Harry Gordon
P14 #234, Manatee
Mountain View, CA
Eric Johnson wrote:
>I've just finished reading from the library John Vigors book "The Practical
>Mariners Book of Knowledge" and will definitely be buying this book to keep
>aboard. One of the things he talks about again and again is his 'black box
>theory' which goes something like this:
>
>There's an invisibile black box aboard your vessel. Every time you learn or
>perform an act of seamanship you add points into the box. Getting up and
>checking the anchor, making log entries, getting position fixes, whipping
>loose ends of lines, monitoring VHF16, reefing early, learning navigation,
>etc, all add points to the box. Heavy weather, reduced visibility, traffic,
>etc take points away from this black box.
>
>He goes an to explain there is no such thing as luck. A sailor who survives
>a heavy storm is described as 'lucky', but he survived because he had more
>points than the weather took away. The 'unlucky' sailor who capsized or
>needed outside assistance ran out of points.
>
>Its an interesting way of thinking about it.
>