We all know Murphy’s Law — “That which can go wrong, will go wrong and at the worst possible time.”  Anyone who has spent time around boats or ships also knows that Murphy was undoubtedly a sailor.  This came to mind last weekend, when I participated in “Seamanship Saturday” at the New York Yacht Club’s Harbour Court in Newport, RI.  The program itself went smoothly, thanks to the hard work of the NYYC Seamanship Committee. The program topics, however, focused on what happens when things do not go smoothly on boats and to their crews when sailing offshore.

In the morning, I gave a presentation on damage control, which is to say, how to respond when your boat is on-fire, broken, or sinking.  The purpose of my talk was to address how to bring the boat home safely after suffering the most common casualties — from electrical and engine fires; a hull breach; steering loss; a collision at sea with other vessels or floating shipping containers; whale strikes; and down-flooding after a knock-down. I discussed what needed to be done, at least, to buy time to allow the captain and crew to make take-home repairs.  The approach was upbeat yet disaster was the backdrop.

After my presentation, Juan Corradi, co-Vice Chairman of the Seamanship Committee, made a few remarks about a collision where despite the best efforts of the crew, the boat nevertheless sank. (See our recent  post.)

We then broke for hands-on demonstrations. Gary Forster, also of the Seamanship Committee, gave a great live water-tank demonstration of the use of high tech foam, plugs and tape for patching underwater leaks and hull breaches. The Coast Guard then demonstrated a motor-driven pump, which they can airdrop from a helicopter to a sinking boat. We each also had the chance to try out the Coast Guard flooding tank simulator, where we could patch simulated leaks in hulls, pipes and hoses using plugs, wedges, oakum and rags. Having water blasting in your face, as you as you try to pound a wedge into a jagged crack in a large pipe, does wonders to help you focus on the problem.

In the afternoon, Dr. Dominick Cannavo spoke on medical problems offshore.  I was struck by how different and yet fundamentally similar our presentations were. While I spoke about burned, broken, or sinking boats; he spoke of battered and broken crew.  His list of ailments ran from the common-place to life threatening — from sea-sickness, cuts, and broken bones to heart attacks, strokes, and complications from diabetes.

As different as broken boats are from broken crews, many of Dr. Cannavo’s themes were similar to mine. Preparation and planning are everything. If you don’t have a plan for most mishaps offshore and haven’t brought along the right tools and supplies, then when something does happen, there is not much you can do.  That applies both to medical care and to holes in the hull.

Likewise, Dr. Cannavo insisted that the goal of treatment offshore was to stabilize, not necessarily to cure the injured crew member, which dovetailed with my focus on buying time to let the captain and crew make the  necessary repairs that would get the boat back to the shore, where permanent repairs can be made.

One point made by Dr. Cannavo had no direct analog with fixing a boat. He argued that making a mistake in treating an injured sailor was far less likely to do damage than hesitating and not treating him or her. Giving a sailor nitro-glycerin when appearing to have a heart attack will not do damage, if the sailor is not actually having a heart attack. Not giving the nitro-glycerin, however, for fear of doing the wrong the thing, could result in the death of a heart attack victim.

As the proceedings wound down, there was one question that came to mind, which was never asked. After all the potential misfortunes that we discussed during the day, no one asked the larger question, “Why do we keep going to sea? Understanding all that can go wrong, what keeps drawing us back?”

There is no single or simple answer. Samuel Johnson wrote, “He who goes to sea for pleasure would go to Hell for a pastime.” Johnson was obviously not a sailor.

Many years ago, friends and I sailed from Stamford, CT to Onset on the mouth of the Cape Cod Canal.  There was nothing exceptional about the run. It was all coast-wise and not overly long. Nevertheless, the weather had been rotten — cold nasty rain, contrary winds and short and lumpy seas. Everyone was seasick to one degree or another, and we were all generally miserable. The morning of our arrival, the weather had changed. The cold front had blown through and high pressure was filling it. The sky was a beautiful blue and a dry Northwesterly breeze was blowing. Over lunch at a shoreside restaurant, just before the crew headed back home, the crew member who had been the sickest during the trip looked out the window and out across the harbor. He said, “Damn. Looks like a great day for a sail. A shame to be going home”

Perhaps, there is no answer. Or perhaps, the answer is so fundamental and visceral that it can’t be put into words. We just keep going back and hope that we are prepared for whatever the sea should send our way.

Thanks for all the hard work by the Seamanship Committee for putting on such an interesting event.