Well, O J, whether your dire warnings of the difficulties of sailing around the Everglades were offered tongue-in-cheek or not, you've effectively put the mockers on any chance that Sea Hunt will ever take a Typhoon into those waters.
As you must know, Sea Hunt doesn't need much discouragement to abandon any plan to acquire a boat. And you've given him that in spades.
Anyone who reads that delightful magazine
Small Boat Advisor knows that hundreds of small sailboats race and cruise around the Everglades every year. There's the Everglades Challenge, for a start, 300 nautical miles for canoes, kayaks and sailboats, including small open dinghies. Check out:
http://watertribe.com/EvergladesChallen ... rview.aspx
I am dismayed at the amount of caution creeping into our sport. I am ashamed at how averse we have become to taking risks, ashamed because we wouldn't be at our present stage of development in sailing, or in the world s a whole, if our forebears hadn't been willing to take risks.
What would Columbus or Slocum or Harry Pigeon or Bardiaux have thought about dire warnings about mosquitos, shortages of ice, and overflowing Porta Potties on the fearsome passage around the Everglades? Talka bouta buncha wimps.
We partake in a sport that cannot be made free of risk, not matter how many precautions you take. Far better to learn to accept that accidents may happen, and learn to cope with the aftermath. Otherwise we are on the road to being so paralyzed with fear that we never leave the dock if it's blowing more than 10 knots.
Anxiety before a passage is quite normal, no matter how experienced you are, and it never seems to fade, but I have found that it disappears when you get under way and become engrossed in the running of the ship.
I don't expect ever to be able to convince Sea Hunt of the truth of this, but I feel his chances of acquiring a boat would be greatly enhanced if people would refrain from highlighting the negative aspects of sailing, and focus instead on the joy and satisfaction that comes from taking
reasonable risks.
John Vigor