October 2003
By Tom Snyder
I think a good name for a Discovery Channel show would be “When Boat Systems Attack.” I would even like to offer to be the highly paid host of this show, but that’s not my main point. My main point is that I had an experience this summer that would make a good pilot episode. I would even like to offer to be a re-enactment actor in my own story. But that’s not my main point.
I awoke on a sunny morning in August pretending to feel confident and robust about the upcoming MS Regatta in Portland, Maine. I announced to my family that I was going down to the boat to check a last-minute detail that might provide a decided advantage in the upcoming race. I love talking that way. My wife, daughter and son looked up from the newspaper, thought about what they were reading and looked down again.
With their full attention now, I laid out a pretty darn impressive line of attack: I would row out in the dingy, get in my wet suit, start up my new 12-volt compressor and dive on my feathering propeller to compare its adjustment parameters with the published suggestions on the Internet. How competent does that sound? Very.
OK, dolly back, fade to black and then come up on me as I tied my inflatable to the stern of my boat. I pulled out my brand new tackle box-sized 12-volt compressor and its 20-foot breathing hose. In my wet suit, I slid over the side and into the water, breathing continuous air rather than doing the usual breath-holding dance. Even though I was going down only about 11 inches, I felt everything coming together in an impressive web of technology and engineering.
That is pretty much the end of the upward narrative arc of the pilot episode. What follows is the downward portion.
I grasped my folding propeller blades designed by brilliant people who charge enormous sums for a device that may well add a quarter of a knot to sailing speed. (I have no need for this expense except for the one race I will ever sail.) The blades don’t move at all. They are frozen. They are one month old. They cost more than my jib. They are part of a highly complex non-feathering device.
I swam the 11 inches back to the surface to tread water and to consider my options. It was then that a few nuts and bolts from the inside of my new breathing regulator dropped onto my tongue. It stopped regulating air in the sense that no more air came out. I swung my arm up over the side of my inflatable dingy to hold on while I collected the hardware from my mouth. But it turned out that it was not necessary to actually swing my arm because the dinghy was thoroughly deflated and sitting flat on the water. No need to panic. What I needed was information, not paralysis.
An hour later I was back at home, turning to the Internet, the great knowledge resource that, in a sense, ties together all of our systems. I would find out how to unfreeze my propeller and to fix my breathing regulator. I logged on and was greeted with a message that said my operating system had been compromised by a worm. The computer, just to be on the safe side, then shut itself off.
The skies darkened and the temperature dropped. I became all the more focused and reinstalled my operating system. The wind started to blow. I logged on successfully.
Simultaneously, as my neighbor later reported it, a bolt of lightning hit our shared telephone pole, the wood on its top half splintering and raining onto the ground.
Simultaneously, as I am now reporting it, my computer and its many moving parts became one with itself – no longer a computer and functionally more similar to my propeller.
“When Boat Systems Attack” would be a cool show. And just like the people who insist on going to the tundra even after seeing furious polar bears eat people on “When Animals Attack,” boaters will watch “When Boat Systems Attack” and then go out and buy stuff they don’t need for their boats. It’s scary, but it’s good entertainment.
Tom Snyder sails out of Peaks Island, Maine.
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