January 20, 2015
It’s a common question that’s probably been around as long as boats. Is simple better? Does the KISS principle have any place in boating?
My friend Tom sent me an email the other day. He’s an old-school boater. If he had his way, he’d be cruising in a hollowed out ancient growth log using petrified woolly mammoth hair for rigging. Here’s his email…
I just looked at your recent blogs. It makes me wonder about all the odds and ends that require power, maintenance time and worry. If all the gadgets were to fail, could you still get from point A to B? Do you practice Celestial Navigation? Do you carry a handheld GPS that’s not dependent on external power? Spare bateries for the handlheld? Does your windlass have a hand crank in case your batteries fail? Am I being a pain? These are the kind of things I think about when sitting around, waiting [at work].
Some think simple is better: less cost, less to maintain, less to go wrong, and so on. On the other side there’s Legacy. We have what we feel we need to be comfortable, even though that means more maintenance and cost.
Here’s our argument. For us and most of the people we meet out here, this is a way of life, not a day sail. We hope to be out here for years, not days, weeks or months. We wake up every single morning on the boat and go to sleep at night here as well. We spend the majority of our waking hours on Legacy. This is our home, not a kayak we’re paddling down the Amazon to set the record for most or least of something or another. For us, part of enjoying day-to-day life is comfort. Don’t we all want comfortable lives? Adventure and novelty is also very important to us. What could possibly be better than exploration and adventure in comfort?
If this was a limited-time “mission,” we could make do with fewer luxury items. For example, if our goal was to sail around the world in 18 months, we’d know that all the comforts of home life were waiting. In our case, those comforts could still be ten years away. We could make do with fewer luxury items if we had to (and we do when things break – at least until a fix or replacement is available).
During a passage to Hawaii, our alternator broke. Our solar panels couldn’t keep up and we lost all the boat systems, one by one. We were taking saltwater showers, all the electronics we depend on were turned off, and, heaven forbid, we were even doing watches with our eyes while sitting in the cockpit like a bunch of barbarians! (We usually keep watch below decks using radar.) We called this “Pardeying” after Lynn and Larry Pardey, the cruising authors who advocate an extremely simple boat, even forgoing electric lights and an engine. While we survived this and got to Hawaii safely, we didn’t enjoy it and would definitely not choose it as a way of life.
When I was younger, I seemed to need less comfort. Maybe I was tougher? Maybe I just didn’t know how good a comfortable life could be? Whatever the reason, it seems like a good idea to cruise on a simple, smaller boat while young, before you need larger and more complex boat. That ship has sailed for me (sorry). I’m older now… I know better.
Couldn’t I ask the same about a house? Why isn’t simple better there too?
Why do you have a refrigerator when an ice chest would work just as well? Stop for a block each day on your way home from work. A toilet seems frivolous when a hole in the backyard would do the job. And a Sun Shower would alleviate the need for some of that troublesome indoor plumbing.
We’ve had houses. They’ve required constant maintenance. Expensive maintenance. Worry and stress about paying for that maintenance. We’ve had to replace dishwashers, refrigerators, heaters, plumbing, wiring and more. (Don’t even get me started on the constant work the yard required.) We were even required to do a very expensive earthquake retrofit. It would have cost much less, and been far simpler to level the house and put a nice tent on the slab. Simple. No worries (and no comfort!).
The best case I can make for simple is going with what you can afford. The complexities (luxuries?) are expensive. I could do without a lot if it meant the difference between cruising or not. (Hey, kind of the same with a house. Can’t afford a house with two bathrooms? We make do with one. No dishwasher? No problem. Maybe the house I can afford doesn’t have the kitchen I want, but I can still cook Pop Tarts in it.)
I find boat maintenance far more enjoyable than house maintenance ever was. I like making the boat better, more convenient, and more comfortable, along with more seaworthy. Problem solving on the boat is a creative outlet for me. What else am I going to do? Scrimshaw? And I like being compared to MacGyver for fixing a problem at sea with a paperclip, an old toothpaste tube and some dental floss. Keeping all the systems purring is a point of pride for me.
I also feel I need to keep the most important system on the boat purring. Cyndi! (I’m going to try to do this next bit without sounding sexist.)
I think that often, the cruising dream is stronger in one partner than in the other. Sharing this experience with the one I love is priceless. Anything I can do to make this better for Cyndi is well worth it for me. We’ve seen too many people out here without regard for their partners needs. You know what they’re called? Single handers!
It turns out that my partner’s wants are very much in line with mine, but if I needed to install a watermaker, or a luxurious hot water shower to keep her happy, I’d do it in a flash. (The truth is, I might enjoy the hot water showers even more than she does!)
To address Tom’s other points, we do have backup GPS devices. Many. Our phones not only have GPS capabilities, but complete navigation systems including charts. Even our cameras have a GPS. We could take a picture, and get our latitude and longitude. We are so confident in these back up systems that we got rid of 20 pounds of paper charts the other day. We gave away our sextant last year. I hadn’t touched it in three years.
And, yes Tom, you are being a pain, but that’s what you do, and I appreciate it! I think the best friends are ones that make you think. -Rich
