I once thought it would be fun to learn how to sail. We were moving to San Diego for my first active duty assignment in the U.S. Navy in 1994, which also happened to be around the same time that I had finished reading the book, Comeback: My Race for the America's Cup by Dennis Conner. The book told the story about how American yachtsman Dennis Conner first lost the America's Cup in 1983 and then winning it back in 1987.
The America's Cup is the oldest international sailing competition that had been won by the New York Yacht Club from 1857 until 1983, when Conner and his team on the Liberty lost 4-3 to the Royal Perth Yacht Club sailing the Australia II. At the time, the 132 year reign was the longest winning streak in all of sports (and I believe it is still the longest winning streak in any sport). Conner left the New York Yacht Club and formed his own group, raised funds, and mounted a challenge on behalf of the San Diego Yacht Club. The Stars and Stripes 87 defeated the Australian defender Kookaburra III, 4-0. Losing and winning back America's Cup was also the subject of the 1992 film Wind, starring Matthew Modine, Jennifer Grey, and Cliff Robertson.
Living in San Diego, which hosted the America's Cup race in 1988, 1992, and 1995 (Dennis Conner successfully defended the Cup in the 1988 race) further fueled my desire to learn to sail. I remember my wife gave me a sailing jacket and a book on sailing for my birthday around that same time. I ended up taking sailing classes through the Navy's Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) program (one of the many perks of being in the military). I passed the land-based training with flying colors. Even the boat training went fairly well, until my first solo attempt at sailing. We were sailing in San Diego Harbor, and even though the winds weren't too bad that day, I somehow ended up caught in a blind alley of the marina. While tacking back and forth to get out, I ended up scraping my bowsprit against another boat that was docked (with the owners apparently having a party at the same time). Apparently the owner of the boat had just installed a new teak transom, so he wasn't happy with me (or with the Navy). Thankfully, one of his friends jumped into the boat and helped me get back on course. I returned back to the dock, and I don't think that I have been sailing since.
There's probably a lesson somewhere here about not accepting failure. I'd love to be able to say that my experience didn't stop me from learning to sail, but I can't. It was certainly not the only reason (and one could say that I invested more time learning to go under the sea than on top of it). Incidentally, my wife ended up taking lessons after me, but unfortunately we just never made the time to go sailing together. Everything that we both learned has long been forgotten.
Regardless of my own lack of experience sailing, I still do enjoy reading about sailing and watching movies about sailing. Perhaps that's a reflection of my love of the ocean (see my last post "The sea is dangerous..."). With that in mind, my wife recently watched the Netflix movie "True Spirit", which tells the story of Australian teenager, Jessica Watson, who on May 15, 2010 and after 210 days at sea, completed a more than 22,000 nautical mile around-the-world sailing voyage by herself. At the time, she was 16 years of age, making her the youngest person to sail solo, unassisted, and nonstop around the world. The movie was really good, but the book (as they always say) was much better! I just finished it.
Watson wrote a blog during her 210-day voyage, and several of these blog entries made it verbatim into her book. The book goes into some length discussing the more than 2 years of preparation for her journey, as well as explaining her motivation for making the attempt. Importantly, she didn't necessarily set out to be the youngest person to sail solo, unassisted, and nonstop around the world. Rather, she loved to sail (and in fact, grew up sailing) and wanted to challenge herself and achieve something that she could be proud of. She also wanted to inspire people, saying "I hated being judged by my appearance and other people's expectations of what a 'little girl' was capable of. It's no longer just my dream or voyage. Every milestone out here isn't just my achievement, but an achievement for everyone who has put so much time and effort into helping getting me here."
True Spirit begins with a great quote by Helen Keller, who said "Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it...Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure...Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing" (and I would finish the quote from Keller's book, The Open Door, with "To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable"). The theme of persisting, even in the face of danger, is one that I briefly mentioned in my last post. Jessica Watson never gave up on her dream, even after colliding with a large container ship in the middle of the night on her first run out on a test run. During the voyage itself, she persevered and sailed on through stormy seas, despite having seven knockdowns (where the mast basically is pushed into the water), one of which her boat flipped completely upside down and nearly capsized.
As Mark Twain said, "Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than those you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the wind in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." Mountains are meant to be climbed. Seas are meant to be sailed. Challenges are meant to be overcome. Barriers are meant to be faced.
I am reminded of something that Ryan Holiday writes in his book The Obstacle is the Way: "This is one thing all great men and women of history have in common. Like oxygen to a fire, obstacles became fuel for a blaze that was their ambition. Nothing could stop them, they were (and continue to be) impossible to discourage or contain. Every impediment only served to make the inferno within them burn with greater ferocity."
Jessica Watson would certainly agree with this sentiment. After one knockdown she writes, "But on the upside, these waves are just amazing. I spent years dreaming about what waves like this looked like, and they are ten times more incredible than I'd ever imagined." She uses the term "Happy Glasses" (also more commonly known as "rose-colored glasses") and keeps a great attitude throughout the voyage, even in the most difficult of circumstances. She writes, "As silly as they sound, I really do believe in happy glasses. One thing I learned at sea was there are very, very few situations that can't be turned around and made more positive and less threatening by just looking at things in a different way. Sure, I had my mopey, wallowing moments when I was scared or sad, but eventually I would realize it was up to me to change how I was feeling (no one else could do it for me), and I would manage to shift my head to a better place." Again, as Ryan Holiday writes, "We blame our bosses, the economy, our politicians, other people, or we write ourselves off as failures or our goals as impossible. When really only one thing is at fault: our attitude and approach."
I learned a lot by reading this book (and watching the movie). At the end of her journey, Jessica Watson was posed with the question, "Was it all worth it?" To which she replied, "I didn't realize it at the time, but it's an incredible thing to have a goal you're so completely focused on that nothing is too much effort and you never stop to question it. I'm also realizing how lucky I was to have people around me who felt the same." Indeed.
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