MorningBird said..

sirgallivant said...
I am outraged reading MorningBird's inflaming, inhuman, inconsiderate comment!

I am entirely on the side of Donk and the other racers who commented and try to keep racing safe from the interference of the 'regulation brigade' of our softening modern age. Regulating every humane activity for regulation's and their own sake.

Think about F1, MotoGP, track racing, crossing oceans by sixteen year old children, roving or swimming channels, speed record chasing by Bert Munroe, Campbell, boat design, the developement of new technologies or the Apollo program going to the moon and all other activities where pushing the boundaries of humane activity is concerned.

Racing sailboats was, is and will be inherently dangerous, no matter what. See the accident on the Pittwater last season.

The risk taking is part of the equation - reckless or not - and all efforts should be used to help and rescue the persons brought close to peril.

The comment l am so upset about is akin to the thinking of a Bolshevik or Nazi not a sailor who is otherwise we'll respected not just by me but everyone on this forum.

Morning Bird please put your thinking cap on and reconsider! Please!

An emotional response that doesn't warrant a reply but here goes.
I'm all for considered risk taking. I take a fair few of my own. But I have no time for idiots who take risks with no consideration for others.
If you take risks you take the consequences. If racers cover there own rescues it will cause them to consider the consequences of a bad outcome.

I don't think there is any deference between a race crew having to be rescued and a cruising crew needing rescuing .

But having said that maybe we should be paying $40 per year as part of our boat rego to go into a pool of funds . To cover some of the costs ,, associated with resuce efforts, similar the the ambulance insurance available to us as land lubbers ????

Probably a large percentage of rescues are the result of poor planning, preparation or poor decision making so i think that if you choose to be involved in a rescue organization you just have to accept this and do the job

Regards Don

I had stayed out of this thread until now but there a couple of things.
Firstly, there seems to be starting position that racers take more risks.
Not sure where this comes from, but I do agree there has been a huge deskilling of the racing community in the last two decades.
And sure there is a unfounded arrogrance with the much of the racing community now.
People don't sail as much, don't learn on deliveries and rely on electronic toys way too much
But as to risk, expect I put myself at greater risk cruising than when racing offshore.
As to assessment of risk, there is not really any difference whether you are racing or cruising or at least it shouldn't be.
The degree of risk is the degree of risk.
Whether cruising or racing you exercise judgement sometimes wrongly some times rightly.
As one well known professional skipper said to me once, when you exercise your judgement and you get it wrong it is called " paying the school fees".
But someone who sails up the NSW coast in winter staying 10 miles off the coast because it is safer is just a bad navigator.

The rescue issue is different again.
I think the deskilling is leading to a lot of unnecessary rescues.
Equally, I think that no one has the right to expect rescue or that rescue assets will be made available to them.
The cost is even more problematic but the point is the assets should not be called upon in the first place.

Lastly, the Round the Island Race is not a great example of safe sailing it is usually just chaos.

If one is trying to measure the risk, recklessness or degree of mistake of an act and deal with the rescue accordingly, God help us all.
It would divest us of our humanity instantly.
The sailor who took a risk crossing a bar at night or the one who crossed it at daytime and got thrashed should not be differentiated between by the rescuers. One might have been reckless or even stupid but that should not in any way make him any more or any less ' resquable' or 'not rescuable' than the old lady, who got runned over at the zebra crossing or the luny who ran three lanes and got clobbered by the bus. They both have the same rights to be looked after with the same consideration.
Any other way of thinking about this kind of situations is not worth to be called human.

How dare one is thinking of human life in dollar terms?

Emotional l might be but that does not make me wrong and this kind of thinking right.