, my contributions were holding the dumb end of the tape measure and adding water to the concrete mixer.

But I was ecstatic. It was a bonding experience that has lasted a lifetime, and whenever I stood on that patio, I remembered the good feeling I had from working with my dad. The several weekends that it took were precious moments of sharing and laughing and occasionally getting to use the “damn” word.

Apropos of bonding, I had a note from Carl Cramer, who runs WoodenBoat Publications in Maine, who had come across a photo of the Flight of the Snowbirds regatta in Southern California. Something like Beetle Cats on the East Coast, several hundred of these tubby little catboats once raced on Newport Harbor. With the advent of the fiberglass, the Snowbird died out and one remains in a local museum as a lonely memory.

Cramer wondered if it would be possible to offer the Snowbird either as a set of plans or as a kit for homebuilders, and I realized that this (or something similar) might be the nautical version of my concrete slab for modern kids. Building something with dad. Having a project. Having fun.

In looking at the choices for kids today, I realized that the world has gone mad. Take the Optimist pram, which was designed 50 years ago as a cheap do-it-yourself project for parents and kids to build and enjoy. It was to be the sailing version of the soapbox racers, but one that would be usable year around.

Those early Optis were designed to be built from four sheets of plywood, using basic tools and minimal skills. Cheap. Quick. Fun.

Today, a competitive fiberglass Optimist sells for more than $5,000, or about $650 a foot for a 7-foot, 6-inch pram. Add in another $700 for racing rudder and centerboard, and it’s going to pretty hard for most kids to save up that money from their paper route.

We may live in a high-tech world filled with iPods and iPads and Twitters and Facebook, but it seems to me that there is a place for low-tech boats that bring families together.

When I was a kid, I lusted after an 11-foot Penguin dinghy and I found that there was a company that would send me a big box full of pre-cut wood parts that could be assembled, under my dad’s supervision, in our garage. That might have happened, but I found a finished Penguin at a price that drained my summer savings account. Still, it would have been great fun to build that
boat together.

In Southern California, the Naples Sabot was the pram of choice and, once again, it could be built in a garage from sheets of plywood. In Northern California, it was the El Toro, and when America’s Cup skipper Paul Cayard was 8 years old, an El Toro built in his garage took him to three class championships and launched a brilliant sailing career.

I like the idea of parents and kids building boats together and then enjoying them. But it doesn’t have to be a one-family project. What if a community group got together, built some jigs, and everyone helped everyone build a fleet? What if every boat in the fleet had to be built by a parent? Don’t want to bond with your kids? Fine, go play somewhere else.

But this needs to be about kids and parents having fun together, first and foremost. I don’t want to upset readers who think an Optimist is the perfect junior boat but, hey, the class sounds a little out of control.

One of the leading builders advertises that they gain a speed advantage by using a special molding process.
Is that what the original builders had in mind when they were nailing together sheets of plywood for their kids’ boats? C’mon! The modern Optimist is the antithesis of a fun kid’s boat, from the Teflon-polished bottom to exotic hardware suitable for an America’s Cup yacht.
I think there is a place in this world for a low-tech dinghy for kids, one they can build with their parents and sail with their friends. One that doesn’t require a huge initial investment, or an ongoing Cold War of new sails, trick masts and exotic booms, all that skirt that narrow line between legal and cheating. Is this the mentality we need to teach our kids?

It doesn’t really matter whether it’s that original clunky Optimist or a Snowbird or a Penguin. Or something entirely new. Make it simple, make it fun, make it accessible.
So who’s going to step up to the plate and make it happen? Where are the Optimists when we need them? The Rotarians? The local Domino’s Pizza? A local sailing club?
Come on. Give your kids some memories to cherish.