THE TYRANNY OF A PLAN
“The most important thing is: don’t tell people your plans,” legendary cruising author Lin Pardey told me sagely. “Don’t say, ‘I am going sailing around the world’. Say, ‘I’m setting off for four months, eight months, a year, whatever it is, and I’m heading south’.” That way, she says, if your plans change and you come home earlier than anticpated, “No one would say, ‘Oh, you failed’. You don’t feel as if you failed. But it also means you could change your plans along the way and head off somewhere better.” There is no success and failure grade in cruising. As another long-haul sailor, Brian Trautman, commented in our Going the Distance feature (see page 22), you’re not out there to tick places off a to-do list. To get to…
