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FROM THE HELMLeft Brain/Right Brain SailingIwas having a conversation with a fellow sailor recentlyabout traditional navigation and the more modern methods,which employ GPS and chartplotters. The subjectevolved into what I have always considered the duality ofthe typical sailor.In 1979, my girlfriend and I cruised the Bahamas in a 26-foot traditional-looking wooden sailboat—which had noVHF, no toilet, no depth finder, no electronic navigation aidsand no autopilot. It did have a knotmeter. Navigation wasdead reckoning, plotting my course with compass and speedand clock. It was a pretty barebones boat, but neither I nor mygirlfriend ever felt deprived or lacking of life’s essential needs.In fact, we felt we were blessed with some of the best of life’sofferings—and we were. It was the beauty of simplicity.We once docked for a week in Nassau. Next to us was afifty-plus-foot center cockpit sailboat that we had a chanceto tour. The boat had full navigational electronics, autopilot,electricity, walk-through from main salon to aft cabin—where you passed a washer and dryer—full galley withrefrigeration and a head with shower. We felt like we’dpassed through a time zone from primitive to modern bymerely walking across the dock.I envied these modern conveniences and as time hasbrought us even more of them in the last 30 years, I stillenjoy all of them—the GPS with chartplotter, radar, autopilot,onboard electricity, radios, heads, etc. Whenever I hearabout a new-fangled gadget, I read in amazement anddream of having one—although generally they are still outSTEVE MORRELL, EDITORof my budget. Yet I also long for that simple wooden, beautifulsloop I cruised the Bahamas in. But this is the dualitythat I have found in most sailors: the desire for tradition andthe desire for the modern.Many sailors would like to have a staysail schoonerwith sweeping overhanging transoms and long bowspritswith carved figureheads, boats made of varnished wood,carved dolphins as handholds when you go down below.All this, of course—as long as the boat was super fast in awindward/leeward race, had low maintenance like fiberglass,roller furling sails, GPS chartplotter, radar and depthfinders that showed the bottom profile.Sailors are the ultimate combination of left brain/rightbrain thinking about spatial beauty, creativity, enjoying thecruise as the sun sets, with the quietness of the wind andsolitude of one with the sea—our god of peace and serenity—whilethinking of winning the next race as the boatpoints to the next marker, going fast, but with the best technologicaladvancement known to man of self-steering—controlledby the GPS—while at the same time using dead reckoningand use of a solid, well-crafted bronze sextant, alongwith the tables and stars and sun to guide us to our destination,eating fish we speared or lobster we grabbed at the lastcoral head or perhaps a meal with the best wine—while listeningto music coming in from a satellite above.Some might call it a contradiction; others might call itbalance. Call it sailing, the sailing mindset combo of technologyand serenity all rolled into one.8 April 2008 SOUTHWINDS www.southwindsmagazine.com