This is nowhere.
Face it, we all have our passions and some lucky people (or so I’ve been told) get to share their passions with with a large group of like-minded folks. Then again, some of have passions that are, due to a general lack of interest, more along the lines of a private passion. For me the obsession is a sustainable affordable cruising sailboat, and, while lots and lots of folk seem to share that basic desire design premise, there are very few who are willing to think through what it would actually entail.
Sure I have a passion but it’s very lonely out here.
Our current boat, an Islander 36 is, in many ways, my current test bed or crash test dummy for trying out ideas. While I have a lot of ideas I want to investigate, the most affordable/sustainable thing to do is to simply not change anything that is working. While I’d love to re-rig with textile rigging, the current stainless rigging is doing just fine but, just maybe, a couple of years from now I might be very tempted to replace the entire rig with a lug rig because it’s the best bang for the buck in terms of cost and performance.
Same goes for the engine. It works and we don’t use it much (the Islander 36 being a SAILBOAT and all) and don’t make passages under power. So, while I desire to rip the fucker out and replace it with something cleaner, quieter, and with less impact on the interior, I expect it will not become a project anytime soon.
Which is not to say that there are not a plethora of small creative frugality projects in the pipe line… A new dinghy, the aforementioned windvane-steering, and any number of needful bits and pieces to make nomadic voyaging more sustainable while improving comfort in the process. Still, it would be nice to advise on someone’s rig design or electric propulsion for the real world because they’re subjects that keep me up at night.
Listening to the Bluebeaters cover Neil Young.
I am not an ocean cruiser, and never will be. I sail a tiny self designed box boat for week long trips on the beautiful fresh waters of Ontario and Quebec. However, I have read your insights for years! I apply many of the same principles and approaches to my little landlocked cruising adventures, but also to my everyday life. Frugality, needfulness, repurposing, multiple uses, simplicity, maintenance, restraint, and weighing of environmental impacts is a way of life that I enjoy and feel good about. It often feels humanity (at least in North America) is determined to indebt itself and destroy the world by seeking and acquiring “luxury” everything. There are those of us out here, though, who appreciate your message and appreciate your passion!