Chapter 6

Cruising the USA Interstate Highways

We need to go back and pick up our North American adventure which began in 1997 when Steve and I made a reconnaissance trip to California to see where Steve would live, where we could best locate our warehouse, and probably set up to build boats for the USA market. I can remember hiring a car at LA airport, driving down to Chula Vista on the Mexican border. There we visited Corsair where the Farrier folding trimarans were built by a 100% Mexican workforce, and we talked to the Chula Vista Chamber of Commerce.

Fibreglass boat building can be a smelly dusty business so we found all about regulations governing environmental emissions, which were pretty daunting, even exceeding what’s required in Australia 25 years later. We drove north to Oceanside and visited the Hobie Cat factory, and were shown their new invention, foot pedal driven paddles, then in prototype stage, which proved a great success as today kayaks and canoes, the car roof rack fishing package are a huge global industry.

After Hobie we worked our way north, through San Francisco visiting BAADS then on up to Redding in Far North California to visit Mike Strahl who in 1985 created the Hobie Trapseat, one of planet earth’s first “disabled sailing” innovations. We had met Mike at the inaugural Trapseat Worlds in 1997 sailed on Pittwater just north of Sydney and its through our friendship with Mike and his connections that we were invited to the Hobie factory in the first place. 

1997 is early days for organised international disabled sailing and it’s probably Phil Vardy who put this Trapseat event together in his role as Sailability Australia coordinator, and the IFDS executive committee member based in Sydney where the Paralympics were scheduled for 2000. It was very interesting for me as we already had a fleet of 2.3 in the UK and on the East coast of Australia, but this was an opportunity to meet international visitors and show them what we were doing in Australia.

The Trapseat itself which Mike developed consisted of a longitudinal seat and backrest that attached outside the trampoline to the cross beam structure. The disabled sailor steered so sat aft while the able bod crew could trapeze. This arrangement worked best when the helmsman was on the windward side, but in a breeze it was pretty wet strapped into the seat on the lee side. This arrangement works, and has its niche, particularly in Off The Beach scenarios, but cats do regularly capsize so it was never going to storm the world.

We flew back to Australia having learnt a little of the idiosyncrasies of the USA, but as for basing Steve there, that was all a pipe dream as Steve’s son would soon be born and he would be confined to Australia, for a while.

Around this time I was emailed by a Canadian named Keith Hobbs, who worked for the Canadian Federal Government, which is centred in Ottawa, a federal territory within the province of Ontario. Keith loved sailing. His kids all started in Optimists, moved on to Lasers as per the ISAF preferred model. The biggest sailing province in Canada is Ontario, and Keith was on the board of OSA, the Ontario Sailing Association and had taken on the big volunteer role of disabled sailing, and established Able Sail as an OSA  program.

The internet was young then, but we must have had a presence as Keith found us. Keith’s job with the government was a researcher, preparing briefs for senior bureaucrats and politicians, so he knew his way around the internet. Keith was interested in our boats, as was a fledgling group in New Orleans, and someone at YKnot in Albany the capital of New York State, and Bob Ewing at Footloose Sailing Association in Seattle. So we arranged a trip for me to North America: New Orleans, Albany, Ottawa, Seattle then back to AUS.

New Orleans looked promising as there was an aspiring group who had been donated a marina berth to moor a small keelboat, but as is often the way with community not for profits, it can be a cauldron of smouldering politics, like in this case some members with connections to the local sailing club were pursuing the big keelboat option, while others less influential were talking to me about a grass roots entry level program. In hindsight you can see the familiar polarisation right there, but back then I had no idea how deeply passions run, how resistance to change would close so many doors.

The guy I’d been talking to and who sparked my visit to New Orleans was black, with quite a severe degenerative condition, and I accompanied him to a public hospital medical consultation. This itself was a startling experience for naive me, as this looked more third world than what I expected of the USA. There was even a sign at the office check in window that no firearms were permitted inside. But it was the evening meeting of the adaptive sailing committee that was convened to discuss my proposal that the impossibility of success should have sunk in, but being an optimistic it didn’t.

Instead I arranged to ship a 2.3 to New Orleans to use as a demo boat to seed what I presumed would be our first of many in the USA, so we built that boat, crated it up and shipped it LCL without a deposit or receiving any financial commitment.  Looking back it shows how misguided I was, but we woke up in time to the reality, with the crate approaching Los Angeles, the communication with my New Orleans friends had dried up, and I was staring at the probability that their real plan here was to use our demo boat to make a copy, as one of the guys was a boat builder, and with that scenario in mind you only had to join the dots to sense I’d been led along like a sucker.

So while the boat was on a pallet in a container half way across the Pacific Ocean we asked our LA based shipping agent and customs broker to change the delivery address to another contact who lived in Cottonwood about 50 miles north of Phoenix in Arizona. We then needed a development plan which revolved around collecting that boat, and so began our USA adventure cruising the interstate highway network.

***

An opportunity arose to present our boats at the 1999 Mobility Cup as it was being sailed in Toronto. The Mobility Cup was founded by Sam Sullivan in 1991 but it had always been sailed on the west coast, so this was the first export of Sam’s vision of the Mobility Cup as a development platform to spread disabled sailing programs across Canada.

So we decided to arrive in Toronto just prior to the Mobility Cup with a fleet of demonstration boats, which we packed on a trailer in Australia and shipped to Seattle. We needed some good fortune here as there were a lot of unknowns, like the plan included me flying to Phoenix where I’d purchase a van, lash the 2.3 on the roof rack and drive north to Seattle. Luckily for us Arizona is one of the few states where a “foreigner” without a USA driving licence can buy and insure a vehicle, so with little time to spare bought a Dodge Caravan long wheelbase van, gave it a service, lashed the 2.3 on the roof and took off. The route from Phoenix was north on the Intestate 17, or i17, cut across onto the Interstate 40 (i40) heading west to California, then onto i5 going north through California, Oregon and Washington up to Seattle near the Canadian border.

The reason I went north from Phoenix instead of heading west on i10 is that more southern highway would have taken me to Los Angeles, a really scary idea as I was alone and driving on the wrong side of the road for the first time, and at intersections where these highways meet at a huge city like LA there could be 25 lanes across the adjoining highways, flyovers criss crossing each other, and that was all too much for me.

When your driving on the unfamiliar other side of the road it pays to have a navigator sitting in the front passenger seat as your guide. The danger is when you head off after a pit stop, your relaxed and on auto, without thinking you automatically pull out, follow your instincts and turn left, straight into oncoming traffic. So the navigator is always alert and knows they must always be on the kerb side and sound the alarm if their not.

So my mission was to avoid cities, stay on the Interstate highways and get to Seattle without incident. In Seattle I was to stay at Bob Ewing’s place where we would fit the van with a full width bed with storage beneath, shelves above, fit a tow bar and as soon as the container arrived get the trailer registered, then Jackie would arrive by air from Sydney. Jackie has MS so she would need a few days to recuperate after the very long flight across the Pacific, via San Francisco, then we would head off across USA to Chicago on i90, then Change to i94 heading NE to Ann Arbor for our next appointment, then to Detroit where we cross into Canada and on to Toronto.

These Interstate Highways are nothing short of fantastic, envisioned by President Eisenhower who as a General in Europe during World War 2 was inspired by the autobahns in Germany. There were plenty of US National Highways, like Route 66 which crosses many state borders from Chicago to Santa Monica in California, and numerous State highways which together formed a web of capillaries and veins which linked all corners of the nation, then overlaid on this, like bold arteries is the north – south, east – west Interstate Highway network.

Starting on the West Coast running north/south from the Mexican border to the Canada is the Interstate 5, then from Los Angeles on a bit of an angle north east to the Canada border is i15, then further east is i25 from El Paso in New Mexico on the Mexican border going north up into Montana. And so it goes across the nation to i95 running up and down the east coast.

So while uneven numbers, ie 5, 15, 25, 35, 45, 55, 65, 75, 85, and 95 run approximately north – south, even numbered highways run east west. So I/10 runs across from Jacksonville in Florida to San Diego in California, i20 runs from South Carolina 2/3rds across the county to end on the i10 most of the way through Texas. i40 starts in North Carolina and makes it all the way across to California near LA, but to square it up right across the top from Boston to Seattle is the i90 which we are going to take on our cruise from Seattle to Chicago.

Generally the rule is that Interstate highways with numbers divisible by 5 are primary arterial long distance roadways, though not necessarily spanning the full length or height of the nation.  Secondary highways like i74, i84 are relatively short east – westers, and while there are exceptions, the first digit associates with their primary highway, the even number second digit confirms they are east west. Likewise with uneven numbered second digits  they are feeder north – south highways.

Then there are 3 digits numbers, where if the highway has an even number as first digit it’s a route through or around a city, as in i265, or if its an uneven digit as in i195 it’s a spur into a city.

As you drive into a state from the south on a north south highway the first  exit you come to is exit #1 as exits are numbered consecutively from the south, while on an east west highway exits are numbered from the east, resetting to 1 when you cross into a new state. When you couple this up with cities being laid out in a geometrical grid, with urban and suburban roads and streets named according to their cardinal compass points, ie N, NE, E etc, and/or, streets are consecutively numbered, while street address numbers can be a measured distance from the city centre, it becomes remarkably easy to receive directions and visualise where you need to go when navigating around this huge nation.

I think this freeway system should be recognised as one of the great engineering and political achievements of mankind so we should look at the circumstances leading up to its construction, as there is no chance of creating something like this today. Except China has taken a leaf out of the US playbook and has created a similar concept, only much bigger

The Great Depression of the 1930’s was caused by policies which allowed or encouraged ever increasing inequality and over exuberant growth of the stock market, which eventually led to a crash, causing a recession, but what happened next which exacerbated the descent into a depression depends on what side of the political divide your on.

Those who believe the role of government is to implement social welfare programs to sustain and raise those with less will argue that after the crash fear set in which caused mass withdrawals from banks, so the banking system collapsed. Industrial output and production collapsed with resulting mass unemployment, international trade was effected, interventions like tariffs and protectionist policies were tried, but along with the international gold standard these interferences exacerbated the global spread of the depression. The tide was turned by massive stimulus projects followed by  preparations and production for the Second World War which provided employment and began a new upward cycle.

Those who believe it should be left to private enterprise and free markets to raise living standards believe something like the following scenario. The euphoria of the “roaring twenties” in the USA instilled a false sense of pride with the USA being the industrial supplier to the world, but it also brought inequality in wealth and the over production of unsalable goods. When the First World War ravaged European nations couldn’t pay their debts, in gold as they had run out of money and gold was the standard, this caused a collapse on USA stock markets and a run on banks. As manufacturing collapsed the government introduced import tariffs as protection which exacerbated the problem. This coupled with a series of droughts caused the “dust bowl” which collapsed rural livelihoods and tax revenues, all of which the government failed to avert, so the nation was driven into a depression.

So the Democrats blame the over reach of free markets and excesses of the financial industry for the recession while the Republicans suggest the Wall Street collapse was merely a cyclical correction and blame the depression on the Democrats interference and New Deal policies. What’s interesting though is when Eisenhower, a Republican ascends to the Presidency, he oversees the construction of this fantastic Interstate Highway System which must have been at the time the biggest publicly funded and owned New Deal like stimulus project in history.

But that was in the early days of polarised politics and the USA had another cycle of growth in it, it’s golden age as the world’s dominant power still to come. Where to from here we have to wait and see, but the ever increasing polarisation of politics, exasperated by the intervention of partisan media, and the dominance of policies which have again caused unprecedented inequality, even greater imbalance than at the dawn of the Great Depression, suggest a new reckoning might be on it’s way.

Now hang on, that correction’s not needed as we had the covid 19 induced depression, that should do it and we can rebuild from there. Well no as it’s not simply the downturn which causes the upturn, these are the effect, the cause in a democracy is the horizontal swing of the pendulum from side to side, from the side which favoured those who have more over to policies which favour those who have less. That’s the way it works in the bubble.

What we saw in the covid induced recession were policies designed to minimise the damage to the out of balance and inequitable status quo, not to advance policies which swung the pendulum back the other way, back towards the centre, which means the trend to even higher inequality is unchanged, and the real correction, possibly ugly, is still to come.

Can there be a manageable correction to bring us back from the brink? Maybe but has that ever happened before, greed usually ensures there is a crash? This greed is the same reason we can’t stabilise near an equilibrium, instead we always have these wild gyrations between the extremes.

Now wouldn’t an equilibrium be heaven, shouldn’t that be the goal, it would be like a world where the wind always blows everywhere at 15 knots, then wind farms would generate the worlds base power, and ships would be powered by sail, perfectly rigged foils with no need to reef, never becalmed, gentle undulating seas, a carbon pollution free world, yes it’s a heavenly concept, but unfortunately that’s not how it works down here in the binary bubble, as both sides can’t resist overreach as they selfishly drag the pendulum as far as they can, while they have the momentum and power, till the breaking point at their next losing election.

There are however nations on the planet that do it better, and they have a similar growth trajectory as the USA while including the welfare of everyone, which then ranks these nations much higher on a wellness and happiness scale.

These are of course the social welfare states of Europe, each with their unique characteristics and levels of government economic involvement. What’s ironic is the USA also came from there, the Interstate Highway system is evidence of that and should be seen as the greatest Keynesian infrastructure building project in history. Further evidence of the USA roots is these highways were commissioned not by a left leaning pro welfare Democrat, but by a Republican President. There is no chance of a repeat any time soon as Republicans are locked into minimising government involvement in anything, except of course defence and space exploration which are both a branch of macho military spending.

We will see later though that China has overlaid their nation with an even bigger interconnected highway system, but maybe we can’t call it a Keynesian infrastructure project as China is a command economy.

Whereas the pendulum would ideally oscillate between its moderate extremes, something changed which took the USA off down its current path, with diminishing diversity and escalating inequality the unfortunate collateral damage. Chapter 7 features a couple of seemingly innocuous scams initiated in the 1930’s, and now pretty well forgotten, both financed by big business which set the distortion in train, and changed the course of history.

I’ve called them scams but conspiracy also fits as you can follow them back to the day the captains of industry and finance elected to put these schemes into action, the explicit intent being to use their money to influence public opinion and shift the centre of equilibrium over in their favour.

Brilliantly successful they have caused a macro distortion of the pendulum’s swing, over empowered those with more and disempowered those with less, they drowned out the early warnings about climate change, pollution, growing inequality, ignoring the obvious need for a rethink and change. So if your on the side of those with more your smiling, there is no problem, those who have less your sad, but all are going to have to duck for cover when the pendulum gyrates back the other way.

So look for those scams in chapter 7, at their timing in the late 1930’s when big money triggers its response and begins the effort to turn the tide of public opinion against the Democrat’s New Deal initiatives, which were essentially Keynesian fiscal stimulus projects, which Republicans extended with the big daddy of them all by commissioning the construction of these fabulous highways.

Fast forward into the early 21st century when there’s similar overcooked financial market conditions, which back in the 1930’s precipitated the Great Depression. Which suggests exciting times ahead with even more massive fiscal stimulus necessary to prop up the decaying post covid 19 economy.

The next challenge, which would fit the bill in the 21st century is to decarbonise the vehicles which use these highways, decarbonise the nation’s electricity grid, carbon neutral the nation, carbon neutral the world.

But maybe great national infrastructure projects like this are in the past, a consequence of the toxic state of politics, the seeds of which were sown back in the 1930’s, and rejuvenated in successive waves of over reach by big business and its money.

And maybe the most insidious of these deserves its own category as scam number 3,  which entered the game after the first 2 faded into the background, their agenda adopted as the trusted international standard. To drive the momentum, ie, to brain wash the little guy with propaganda, enters the budding media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who grown into the megaphone of big business, the grand master influencer who can decide who  governs in Australia, the United Kingdom and then who wins a USA Presidential election. Governments either comply or are destroyed by an unelected kingmaker who’s primary interest is the preservation and expansion of his business. 

Look no further if you ever wondered why climate change denying governments get elected, how it’s accepted that tax cuts for those who have the most enhances the welfare of those who have the least, and why is it accepted that deregulation of industry and removal of workers rights helps workers.

So why are the welfare states which address these issues deemed to be roadways to hell and dictatorial disasters, when actually they are the most harmonious societies and among the most successful economies in the world. Look no further – we have all been conned, including the economists and politicians who actually believe their lop sided ideological dogma.

***

Cruise 1. August 20th to September 28, 1999. Purchase van in Arizona, drive up the West coat to Seattle on i5, across the top on i90 to the Mobility Cup in Toronto, then down to end in Washington DC.

I don’t remember much detail of the drive north on i5 to Seattle, except one very clear impression, and that’s the grand scale of the place. In England there are the usual motorways, highways, and roads through quaint villages with a roundabout every few hundred yards, it’s all very compact as it’s 60 million people, the population centres, agricultural land, woods and mountains are all crammed onto their highly manicured little island. Australia as my standard is a huge area 60 times the area of England with under half its population, its nearly the size of the USA with a fraction its population, so lots of wide open space, but Australia’s centre is a desert so there are no huge rivers, and the so called mountains are old and eroded so there are no grand vistas like you drive through in the USA.

Like when heading west from Arizona on i40 you cross the huge Colorado River into California. I was there early morning as it was summer and ahead was the Mojave Desert, so it was going to get hot. The Highway follows the river north for a few miles, then climbs 10 miles up out of the valley, over the top and Wow, it opens up to one of those grand vistas, so crystal clear you can see 100 miles, over the curvature of the earth to mountain ranges beyond what seemed like nearby hills, but they turned out to be way off in the distance.  It’s all so vast, the US is huge, as are the steaks, the cokes and side salads to match.

On a later trip Jackie and I drove into another of these grand vista scenes, heading up through central Oregon on US Highway 97. US Highways are the first national network of roads covering the nation like veins, which was overlaid with the federal government’s grand arterial Interstate Highways.

We were heading north on US 97 through what I presume is a prairie, mile after mile of gently undulating plains, partially fenced fields of lush green grass, it was grazing country, but we saw no animals, which is another story. Ahead was a range of mountains which we presumed we would soon climb, but no our highway went up and over another high crest and there ahead was more miles of undulating prairie, with those mountains no closer in the background.

Until eventually we came to a sign saying steep winding descent ahead, then down we went twisting our way into the Columbia River valley. With a name like that you’d expect a seriously big river, and so it was with small ships making there way east and west, it looked a mile wide, the drop down from the prairie must have been a vertical half a mile over the 10 mile winding descent. And those mountains turned out to be a range in the background on the other side of the river in Washington State.

We descended to a town on the river called Biggs then turned west on i84 to Portland. You visit big cities like New York and drive the length of the East Coast and get an impression of the size and wealth of the nation, but you need to drive its back country roads and Interstate Highways to get perspective of it’s grandeur.

But back to late August 1999 and I’m alone on i40 which ends in a “T” at i15 which runs NE from Los Angeles up to the Canadian border. So I took State Highway 58 heading Nth West  which links to the  i5 near Bakersfield. I’d been driving for about 8 hours and covered 500 miles, with another 16 hours driving to cover the next 1000 miles up to Seattle.

Interstate 5 runs the full length of the US West coast so I’m going to follow it up the “Central Valley” of California, which includes the Joaquin Valley which would be a desert except irrigation has transformed it into “the food bowl to the world”. Interstate 5 leaves San Francisco to the west, passes through Sacramento the Capital of California and on to Redding where Steve and I got to in 1997.

Then it’s on into Oregon, you don’t even slow down as i5 snakes through the suburbs of Eugene, Salem and Portland, then across the north bound of the twin Columbia River bridges into Washington State. These are 2 parallel draw bridges as big ocean going ships can navigate the 70 miles inland to dock just short of Portland, while smaller feeder and cruise ships can travel, via locks and canals another 270 miles up the Colorado and Snake Rivers to Clarkson on the Idaho border.

It’s just another 170 miles to Seattle passing to the left of big snow covered Mt Rainer, but I was heading to Mercer Island where our friend Bob Ewing lives, so somehow I had to navigate my way through Seattle and out onto the floating 6 lane “bridge” which leads to this island suburb. That turned out to be remarkably easy as the 6 lane floating roadway to mercer island is actually Interstate 90 so all I had to do was follow the exit signs, which also meant in a couple of weeks later when Jackie and I were ready to head east to Toronto in Canada, this i90 was our highway as it traverses the nation, passing through Chicago on its way to Boston 3000 miles away.

For someone like me the journey is what life is about and I’ve never really travelled to a destination for a so called “holiday”, it’s usually the other way around, heading somewhere is the holiday with a purpose. I’ve hitch hiked around and across Australia numerous times, sleeping in bus shelters, under trucks, under a tarp in the rain, flies in your eyes by day, swarms of mosquitoes at night. Hitch hiking was my holiday, find an excuse to be somewhere hit the open road.

Along these American highways are truck stops to refuel, restaurants, supermarkets, motels, Walmart’s, and rest areas will all the amenities, no need to ever leave the highway system, an alternate lifestyle in a parallel world. For me these highways were a paradise,

For Americans the magic of this Highway network can be summed up in the words of its dreamer, President Eisenhower back in February 1955.

“Our unity as a nation is sustained by free communication of thought and the easy transportation of people and goods. The ceaseless flow of information throughout the Republic is matched by individual and commercial movement over a vast interconnected highways crisscrossing the country and joining at our national borders with friendly neighbours to the north and south”.

“Together, the united forces of our communication and transportation systems are dynamic elements in the very name we bear – United States. Without them, we would be a mere alliance of many seperate parts”.

So how the hell did this vision of a United nation fall apart and become in the 21 a broken nation, the shadow of its former self. Before we go there, the subject of chapter 7, let’s consider a few other quotes inspired by this extraordinary symbol of a united nation and its nation building project.

Robert Moses, Harpers Magazine, December 1956. “This new highway program will affect our entire economic and social structure. The appearance of the new arteries and their adjacent area will leave a permanent imprint on our communities and people. They will constitute the framework within which we must live”.

Eisenhower again, in his 1963 book Mandate for Change. “More than any single action by the Government since the end of the war, this one would change the face of America with straightways, cloverleaf turns, bridges and elongated parkways. Its impact on the American economy – jobs it would produce in manufacturing and construction, the rural areas it would open up – was beyond calculation”.

Robert Paul Jordan, National Geographic, February 1968. “Americans are living in the midst of a miracle. A giant nationwide engineering project – the Interstate Highway System – is altering and circumventing geography on an unprecedented scale”

Robert Samuelson, The Washington Post, June 1986. “To understand America, you must understand highways. In the past half century, these masochistic marvels have – along with telephones, television and jet planes – reshaped American culture.

Phil Patton, Open Road: A Celebration of the American Highway, 1986. “The Interstate program was the last New Deal Program and the first space program, combining the economic and social ambitions of the former with the technological and organisational virtuosity, the sense of national prestige and achievement, of the latter.”

So we should make no mistake, these highways are one of the most significant symbols of vision that man has ever undertaken.

The project is also symbolic as the last phase of the New Deal Program began by a Democrat President and continued on to completion by a Republican, and that’s what made America great, as embodied in Eisenhower’s quote above in blue.

Or to quote President Bill Clinton in February 1996. “The Interstate Highway Act literally brought Americans closer together. We were connected city to city, town to town, family to family, as we had never been before. That law did more to bring Americans together than any other law this century.”

You make a nation great when you bring out the best in people, you encourage harmony and bring them together to work on a project together, a project of this scale with such rewards, on so many fronts for so many it surely was the highlight of many thousands of lives. It must have been very exciting to have a seat at the design table of this immense project, and all the way down through the ranks to the hundreds of thousands of hands of working people.

What a real shame that the great USA I’m describing could become so divided, so polarised, how so much pent up hatred, instead of being suppressed was deliberately flushed out and used for political gain by demagoguery, for what is really the demagogue’s financial and egotistical gain. The demagogue’s goals and modus operandi are the direct polar opposite to the vision of both Roosevelt and Eisenhower. Whereas FDR and Ike actually Made America Great by inspiring and bringing people together, it’s impossible for the polar opposite, the demagogue who divides the nation with hate, to Make America Great – Again. I don’t suppose that’s how those who love Donald Trump will ever see it, but that’s what you get in the binary bubble, 2 and more sides to a story, each seemingly perfectly logical and true, until you step back from the emotion driven confusion.

***

I got myself off Interstate 5 and onto Mercer Island and found my way to Bob Ewing’s house. There I met Dennis Hannan, a big, jovial, very practical guy and Footloose volunteer who was going to help me put this thing together. We had a few days before the container with boats and trailer arrived, so Dennis took me to Home Depot in his red 5 litre Ford pickup to buy plywood, lumber and fastenings to build in the bed, shelves and storage to create our mini RV.

This all added to my impressions of the U.S. as a big place, the big truck, the big store with barrels of bulk tech screws, the big choice of locally grown timber, plywood, quality tools, not that we needed tools as below Bob’s house was his fathers complete workshop.

We bought what we needed and drove home, and I started to sense how our dinky little van with its trailer of little boats was going to look in this big scale country. In Australian and British English “dinky” means “attractively small and neat”, while in North America it means “disappointingly small and insignificant”. Maybe that’s why Americans haven’t embraced our elegant and minimalist little boats, which are loved in much of the world.

Years later in 2004, in the heat of battle with the M16 for Paralympic equipment selection, I saw an Australian Ford utility, a Ute, stopped at traffic lights alongside a US style Ford Pickup, both vehicles doing a similar job, but the Ute was half the size. I symbolised the Ute towing a Liberty trailer package, behind the Pickup truck trailed an M16.

While our motto is don’t use a tool bigger than needed to do the job, that’s not exactly the ethos of North America. So with that as the backdrop for this chapter we should drive on, searching for a path through the maze, an analogy for life in the bubble where each straight ends in another curve of  politics, prejudice, or personality, or a dead end like pride in home grown identity, a kind of protectionism, five P’s for perfectly normal and to be expected binary bubble perversions, all of which will come into play.

Dennis would call around each day to offer a hand, while I got on with the woodwork, till news came of our shipping container’s clearance, it was on the ground in a trucking yard so all we had to do is cut off the customs seal, open the doors, untie and roll out the trailer, hitch it up to Dennis’s big red Ute and head straight to the closest vehicle registration office for inspection.

It would have been daunting on my own, but I sensed Dennis had their respect which saw us out of there in an hour with rego papers and a number plate in hand. Another day we had a tow hitch fitted which completed our van, just needed Jackie to arrive so we could buy those things needed to turn it into our mobile home.

It was a bit like cruising in a tiny yacht, you only carry the bare essentials. Like we cooked on a Primus single burner camping stove, our fridge we found for 60 bucks at a truck stop was ultra small, good for a pint of milk, a block of cheese and some fruit.

The flight from Sydney to San Francisco and on to Seattle is about the limit for someone with advanced MS, particularly travelling alone. Thankfully we had a few days to rest and recuperate as our schedule left time for a day’s cruise through the lakes and canals which give this big city its uniqueness.

So we took one of the Footloose Sailing Association’s Columbia 21’s out for the day, only motoring as our voyage from the home base at Leschi’s Marina on Lake Washington was through a canal with a lock, under i5 through to Lake Union.  Along the way we made the mandatory stop at Ivar’s Fish Bar, where we tied up at a dock so I could scramble ashore to queue up at a take away window behind the restaurant.

With lunch on board we motored on into Lake Union with its suburb of log raft floating houses, community sailing club, rowing, canoe and wooden boatbuilding centres. This network of lakes and canals is a fantastic recreational facility to have at your doorstep, if you love boats and their traditions. If you continue on the canals and through Ballard Locks you pass from fresh to salt water and into Puget Sound which runs north to the Canadian border where it opens to the Pacific Ocean.

But we weren’t going that way, instead went back under i5 to our last tourist attraction for the day, Bill and Melinda Gates new house on the western shore of Lake Washington. I checked Google earth and you can’t see much today as it’s hidden by trees, but back then the house was new, it was wide open, spread along the foreshore, not up, and featured natural timber, so looked surprisingly low key. On this day there was a very small child playing on the beach, so we kept our distance as no doubt there was a well resourced security detail watching us and we weren’t about to cause a commotion.

A few days later it was time to continue the adventure cruising the interstate highways, so after breakfast on the 5th September we drove to the end of Bobs street, turned right which led us up the ramp onto i90 heading to our next appointment at 13.00 on the 8th, 2000 miles away in Chicago.  From their it was i94 to Ann Arbor, a University city close to Detroit where we would cross the River into Canada.

Where we stopped doesn’t matter as this is not a travelogue, but we do both remember driving across Minnesota at night, in a gale of wind with sheets of driving rain, wipers on high speed, traffic heading east reduced to one lane with roadworks, the hellish scene lit up by continuous lightning, listening to the local radio station giving progress of the tornadoes chasing us.

Or it felt like we were being stalked, all we could really see were the lights of the truck and trailer ahead so had little idea of our surroundings. It was quite scary for several hours, until the rain eased and we passed out of the roadworks, then began a decent to cross the Mississippi River and into Wisconsin.

But the night was still black and ominous, so we have no recollection of the river or it’s bridge, which on a good day must be really impressive. We pulled off the highway at a truck stop on the outskirts of La Crosse to refuel and get some sleep, but looking back into the black night, the lightning and thunder said the storm was approaching, the wind was rising, spits of rain, so we quickly refuelled and fled further east, into the starry Wisconsin night

Somehow we had failed to buy a comprehensive road atlas and drove into Chicago on i90, a little after peak hour on Wednesday morning, Jackie navigating with a Chicago city tourist brochure. This actually turned out a piece of cake as all we had to do is get off the highway and head east and we would T at Lake Shore Drive and look up into the sky to find and follow the Lear jets heading to Chicago’s business airport, as our destination was in the harbour on the shore side of the runway.

I see now that airport is no longer, it’s been reclaimed as a park. In 2003 the City’s Mayor Daley, fed up with years of the legal wrangling sent in a demolition team in the middle of the night and bulldozed large X shaped gouges in the runway, stranding the parked planes and causing an early morning inbound flight to divert. The city was fined $33000 for violating Federal Aviation Administration rules, but got its wish and turned Meigs Field airport, which in 1955 had become the busiest single strip airport in the US, into a wildlife refuge and public park.

***

The United States of American is a federation of states, but each is like its own independent little country in control of most of its own affairs, electing  its own officials, administrators and politicians who represent the different tribes which make up its population. It actually doesn’t take long for territories like this to evolve their own cultural identities. In hindsight if we had encouraged each budding program to bloom in its state as disabled sailing, or whatever they had in mind, we probably would have succeeded. 

But we didn’t, we were idealistic and discouraged disabled sailing, instead always promoting our “sailing for everyone” model, a concept which few main streamers relate to, so in a democratic community group an inclusive sailing program will automatically degenerate to one pole or another, unless you are constantly aware and capable of tapping it back in what you think is the right direction.

If your an advocate for change it’s harder if you’re an outsider, though most trouble makers are outsiders for one reason or another, and looking back I can see that a number of the people we met and talked to weren’t the ones in charge who pull the strings. Instead they may be disgruntled outsiders themselves, they contact us and we pay a visit, follow up with a plan, but it doesn’t take off like we see where the doors open wide in other parts of the world.

There are many complex causes of this which are worth exploring, but first I’ll acknowledge that despite the many constraints working against change, which means working against us, it ultimately comes down to communication, being able to get your message across, and there we had a problem as I’ve come from being very shy, and from there you can grow into a social misfit which means your easily misunderstood. Awkwardness can make you look untruthful, not worthy of trust. I’ve experienced that, which was enlightening as my journey made it impossible to lie, even white lies and spin would be drawn out and examined in detail.

That’s a price you pay for being on a real spiritual journey, which is going to be a little different from following the advice your’ve gleaned from a god of duality as there you might get what you pray for, but it comes at a price like any business transaction and eventually the debt will have to be repaid. We see evidence of that in the many phoney Christian politicians who’s luck runs out and the tide turns against them.

The reference to phoney Christian is interesting as it depends on whether your a traditional Christian who believes in the focus being on assisting the little people in need, or a “neo Christian” who is more materialistic and sees one’s well being and wealth as proof that god’s on your side. So to me it’s the neo Christians who are the phoneys.

America was supposedly built on the dream of free enterprise, where things were designed, manufactured and sold in a consumer society which  revolves around retail outlets and advertising, so selling and salesman are a respected and expected link in the chain. We would always be asked who’s our vendor, but we never had vendors, someone who’s job it was to sell things, as we would avoid middle men and have never had to sell anything as people buy our boats because they wanted them. But if we see the boat was not going to be deliver a benefit, if it’s not going to work at their venue then we tell them so.

We would have had more success in America if we had done it their way, appointed vendors who sold products for profit, but I didn’t see our boats as products, they were more than that, they had a job to do which I was trying to understand. And we would have become slaves to building boats for people we didn’t know, people we didn’t relate to, to be used in programs which we didn’t want to promote. You’d have to take from that a major cause for our roadblocks in America is I could not let it go.

But the goal was not to sell boats, it was to use boats to introduce what we saw or thought was a brighter future, help make the world a better place, a more inclusive place where disadvantaged people could fit in as equals and if they were good enough, to excel. So we were naively about social change and there are numerous reasons why that wasn’t going to work. Here are a few of them which brought us to today, starting with the mundane through to those we can only imagine.

• While there is always inherent inertia, where people prefer the comfort of what they already know, with sailing there can also be an emotional bond to the little boats of a sailor’s childhood, so that’s where they like their kids to go. It’s a way to relive a lucky childhood.

• Then there is always money pulling strings in the background, the active resistance driven by commercial interests, with competitors even spreading negative and false information about our boats.

• Another element is what we were trying to sell was out of sync with the local norms. Our preferred program support model was based on the Not For Profit principle with volunteers and sponsors doing the giving, which works well where there’s strong social security and a culture of community support, but not so well where people aren’t able to give their time for free. I think in the USA people need, or expect, to be paid, while much of their charity takes the form of donating money, receiving a tax benefit in return.

• Related is the tradition in Canada and the USA where University and College students work as paid instructors as a source of income, which competes with the all volunteer model we see popular in other countries.

• But perhaps it’s as said above, our leads weren’t the movers and shakers, they were the outsiders who’d fallen out with the incumbent leaders, in which case we were always doomed to fail. Being a shy outsider myself meant I never sought out those in leaders in control, so we would never be part of their planning, instead they would have looked upon us with suspicion.

Those are some pragmatic and theoretical reasons for our difficulties, which probably all stem from not understanding North America and presuming it would embrace our will. If those can be categorised as mundane, then in the background are the more esoteric reasons, including the question of destiny, which the dictionary describes as “the predetermined, usually inevitable or irresistible, course of events”.

Destiny can mean the inevitable, like a school of minnows will eventually be eaten if you confine them in a tank with a shark. Or destiny is the outcome dictated by karma, so it could be that America has a karmic destiny which does not include something as elegant as inclusion and our little boats, because they represent something America is not, cannot ever have. Or our own karma precludes our success. Destiny therefore can sway different ways, but in general destiny is the outcome of the cause and effect equation, the ups and downs of life in the binary bubble.

A more esoteric hypothetical reason for the roadblocks we met is to do with the purpose of life, which in the end is about ever expanding awareness, where you can’t have it all your own way as its failure which leads to your success.  So if your lucky, life in the bubble is not going to all go smoothly. It can’t or you’ll learn nothing, it will be most counter productive as you’ll think you’ve arrived, like the neo christians enjoying their high times, when their actually just beginning the journey.

So there were many influences on our experience in the USA, but in the background is always this, which has its roots in 222 being the foremost fundamental code for the structure of greater universe, in effect the beginning and end of every story : What we are always promoting is inclusion, which is a foreign concept in a binary world, it’s a concept from a different dimension. Inclusion doesn’t come naturally to mind, it’s not what mind seeks, instead mind inherently defaults to one or the other of its options, so our vision, without constant attention was never going to sustain itself and remain on course.

This phenomenon then is not exclusive to the USA but is global, and explains why, to varying degrees, everywhere on the planet we meet this inertia, which we now accept as the bubble’s “logical” resistance to what we see as so natural. It’s of another world, a more perfect world which can never be. It’s sad to say it but there are millions of progressive minded people, passionately driving themselves and their organisations, yearning and working towards something that can never be achieved.

The exception being a temporary success, where extraordinary will, the power of vision, a bundle of resources, or all those forms of energy are thrown at overcoming the inertia. But when the extraordinary effort is inevitably withdrawn, society returns to the already determined path it deserves.

But fortunately for Hansa where inclusion does thrive is in our own little world, the International Hansa Class, and to a lesser degree our many National Hansa Class Associations. Here the difference is our owners and members are attracted to the concept which is set in their constitutions, so we aren’t trying to change the minds of those who, like a train on rails have already locked themselves onto a more conventional path.  

But we need to be on guard as there will always be pressure, usually from newcomers, to dumb things down, to make excessive concessions to prioritise disability. You hear it all the time, “but the boats were designed specially for the disabled”. Well no they weren’t, they were designed with “disabled people in mind”. There’s the difference, to achieve inclusion you have to find a solution which accommodates everyone, and that’s called Universal, or it’s refinement in Inclusive Design.

The full awareness and understanding of the “philosophical” drivers behind “sailing for everyone”, Inclusive Design, and of Oneness reveals they are all related as they are all “universal” and follow a common thread, each having realised a way to accomodate, absorb and neutralise the multitude of polarised alternatives mind throws up, as its meant to do as that’s one of its primary functions in its binary worlds.

***

On the surface though sailing is just a normal sport like any other, there’s events for both able bodied and disabled people, with not many accomodating both, which is what Hansa seamlessly does. This polarity as described above comes naturally, and while individuals in a group may be open to inclusion, as sporting organisations order them selves into hierarchical pyramids, this able bod – disabled bod difference consolidates, until we reach the peak events, the Olympics and Paralympics.

While both the Olympics and Paralympic are elitist, in this case only for the top tier of athletes, they are not both exclusive, as the Olympics doesn’t say disabled people can’t participate, they can as long as their good enough, and they can use the equipment, which invariably they can’t as the Olympics doesn’t use equipment of Universal Design. So it’s the equipment, not rules about physical or mental difference which excludes many from the Olympics.

An example is a wheelchair using paraplegic’s can compete in Olympic events where they can be seated, like shooting and archery. What Hansa have shown is that sailing can also be one of the few elite level sports which achieve a very high level of inclusion. Inclusion can never be absolute 100%, but the aim can, could, should be to develop equipment design to test and appeal to the many while excluding the minimum.

The Paralympics however is both elitist and it’s exclusive as only disabled people who fit into various classification systems can participate. Able bods are excluded. By the way, the Para in Paralympic hasn’t come from Paraplegic, but refers to a Parallel games for disabled people.

So as sporting bodies build their layers of hierarchy they adopt stronger conventions which marshal participants into their easy to recognise categories. It’s therefore not surprising that the strongest advocates for the status quo of polarised sailing is the peak body, World Sailing, as its membership is very diverse, there are its member nations who are aggressively conservative, who also have a democratic voice. Then there are the moderates in the middle who aren’t necessarily anti inclusion, they just don’t know what inclusion really means. You see that when they add one Hansa sailboat into a fleet of inaccessible dinghies for the disabled kid to use, and call that inclusion. 

But when you get down to the participation level of the pyramid, at club level and Class Associations, there’s a lot more versatility, as they directly represent individuals whose heart felt ideas are more likely to be heard. 

In the preamble speech before announcing the winner of the Inclusion Award at the 2018 Hansa Worlds I said that we had told Nobi Nishii, the founder of Sailability Japan that the program was not to be disabled sailing, but sailing for everyone and open to all. He took this on board, and because he and most Japanese people don’t speak much English, that’s what they went ahead and delivered, because if they did speak English they would have gone for guidance to the “authority”, GBR’s Royal Yachting Association’s RYA Sailability website, and created a disabled sailing service instead.

While many just took that as a statement of fact, others saw in it my cheeky sense of humour, while a few members of the 30 plus GBR team were outraged at this below the belt assault on their national icon’s character. I wasn’t expecting this reaction, but in the context of our truly inclusive event it was taken (as I suppose it was meant to be) as a criticism of RYA Sailability, the planet’s most magnificent disabled sailing organisation, which they rightly love, but it’s based on their interpretation of “inclusion”, which we would say fits more with the definition of “integration”.

So there’s another contributor to our difficulties, our inability to communicate the vision of inclusion to MNA’s, but how can you achieve that when you take cheap shots at those MNA’s, show lack of respect for their system, suggesting they are the problem by entrenching the able bod/disable bod polarity in sailing. But of course it’s not their fault, they are just doing what peak bodies do, which is gravitate to conservatism, and represent the consciousness of their members, most of whom are absorbed into their own local world so aren’t concerned, even aware of the background social issues.

***

But back to the mundane time line, our visit to Chicago and meeting with one of those disgruntled sailors who wanted to open up the Judd Goldman Adaptive Sailing Program, but in hindsight that was never going to fly as that’s a rock solid community project, the token disabled sailing program proudly supported by service clubs, politicians, bureaucrats, business leaders and US Sailing. You can’t infiltrate and change that sort of structure from the bottom.

I returned there 2 years later on Cruise 6 to demonstrate our Liberty when the Judd Goldman program was running its annual Independence Cup, and hosting the USA disabled sailing championships. The official dinner was a grand affair held in the harbour-side Chicago Field Museum, with the dinner tables surrounding Sue, the world’s most famous T.Rex skeleton, dominating the room.

This illustrates the powerful establishment foundations of this collective “institution”, the Judd Goldman Foundation, the nations peak sailing body US Sailing, all the sponsored participants staying at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, having been flown in by American Airways, to sail in the locally preferred boat, the Martin 16.

You’d have to be a megalomaniac to think you could infiltrate all that. I must have looked like a cheeky little brat from down under, but actually I was overwhelmed and terrified, acutely shy and alone in the lions den. I knew where I was but was powerless, this was an important message about mind to be learned, I’d been turned inside out, mind had taken over burying a usually open and confident soul with paranoia and fear.

At times like this the saying “there is nothing to fear but fear” rings true as it is fear itself which has brought us down from the freedom of our true eternal identity to its level in time, and made us mortal. At times like this the empowering mantra “you are never alone” is forgotten.

But back then on our way to Toronto and the Mobility Cup how were we to know, we were naive with much to learn about the ways of the world, we had the greatest little boats on the planet, so appealing to non sailors, and we were talking inclusion, how could anyone not fall in love with this magical combination. But that’s not how it works in the bubble where you can’t have it all your own way, and what better place to knock us into shape than big bad and beautiful America. Thankfully we had enough of the rest of the world onboard to pay the bills as we learned.

We stayed overnight in Chicago, camped in the marina carpark and next morning got straight back onto i90/i94 for the 4 hour drive to Ann Arbor in Michigan for a meeting with a gentleman who ran a website called “Freshwater Seas Internet magazine”. Sorry it’s so long ago we’ve lost his name and this connection.

Ann Arbor is a University town on the Huron River, so we found a place to launch a 303 and spent a couple of hours sailing, talking and being photographed before packing up and heading for Detroit where we crossed over into Canada. That was a mini adventure in itself as we joined the queue heading onto the enormous privately owned Ambassador Bridge, and into this equally huge customs inspection building to explain why we didn’t have the usual Hull ID numbers and markings. HINs were yet to be introduced into Australia, so the US customs guys applied round stickers to identify the boats when they returned to the USA a couple of weeks later.

Looking back at these past and future dealings we had with the frontline customs and immigration officials who helped us on our journeys around the USA, they were always generous and forgiving, finding solutions and were never obstructionist, which could always have been one of their options.

So over the bridge we went and on up Canadian Highway 401 looking for a truck stop close to Toronto to spend the night, it had been a long day. It was Thursday evening with the Mobility Cup getting under way on Saturday.  We had left Seattle 5 days earlier and covered 4100km with 2 sailing demonstrations, so Friday could be a day of rest. 

***

The 1999 Mobility Cup was sailed in September at the National Yacht Club in Toronto with a practice day followed by 4 days of racing. Jackie and I had arrived by road while Grahme Rayner and Zoltan Pegan, both trustees of Jackie’s Sailing for Everyone Foundation flew in from Sydney. Zoltan was there to race and finished second behind Danny McCoy in the gold fleet of 31 boats. 

This Mobility Cup included The International Disabled Sailing Symposium, which explains why we were invited to this M16 event. In those days disabled sailing in Canada was in it’s infancy, with the Disabled Sailing Association or DSA and its M16 based on the west coast, where its founder Sam Sullivan, a future Mayor of Vancouver city was based, while the Ontario Sailing Association or OSA was growing its Able Sail Program, nudged  along by our friend Keith Hobbs.

Sam’s goal was always for the Mobility Cup to be an outreach program to promote the M16, and as expected the DSA Ontario was established as its legacy. We also did well as the Rotary Club of Toronto agreed to fund a trailer and 6 of our 2.3 for OSA’s “Boom” outreach program. 

So the 1999 Mobility Cup marks the beginning of another vigorous competition, a duopoly if you will, which grew into a mini global marketing feud, the prize being to have your sailboat selected as Paralympic equipment. We eventually won that round but we had to develop the 20ft SKUD 18 to do it, but in the end sailing, or specifically it’s binary Olympic/ Paralympic model would be the loser.

When we were done Jackie and I flew to France where we had boats on display at La Rochelle’s annual Le Grand Pavois Boat Show, while Zoltan and Grahme took our van and trailer on a road trip to complete the i90/94 traverse of the nation. This picked up the the North East states of the USA, with a spur up to Montreal doing demonstrations along the way. Their end destination was down i95 at Zoltan’s parent’s house in Virginia, to Vienna a suburb on the outskirts of Washington DC where we would leave the van and trailer for the approaching winter.

Perhaps the bigger legacy for us from this trip to the Toronto Mobility Cup was meeting Herb Meyer from BAADS in San Francisco who finished 12th in the Gold fleet. Herb was a big jovial guy, who became a quad when he fell back onto a cockpit winch of the Rhodes 50 he crewed on, regularly racing on San Francisco Bay. Herb was a member of St Francis YC choir, a member of the SF disabled access committee, a member of US Sailing’s disabled advisory committee, and a man of vision as he encouraged us to participate in the coming US Sailing conference in St Petersburg on the gulf coast of Florida.

This conference would be the focus of our next trip to the USA, with a drive down the east coast on i95, to introduce us to Harry Horgan, founder of Shake a Leg Miami. When you prepare a presentation for a big event, and for us that’s rarely more than 100 people, it’s always exciting as you are about to tell your story to a whole new audience and have no idea where it might go. But so often, out of that crowd emerges one person who you are obviously there to meet. With St Petersburg, Herb was extending an invitation for Jackie and Chris to come and meet Harry.

We had to leave for France on day 3 of the Mobility Cup, so after handing over our van keys to Zoltan and Grahme, and exchanging contact info with Herb, we were very courteously driven to the airport by an event volunteer, and left for Europe. 

***

Very briefly as this is a chapter about North America, we landed in Paris only to find we had to change to a terminal on the other side of the city, but no one seemed interested in helping us get there. I’ve been told that’s possibly as we were presumed to be English who blissfully couldn’t speak a word of French.

When we did eventually find our way across town and to our gate, and out onto the tarmac the plane was a tiny commuter and Jackie’s wheelchair had to be manhandled up the steps where we were moved to the front as there was no way of getting back to our assigned seats. But that was a long time ago and it wouldn’t happen today as travellers in wheelchairs soon find out it’s up to them to do the due diligence. They need to check every stage of the journey, if only to make sure there is always an accessible toilet with appropriate hand rails for when it’s needed.

If your passion is sailing and you need some inspiration in your life, then make your way to the next La Rochelle boat show. There you’ll see where a national passion for sailing leads, and what our dour English speaking sailing nations are missing, pizzazz. Sounds Italian, but it’s American slang, impressive, exciting, an attractive combination of vitality and glamour. 

In Holland you can race rudderless model clogs, at La Rochelle we shared the water with gaff rigged wine barrel shaped sailing coracles. At the 1999  Le Grand Pavior Australia was the official “Guest Nation”, so the 2.3 display was setup in the Australia Pavilion where we had groups of enthusiastic Frenchmen excitedly discussing features of our little 2.3, which we took as a great compliment, because back in Australia these same features usually go unnoticed.

We had arrived by air so Steve Sawford drove down from the UK towing a trailer of 2.3s. But Steve had to unexpectedly fly home which meant Chris had to figure out how to drive around La Rochelle bluffing his way through the pushy traffic jammed intersections, driving a right hand steering wheel car on the wrong side of the road. Steve’s car, and those it met often head on, all survived without a scratch, but for an outsider looking on it was very scary and a relief to be on the highway, boats in tow heading north to the cross channel ferry, and the safety of England.

A few days before we left for the UK we returned to our hotel to find we had stayed out too late and the front door was locked and the bitchy matriarch wouldn’t let us in, but we persisted banging on the door as we were in desperate need of a toilet. This was not a nice place so when we left early on the final morning there was the mandatory delivery of freshly baked baguette by the doorstep, so we pinched one for breakfast, and retribution.

We spent 2 weeks in the UK doing promotional things, and preparing for what would be the highlight, the 1st UK Access Dinghy Championships sailed on Rutland Water, 2 – 3 October 1999. We left a few days later for Sydney, it had been quite an adventure which had began in Arizona where I’d gone to pick up that 2.3 and purchase our USA van just 40 days earlier.

A lot could have gone wrong, but it didn’t as this was a well planned journey, the only hiccups and deviations were for valuable lessons to be learned. Its  goals were pure, magnanimous, and you sense being drawn along, it was charmed as happens when your doing what is simply the right thing to do.

***

Cruise 2. January 8th to 25th. Down the East Coast to Miami for the 2000 US Sailing Annual Conference.

We returned to the USA just 3 months later, flying into Washington DC’s Dulles International Airport. Jackie’s MS always called for a few days rest to recuperate after these long flights, so I would set about preparing the van for its next journey. We were scheduled to give a PowerPoint Presentation at the 2000 US Sailing Conference being held at the St Petersburg Community Sailing Centre in Florida on the 14th – 15th January, our topic being “Accessible Sailing and Sailability New South Wales”. In those days Jackie was the Secretary of SNSW which was  experiencing exponential growth, so we had a powerful story to tell.

To get to St Pete’s is a straight drive south on Interstate 95, or i95, the 95 being an uneven number says it runs north / south, 95 also says it’s way over on the east coast, from Maine on the Canadian border to Miami. We began this chapter Cruising the Interstate Highways on i5 driving up the west coast to Seattle, then across the northern most highway i90, an even number so it goes east west across the top of the nation, so here we were on i95, continuing our way around the nation’s perimeter.

The drive must have been uneventful as memories are scarce, though we do recall leaving Virginia in pouring rain, and being surprised that we never seemed to leave suburbia, there were no discernible boundaries between the population centres. In hindsight that’s not surprising as this north eastern seaboard is very heavily populated, with a lot of commuter traffic coming and going on and off the highway, you can’t go into design mode on cruise control.

We would camp in our van parked in a commercial truck stop, or at one of the many non commercial rest areas provided as a service as part of the interstate system, so we preferred the open road and starry skies, not going cooped up with fogged windows in our non air conditioned van.

But we never felt jealous when our miniature RV was parked among all those luxurious rolling gin palaces the locals called home, as our little vehicle was sort of a symbol, we likened it to our elegant little sailboats compared to the much larger craft the world seemed to prefer. Our mantra was “don’t use a tool bigger than what’s needed to do the job”.

Eventually the rain stopped and we were on the open road, found ourselves a rest area to sleep. We always had the choice of eating at a  restaurant and using their facilities, or cooking for ourselves and using the fantastic amenities provided free at the rest areas.

We remember at one such stop being approached by a guy impressed by our miniature rig. He was an ex marine and showed us how he was taught to prepare the 2 elements of a bowline in his hands, then leap into the air and bring his fingers together to intertwine the ropes, completing the bowline. He then caught the trailing rope to hang there before his feet touched the ground. It took a split second and I’m yet to figure out just how he arranged the rope, let alone have the gymnastic agility to pull it off.

We followed i95 south to Daytona Beach then branched off to the right on i4 across central Florida to St Pete’s. Note this road’s a 4 as it’s an even number, a very low even number as its the most southerly of the east west highways in the intestate network. Maybe there’s an i2 somewhere in another state but I can’t find it.

St Pete’s is half way down the Florida Pan Handle on the Gulf Coast and is protected on the inside of the Peninsula which forms Tampa Bay. Herb Meyer who had arranged our visit owned a delightful little cottage in the historic Northeast Quarter, walking/rolling distance from the venue, so that’s where we were to stay, and base our van for a year.

Our presentation stirred up a lot of interest so on the second day about 30 of the delegates were booked to go sailing, and we followed up driving north in i75, then on i10 a few miles for a demonstration in Tallahassee a few days later. Then it was back down on i75 to Fort Meyers for another presentation, then across to Miami for an appointment we had made with Harry Horgan for a Come & Try Sailing Day at which he would line up a bunch of disabled kids and invite potential sponsors.

And what a great day it was, as Harry had assembled these experienced little sailors who’d learnt their skills helming their fleet of freedom 20’s, so they knew how to sail, but in our little boats they found their true freedom and were captains of their own little ships, calling the shots and doing as they pleased. That’s the prize for using smaller boats which give everyone their independence, and the dignity of sailing solo.

On the dock were the amazed parents, carers, doctors, and the sponsors who were asking us questions like “how many of these boats can we fit in container”, “how soon can we get a container away”, and “how much do you want for these 3 demo boats” as obviously these kids needed them now, so there was no point taking them back to St Pete’s to be put into storage. We agreed and accepted a cheque for 3 new boats which would be shipped ASAP, preferably after more sponsors signed up to fill the container. That was on the 22nd of January 2000, we had just enough time to drive the van back to Herb’s place, lock it away and catch our flight back to LA on the 25th, and on to Australia.

 ***

Shake a Leg Miami has grown into an icon as one of the nations best and most honest down to earth community assets in the world, that delivers, but back in 2000 it was still in its youth, staffed by youth, like a coiled spring you could sense its potential.

It was operating out of a pair of portable trailer offices parked between its unofficial workshop in the historic Coconut Grove flying boat hanger on the shore side, and a long pontoon finger pointing out into Biscayne Bay. On the other side of the huge waterfront carpark was Monty’s Cuban Restaurant and nightclub as a reminder that Miami is a big tough city where only the agile and savvy could survive.

A NFP doesn’t get control of waterfront property like this if it doesn’t have powerful political support, and to get that it needs to have first earned the garnish of broad community backing. Today’s Shake a Leg Miami is a National Icon, an outstanding example of how to get the best from sailing, a credit to Harry and his Vision with a capital V, shared with and embraced by thousands of volunteers, numerous small business and community institutions, with Dr Barth Greene’s spinal injury support machine, The Miami Project, the bulwark in the background.

A lot of community minded people live in Miami, including retirees with spare time and resources, so I was back in Miami in June, just 5 months later to unload and commission 14 x 2.3s that Shake a Leg had purchased, all funded and named by individual and corporate sponsors.

***

Cruise 3. June 15th to 25th. A quick trip to unload and commission Shake a Leg’s first fleet.

Cruise 3. I flew into Tampa and took a cab to Herb’s place in St Petes, the van was still there in the cluttered old garage under the huge leafy sub tropical trees common in this long established suburb.

I wasn’t there for a holiday so after wishing myself good luck drove out onto Interstate 275 and over the Sunshine Skyway Bridge which crossed over the mouth of Tampa Bay. i275 as its name suggests is a route through or around a city, as it left i75 just north of Tampa, went west to cross over the bay then south down through St Pete’s, then back over the mouth of the bay on that huge Skyway bridge, to rejoin i75 about 50 miles south of Tampa.

If it began with an uneven digit, like an imaginary i375 it would be a spur road ending in a city instead of a loop. By now you should have an understanding of how this highway numbering system works.

So about 2 hours after arriving at Herb’s I was back on i75 which runs south down the Gulf coast of Florida to Naples then heads east across to Miami on the Atlantic coast. But I don’t like toll roads if they can be avoided, so from Naples I went further south and joined US Highway 41 which followed the Tamiami Canal across the Everglades, a less congested route, and more direct to Coconut Grove just south of Miami, which is where I wanted to go.

I had a couple of days to wait till the container arrived which I spent helping arrange the rack and storage for the boats and positioning the new pontoon where they would berth. At night I parked in the open carpark and went to sleep, but on the second night was woken up by a gang of youths drinking and raging by their cars parked beside me. This can be a rough and tumble place at that hour so was pretty scary, but eventually they left meaning I could venture out for a stretch and a pee. After that I parked overnight inside Shake a Leg’s compound.

When the container arrived it was emptied in minutes as we were ready with a big team of volunteers, and I knew exactly what was in it as I’d packed it in Australia 6 weeks before.  It took 2 more days to sort it all out, coach the team on the rig’s finer points, and set up the boats for the coming weekend’s “come’n try sailing” event. When that was over I packed up our 3 demo boats and was ready to head back up i75 to Herb’s to store the van and trailer.

Jackie and the Shake a Leg girls Ashley and Meredith were planning an event, the 1st International Access Dinghy Championships to be sailed here at Coconut Grove. There was much to do, like to make it official we needed to register the class with US Sailing, trophies needed to be made, the Notice of Race, the international promotion to build participation numbers, and the quorum for official meetings. The event was being considered for November, just 4 months away, so it looked like Jackie and I would be back in Miami before the end of the year.

***

Cruise 4, November 1st to 24th 2000. The inaugural International Access Dinghy Championships in Miami.

The start boat was a 35ft sailing catamaran, the class pennant, in those days we were called Access Dinghies, and the race preparatory and starting signal flags were flying from the spreaders. Race management is very formal, there are rules laid down by the International Sailing Federation, later renamed World Sailing, which had to be followed if you want official recognition of your event. And even then, to be eligible your class had to have recognition by the MNA, the Member National Authority of ISAF. That’s if you wanted to run a National Championship, if it was a World Championship then your class needed to be directly recognised by the global peak body itself, ISAF.

This was the first race of the 1st International Access Dinghy Championships, international as we couldn’t call it a “Worlds” as then we weren’t appropriately recognised by ISAF, but we had completed US Sailing formalities, so this was also the 1st Access Dinghy USA National Championship. On the starting line were the 14 new 2.3’s we’d unloaded a few months before and the boats off our demo trailer. We had sailors from Canada, Australia, Great Britain and of course all those little USA kid’s who’d lives had taken a Great Leap Forward as they learnt to master these little ships.

We have always railed on about those damn signal flags Sailing used in the race starting procedure. Apart from a disability hindering manual ability, some people are vision impaired, from colour blind and blind, others are deaf, some both, and all levels of intellectual awareness. Here we were trying to introduce a whole new demographic of people to sailing, people from very diverse backgrounds who hadn’t grown up in the system, what they needed was logical simplicity, not all these antiquated signal flags sailing hung on to. But here it didn’t matter as our junior sailors were expert as they had learnt on those 20ft Freedoms under the guidance of coaches, so now they could test their skills, in full one on one control.

***

Cruise 4 began when Jackie and I boarded a flight out of Sydney on November 1st 2000 bound for Los Angeles, then on to Tampa. We had a lot of overweight baggage with spare parts, all our specialised bits and pieces and several perpetual trophies so very graciously American Airlines upgraded us to business class, which covered the extra weight, but also gave us access to those airport lounges we could never afford. Multiple Sclerosis saps energy, inducing pain and extreme fatigue, so upgrades are a godsend, figuratively, and literally if your a believer. If anyone needs and deserves a lounge to rest and recuperate between long flights it’s Jackie.

We were quite a big team from Australia, with Grahme and Zoltan both trustees of Jackie’s S4E Foundation, Len, Maryanne and Dale, interpreted as “Dial” by American ears, and Prof Norman Saunders who was promoting his “Virtual Sailing” simulator. From Canada was Keith Hobbs and Danny McCoy, representing US adults was Herb Meyer of course, and Alder Allensworth, and Debby Frenkel appeared from somewhere. Shake a Leg’s Ashley and Meredith were also racing.

Alder came in from her first race very frustrated as she couldn’t make the boat go, and asked me for some tips. All I could say was she was being to serious and needed to “be childlike, feel it, let go and have fun”. She was then asked by an organiser if she could accompany a little blind girl as her crew, “sure, as long as she doesn’t mind coming last” Alder said. The organiser grinned and replied “she’ll never know unless you tell her”.

In Alders words “so off we went , it was one minute before the start and I could feel the intensity starting to take over my body. She asked me for a hug. My first thought was “the race is starting we don’t have time for that nonsense”, though common sense prevailed and I said “SURE, a good luck hug for the race”. “We had a great start”.

On the way up to the weather mark, she asked me to lean the boat over to weather, which is usually the wrong thing to do, but she wanted to trail her hand in the water. She couldn’t reach the water with us heeled to the correct position. It was important for her to feel by touch what she couldn’t by sight. We got a second and third place for the day and that put us in first place over all. The message to me is very clear. I know what tack I need to be on”.

And so it went, with her crew mate leaning over the side slapping the water, sending out cascades of sparkles, squealing with delight, Alder gave up racing and joined in, and after a while when she refocused and looked around, the little boat was away, they were moving fast, pointing high and working through the fleet.

It’s a strange thing that, but not uncommon as here was Alder, not inside out, but outside turned in, battling the system, sailing a magic little boat but using her mind to override what is the real natural order. In a world where the oneness is reality, and that’s world behind these little boats, Alder was back to front, all she had to do was relax, surrender to the energy and let it guide them through the fleet.

If you think that’s crazy let’s double down and do it properly. Close your eyes to focus on what ever is before you. Draw it in, your a microscope, see into the structure of its atoms, it’s like a mini solar system, focus on those particles making up it’s core, they are quarks, their net charge is positive. Those moons spinning around it are negatively charged electrons. Like the sun is a positive source of energy, the planets and their moons are merely negative reflectors. The centrifugal motion of planets, their moons, and electrons is keeping them in their balanced orbits, keeping them apart, maintaining life, for without that motion those micro particles would unite and cease to exist.

All you need is imagination, the power of soul to take us beyond mind, to see what a microscope can’t, this higher reality, this ultimate energy is actually everything, it’s those opposing charges which make up the quarks and electrons, and its keeping them apart, in motion. Being everything it can therefore do anything, if it wants, if you let it.

What Alder did was stopped trying and paradoxically let that energy subconsciously move her hand and with it the rudder, she unknowingly adjusted the sheet to match a shift in the wind she hadn’t yet felt, the gentle puff sending her magic little boat gliding through the fleet.

We regularly see extraordinary events like this, which can be dismissed as mere coincidence if you wish, but that’s the easy way out, it doesn’t push the boundaries, doesn’t try to prise open the door, or peek through the cracks at the hidden truth.

A question to ask is what’s the relationship between a spark and the flow of energy it sheered from. A stream of sparks cut from a steel bar by an angle grinder, sparks of energy and light rising from a fire, or soul as a spark of consciousness, an individual spark of life flowing in the stream of energy of oneness. Was it Alder’s inner self taking over and pulling the strings, acting as an agent for spirit, nudging Alder’s muscles to make adjustments.  Or was It asleep, not she as It is gender neutral, and it was spirit itself, tweeting the nerve molecules which flexed the muscles, which moved the rudder.

It’s a similar story with the wind, was it Alder’s vision of winning the race, which she nearly did, which caused the chain of events, including the change in pressure that adjusted the direction and speed of the wind. These are easily dismissed questions if you want, or they can be thrown out into the ether for answers.

Regardless of the mechanism or reasons, one things for sure, this quaint little story actually happened, which sparked interest among several competitors which led to asking the how and why questions.

It’s easy to pass Alder’s experience off as “coincidence”, or if your open to the magic as something that “just is”, just one of those unknowable phenomena, but I’m always looking for the technical explanation. That’s because once you accept the existence of soul, mind and body and this hierarchy of reality, just as there is a logical explanation of matter when studied from the bottom up, so there has to be a higher logical explanation when studied from the top down.

Combine both these approaches, bottom up and top down and we have the logic of 3 which allows for, and explains the unknowable. The unknowable becomes known simply by soul asking the right questions, and being open to the answers. Questions can also take the form of vision, so out of the ether flows the answers, as an evolving design.

We’ve come this far so why not go deeper into the unknown and ask just what is the relationship between an awakened consciousness and the universal energy of which it is a part. If that energy is everywhere in the binary bubble, it’s in everything keeping the binary particles apart and so keeping them in existence, does that give consciousness access to everything.

If that enlightened consciousness has the power of vision, which means the power of creation, commonly thought of as a power of a god, that makes consciousness a mini god, an offspring of god, being a spark of gods creative energy, a child of spirit with the powers of a god, making consciousness or soul a mini god.

If that’s the case, no wonder one goes through such rigorous training in the bubble, learning to keep the destructive downward pull of mind under control, learning to live in both the binary time and eternal dimensions, and only earning the ultimate power as you prove your station by resisting minds downward pull. So the question is, is that an automatic function, the more you become aware of the function of mind the more aware you become aware of who you are, the more you temper mind the more compatible you become with the working of the universal energy and the more powerful you become, knowing that you can never use that power for your personal gain.

I reckon that can be written as an equation reflecting the automatic expansion of consciousness and awareness in the oneness in sync with the awareness of the role of mind and its role in the binary bubble. That of course will require some new symbols, and an inner awareness of their meaning, though the Greek symbol for infinity is a good start.

***

We stayed at the home of a Shake a Leg Volunteer, in a condominium in a southern suburb of Miami. I can remember thinking at the time what a great resolution, where her husband had spent his life in the corporate world collecting a fortune, then dying leaving his better half with the resources to move south to semi tropical Miami to buy a condo and still young enough to start a new life, volunteering for charities like Shake a Leg.

What a great outcome this was for her, the many like her, and for us too who had the opportunity to experience this Miami lifestyle. To complete the picture was the insight of American politics as while we were there George Bush defeated Al Gore in the presidential race, which came down to a recount of Florida votes, after his brother Jeb Bush as Florida Governor had corruptly manipulated the voter rolls to exclude thousands of coloured people.

It was quite an insight into the corruption of democracy in the supposed land of the free. Considering her background and station it was no surprise our host was a Republican so we had to temper our language, despite the shock of seeing first hand how corrupt was the American version of democracy. Looking back you can see it was probably a marker in the changing world order, a significant step in the gradual but with the benefit of hindsight I’d argue inevitable descent to total polarisation into hate filled binary factions, the collapse of America’s role as the “free world’s”  leader, opening up the void for China to fill.

Meanwhile our little regatta went really well, with 3 Singles divisions and 2 doubles divisions to get maximum use out of our fleet of 17 boats.  2 boats were sailing full servo. In accordance with our S4E goals, being open to all comers and not a disabled sailing event, the gold medal in Division one was won and by Ashley, one of the Shake a Leg staff girls who ran the sailing program.

Other highlights of this visit to Miami was the formation of Sailability USA, as we had representatives from around the nation, and the launch of our new 303 Single seater. It was a great fortnight in Miami, but we had a couple of sailing demonstrations in Orlando, and a visit  to Disneyland to attend to, then back back to St Petersburg to park the rig before flying off to Geneva to spend a few days with our new distributor in France.

***

Cruise 5. January 1st to 26th. Across the southern states to California.

Cruise 5 began just 5 weeks later when we flew out of Melbourne on New Years Eve, 2001, bound for LA and on to Tampa, again graciously upgraded to business class on American Airlines. This was to be a long drive, starting at Herbs place in St Petes’ down i75 through Naples to Miami, back up through Orlando, then across the southern states of the nation on i10 to San Diego, then north on i5 to San Francisco where we would park our rig in Herb’s driveway for 5 months.

The principle business in Florida was the formal establishment of Sailability USA, or SUSA, and planning for the launch of Sailability Clearwater at the Clearwater Community Sailing Centre. Alder lived nearby in Gulfport so these organisations would be domiciled at her address, with Alder the President, Herb the Secretary and Debby who lived in Orlando the development officer, we had the core structure of SUSA ready.

We drove down to Naples where several disability groups were keen to be involved, and met Bruce Conley, a independent financial manager whose office was a house on a rural property he owned, where he hosted the local chapter of Riding for the Disabled. So Bruce was already a generous provider, and offered to provide office space and infrastructure to support Debby as we sought to expand SUSA across the USA.

From Naples, across to Miami for more meetings on our well beaten trail, then to Orlando for a demonstration day and to discuss a SUSA central Florida branch, then onto i10, next stop New Orleans in Louisiana at the mouth of the Mississippi River. There we had more meetings and a demonstration, all very positive as these were all, still are “greenfields” if your talking about open, accessible, inclusive sailing.

In hindsight, how can you expect outsiders like us to succeed in transplanting our utopian dream in places with such inequality, political polarity, racial oppression, so much desperation, so much negative history. We were naive and it should be no surprise that we failed, but success shouldn’t be gauged solely by what we left in our wake but in what we saw and learned.

What struck me in New Orleans was the pursuit of lifestyle and pleasure versus the disregard for the power of nature. This city and its suburbs are built on the delta of one of the world’s greatest rivers. It’s similar to Bangladesh and the Ganges/Brahmaputra/Meghna (GBM) delta which I know well. Both Bangladesh, (the whole country), and greater New Orleans are deltas so at sea level, both are in tropical cyclone/typhoon/hurricane regions, so both are going to suffer the same fate when the flooding river meets a storm surge exaggerated by a high tide.

Being into boats I was intrigued by a New Orleans development’s audacious boat houses where you lived upstairs on stilts with your boat moored below. Hurricane Katrina came with a 9m storm surge so I wonder if those boat houses are still there, maybe they are great design and survived, though much of the city being 2m below sea level didn’t.

The i10 runs through New Orleans and 560km to the west, an easy days drive, straight through the centre of Houston, our next planned stop where we had a day of meetings and arranged future come and try sailing days, so we planned to be back.

There are always classic sights as you drive though the USA, like those outrageous boat houses in New Orleans, and driving through Texas past  “pumpjack” oil well pumps, also known as “nodding donkey” or “horse heads”. There’s about half a million of them in Texas.

Our next stop on the i10 was Phoenix, 1900 km away, and along the we passed through Tucson and the Sonoran Desert, home of the giant saguaro cactus, that iconic symbol of the American south west.

In Phoenix we met with Jack Oppenheimer, went sailing on a nearby half dry irrigation lake, and marvelled at how the human race enjoyed their artificial cities created in such hostile environments. It was hot and dry and you could imagine the rush of vapour coming off that lake. Everything needed to be air conditioned, so it was gratifying to have passed by all those oil wells in Texas and know that they will pump oil forever. One interesting observation in Phoenix city was the popularity of clothes dryers, maybe because the local government thought it unsightly to have washing hanging on poles out your high rise windows.

It’s easy to be critical of contradictions you see when travelling, so it’s always enlightening to talk to visitors to your home country, like I ask what have you seen in Australia that we take for granted that you think is weird?. There are just so many different ways of doing things, so many opposing passionate positions, it’s amazing how well things have worked out and got mankind to here, but today the chaos looks close to overwhelming, or is that just because of advances in technology and the widespread reporting of everything, and its much easier to catch people’s attention with violent and negative stories.

Another extraordinary sight was driving through the sand dunes between Phoenix and San Diego. We drove out of Phoenix on i10 about 20 miles then took route 85 south down to i8 which runs along parallel to the Mexican border and passes through the southern edge of the Imperial Sand Dunes. This is indeed a classic insight into corner of the modern American psyche, where the main recreational tool is dune buggy.

We hadn’t researched this drive, just came this way as it was the direct route, so what a surprise and what a memorable sight was the thousands of RV in the area, all towing dune buggy’s. There were RV’s circled around a central camp fire, as in circling the wagons, with dune buggy’s tearing around on the nearby dunes. If you were a visiting Martian you’d be bewildered, but being a citizen of planet earth and keen students of human behaviour we could see how this phenomena came to be, and loved it.

We arrived in San Diego on 14th January, in good time to prepare for our Power Point Presentations at the California Boating Association Annual Conference, with delegates from all over the state. This was followed by a sailing demonstration day for the US Sailing Community Sailing Annual Conference, followed by another PPP for the US Sailing Community Sailing Executive Committee Meeting. You’d think after all this we’d be getting some traction, but the USA is really quite an insular place, and being at the centre of the universe it was not easy to break through.

We remember a salesman of a popular brand of kayak and canoe telling Jackie what a clever move it was by me to be using her to do our presentations, as a prop, a girl in a wheelchair, to sell my boats. That’s a hint at the story we were beginning to understand, everything in the USA revolves around how to make money, not what’s in it for the community. A driver of that is no doubt the paucity of social security, high cost of health security and the dismal minimum wage, which tends to leave a residue of what’s in it for me on everything. 

We were in San Diego for 5 days, then drove north on i5 for our next appointment in Santa Barbra on the coat just north of Los Angeles. The highlight of the drive out of San Diego is the Mormon San Diego Temple, a crystal palace like structure with twin spires standing high above highway. It’s an impressive building, it’s crystal like finish created by light reflecting from the white marble chips embedded in its concrete skin. It’s impressive, as you’d expect as it’s the most recent branch of Christianity, and religions tend to erect their most grandiose symbols in their heydays. 

We continued on up i5, but cut across to i405 for one of the most fantastic coastal drives on the planet. This took us through and over the iconic streets on the coastal side of LA, then we took US Highway 101 which hugs the coastline up to Santa Barbara. There we did a sailing demonstration for key community groups and disabled people, organised for us by the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum.

From Santa Barbara we had 3 choices, hug the coast on the narrow winding US1, go inland to i5, or take the middle way up US 101. We took 101 which was the quickest as we were headed over the Golden Gate Bridge to Herb’s place in San Rafael, which means we passed SF on our right, through Daly City with its colourful little boxes on the hillside made of ticky tacky that Pete Seeger sang about and made famous.

For someone who damaged their back out sailing on San Francisco Bay, meaning he had no one to sue so was destined for bankruptcy and destitution, Herb was actually a lucky guy. That’s because Caroline was visiting of friend of hers who was in the hospital bed next to Herb, and she fell in love with this loveable jovial guy and spent the rest of her life taking care of him, travelling the world to sailing events, cris crossing the USA sailing, attending meetings and holiday img at that fabulous cottage in the leafy historical quarter of St Petersburg.

Herb was a greatly respected elder statesman of sailing, and had arranged several meetings and sailing demonstrations for us and our boats. These included a formal PPP at South Beach Yacht Club, home of BAADS, Bay Area Disabled Sailors, which is not on a beach but based at Pier 40 next to the Bay Bridge and the 49er’s Baseball Stadium on the edge of the city. We also did a try sailing day at Oakland Community Boating Centre on Lake Merritt across the Bay Bridge in Oakland. E met with America’s Cup star Dawn Riley about using our boats in her community kids programs, and went out of town to Stockton for another demo and PPP to the local government.

On the 27th of January we flew back to Australia, it had been a little under a month of action which had taken us back across the USA southern boundary on i10 and up to north California on a mix of highways to complete our fifth cruise, and first circumnavigation of the nation.

***

Cruise 6. July 26th to August 14th 2001. San Francisco to Salt Lake City, to Chicago on i80. to Baltimore on i65 &i70, down to Vienna, then to St Pete’s on i95. Total 6200 km.

This was a 6000km drive with few scheduled appointments in the heat of summer, so I drove it alone as it would have been too taxing for Jackie with her MS. Those days we built all our boats in Australia and our preferred resin supplier had been taken over by Huntsman Chemical Corporation based in Salt Lake City. Jon Huntsman was a significant philanthropist, so at least I had to ask if his business would sponsor our fledgling Sailability USA.

We had shipped some boats to San Francisco for BAADS and Footloose in Seattle, so included one of the first Liberty out of the moulds for ourselves. We developed this 6th cruise to pass through Salt Lake City to see Huntsman, then on to Chicago to demo the Liberty at the Judd Goldman M16 annual event, then pass through Baltimore to help commission some boats that had just arrived, then down to St Petersburg to park the rig again at Herb’s place.

We had left the van and trailer parked on Herb and Caroline’s driveway, not a perfect solution as they lived in a public housing estate, but in those days we had had little money and had to get things done on the smell of an oily rag. Thanks to the cheapest petrol in the world and camping in our mini RV van we managed to cover great distances, like this particular cruise.

It’s only a days drive to Salt Lake City from SF so I arrived at Huntsman’s address in the night and slept in the carpark behind the office. To the east of the city is the lake, while the west side sloped up the foothills to some significant mountains. The office was at 500 Huntsman Way, a long low glass fronted 4 story rectangle on several hectares of open space overlooking the city. Its neighbours were the University of Utah and other establishment properties, all overlooking the city. You don’t get to build your grandiose office on a hallowed site like that if your not a favoured son of the city, and Jon Huntsman was certainly that. Through his father he is the great – great – great – grandson of the early LDS Church leader Parley Pratt, while his wife Karen was daughter of LDS Church apostle David Haight. Their son Jon Junior served in every federal administration from Reagan to Obama, was Governor of Utah and twice ran for President of the USA.

It was serendipitous at the time that Zoltan’s dad Les, at whose home in Vienna in Virginia, essentially a suburb of Washington DC, where we had domiciled our S4E Foundation, had the job of designing and supplying the drapes and pelmets for Jon Huntsman junior’s new Washington home.

For us to be asking this level of USA society to sponsor our fledgling SUSA was outrageous, but you know why not, the doors were opening inviting us in.  So really it wasn’t ours to choose, we were to go through and contemplate the significance of who these people were, the source of their inspiration, the role of their new branch of Christianity in USA society, and the magic which gives them so many lucky breaks and good fortune.

Of course I wasn’t expecting to meet Jon Huntsman Senior, my appointment was with the nice young lady who looked after public relations. Anyway I was told the man himself was recuperating from treatment at the new cancer research hospital he had just funded and built at the University next door.

If you were abreast of all the elements at play in this visit, then surreal would be a good descriptor. But that was not wide eyed me then as I probably thought we might have been able to pull this off. I left a couple of hours later with a bundle of brochures, tee shirts, wind cheaters and caps and was quickly back on i80 heading for Wyoming, then through Nebraska and Iowa to Chicago in Illinois.

Debby Frenkel was working as the coordinator of the Judd Goldman program and had arranged my visit, so I was sort of officially there, but it was a difficult time as the M16 was the preferred boat in this region, and I’d driven in with our newly launched and named Liberty, with every intention of challenging the M16 to be the selected as the new Paralympic single person non technical equipment. Our boat was 12ft, theirs was 16, ours was half the displacement and a third the price, which drove the M16 to be rejigged into a 2 person craft, which caused us to develop the 20ft 2 person SKUD to decide the matter. This was the backdrop that made this visit heavy going for me as described earlier.

Debby and I stayed on a 40ft Grand Banks style power cruiser in the marina. We didn’t have aircon so it was hot, but many big yachts we walked past each day when coming and going did have air conditioners running non stop, and we were told about some that were moored there as gin palace retreats, and weren’t even fitted with propulsion engines, only generators to power the appliances.

I headed south from Chicago on i65 into Indiana to join i70 at Indianapolis for another 1000km straight west to Baltimore. Kirk Culbertson was  founding director of Baltimore’s Downtown Sailing Centre. He’d seen our boats at that US Sailing Conference in Saint Petersburg and was a believer. They had bought some boats and I was there to show the finer points of their use, what makes them really work well.

It’s a great venue with a very progressive sailing for everyone agenda, and our 303 fitted in perfectly. In amongst their fleet was a 303 Single with our early servo equipment which I needed to work on.

From there it was a short drive down i95 to the Pegan’s place in Vienna on the outskirts of Washington DC, then after a rest and sort out some administration paperwork it was back on i95 heading again to Herb’s holiday house in St Pete’s. But I hadn’t gone far when it dawned to check the state of our van’s registration. Attached in a corner of US number plates are “tags” which show the year and month of expiry, on inspection we had done our time, so what to do here, if I continued on to Florida it would have created a serious administration problem we could do without.

The US might be stereotyped as the land of the free, but for nomadic aliens like us it’s a minefield of regulation as each state has its own rules, and to register a vehicle you need auto insurance, which requires a US driving license and an address, unfortunately I had neither. Except Arizona where I’d purchased the van, and on checking the Virginia fine print it seemed you could get auto insurance on an Australian driving license, so I turned around and headed back to Vienna. I had to be quick as there was a plane to catch from Tampa to connect with the long flight from LAX back to Melbourne.

Next morning Les and I were there at the city admin office armed with all the paperwork to change the domicile address of the van from Cottonwood in Arizona to Vienna in Virginia. It worked and I was back on the road south that afternoon with another year’s worth of rego.  It’s a sort of mini miracle or outstanding coincidence that our 2 addresses in the USA were in the only 2 states that link foreign driving licenses to auto insurance.

There was little time to spare, a controlled rush back down the 1500 km to Herb’s, pack up the boats and van, shower, catch a taxing to the airport, to sleep on the plane. It’s exciting being busy, everything is just in time, it’s exhilarating, as long as you make it, which I did. The flight was memorable as we were diverted to Denver by thunderstorms and they didn’t have a connection to LAX, then there were no available hotels for a budget traveller like me so I slept on the carpeted floor of the Denver terminal.

It would have been a different story if Jackie and her wheelchair had been with me as they would have found us a hotel very quickly. Very bad look to  abandon a poor disabled woman traveller after you stuffed up their flight and missed their international connection. So it’s actually an advantage to have a wheelchair user in your party as instead of the nerve racking rush through customs and immigration, changing terminals and finding your gate, you can relax. Your met on arrival by your wheelchair pusher guide who knows the way, you leapfrog past all the peasants waiting in the many queues, they know your coming so it’s impossible to miss a flight, and your first to board even before business and first class which makes it a VIP ride.

But this cruise was a solo which wouldn’t have worked with a wheelchair as I had to be nimble, driving 6000km over 19 days, across the centre of the nation from coast to coast then back down to Florida. Jackie and I however would be back together for Cruise number 7 in 2 months time for the official USA launch of the Liberty, and the 2nd North American Access Dinghy Championships sailed at Clearwater in Florida.

***

Cruise 7. October 12th to 26th,  2001. To Florida for the 2nd North American Access Dinghy Championships at Clearwater, and the Liberty official launch at the IFDS Adaptive Sailing Equipment Display at St Petes.

The different elements were coming together as all the flying, driving, talking and demonstrating was consolidating into a vision of Sailability USA which spanned the perimeter of the nation. Driving through the centre though, through cattle country, I’d seen plenty of water, but very few signs of sailboats, and wondered if we would be able to change that. Today I’d say no as cultural change cannot be imposed, it grows from within to fill a void, or it has to displace what’s already there, which takes time, big money and a massive effort, way beyond what we could muster or afford.

It was a dilemma for us as the population percentage per capita of disabled people through the centre is similar to the coastal fringe, but to crack that we would have had to soften our ideological preference for Sailing for Everyone. In hindsight we should have done so as our vision was unattainable, and instead we could have left a legacy of benefit to the centre’s disabled community.

We had introduced the 303S, the single seater version timed to be launched at the Paralympic Science Congress during the Sydney 2000 Paralympics. The S had been envisaged as a club boat and as a future Paralympic class to include the more severely disabled sailors. Our star “super crip” sailor Ame Barnbrook demonstrated the boat at its launch in Darling Harbour, outside the conference centre, where it was officially launched by the NSW Governments Minister for the Olympics.

The S had a waterproof compartment aft which would safely protect a ventilator and extend the sailing experience to include ventilator dependent people. Living near Jackie in Sydney was Nava George, a 20 year old girl of Polynesian descent who had been struck by a car at age 3, so Nava was a stable ventilator dependent quadriplegic and perfect as our extreme disability test pilot.

As it happened, one of Nava’s nurses had a family connection to one of Oprah Winfrey’s staff at her Chicago studio, so a plan was cooked up for Nava to compete at our 2nd North American Access Dinghy Championships in October 2001 being held at Clearwater Community Sailing Centre where Alder was based, then here entourage would head for Chicago to meet Oprah.

So things were moving along, fast, we were about to get a massive boost in exposure, and the worry was is this too soon, before we were ready for the inevitable explosion in the Sailability USA program.

But everything seemed in place, with SUSA established and registered with the IRS as a 5101C charity, Clearwater had received their new fleet of 2.3 and 303W, we had our demonstration boats and the Shake a Leg Miami fleet of 14 x 2.3 and 2 x 303S. The doors were opening, and when they do you go through as it’s the only way to see whats on the other side.

And then the world changed, September 11, exactly one month before our departure date Osama Bin Laden pulled off his outrageous stunt and everyone, including Oprah boarded the 9/11 bandwagon and Nava’s scheduled appointment in Chicago was cancelled. We were however all paid up and committed so the events would go on, and Nava would become the first ventilator dependent quad to compete solo in a National open sailing championship.

***

We had banked on the 303S being the right boat, we’d opened up all those doors and fired up interest in a new Paralympic class, but while the S was great as a club boat, if it’s going to pass muster and expectations of the world’s elite disabled sailors then it had better be perfect.

Our principle of only using a boat big enough to do the job, and the synergy of the most affordable easily transported and handled boat being popular at club level and used in the Paralympics was compelling. But if your after equity across all levels of ability, that is everyone from Able Bod to Ventilator dependent Quad all being near equally competitive, (the ultimate goal of Universal Design), you need to have enough sail area so  they will react and set themselves, untouched by a human hand in the lightest of breeze.

So there’s a compromise, a balance of all the inputs, of size, weight sensitivity, cost, transportability, and performance which you have to find. For a boat to be effective for development and propagation into lower socio economic countries it needs to be as small as possible, but the smaller it is the more weight sensitive it will be, so you go bigger which adds to cost and complexity, particularly when you need to add servo winches so those with minimal physical strength can handle the loads.

What we had found was the 303S jib when reduced in size to make it self tacking, an essential quality of a minimalist complexity UD sailboat, it’s jib was too small to react to the lightest of winds you would expect to race in. One solution wold be to mandate a higher than usual minimum wind speed to race is in, say 5 knots, but that’s not a good UD solution, so to do it properly the S needed a bigger jib, and the only way to get that was either move the mainmast further aft, but in what is already the shortest workable hull that’s not an option as it would have pushed the weight of the helm person aft throwing the boat out  of trim, so the only solution was to extend the boat out with a longer bow.

And so we created the Liberty, a development of the 303, staying with the same beam, with the stern moved aft 100mm and the stem forward 500mm. That was a 20% increase in length, but we increased the ballast by 240% as the objective was for exceptional stability, to give our severely disabled sailors a well founded sense of security and confidence in big winds. With 2 rudders there is always one deep in the water maintaining directional control when heeling over at 45 plus degree, and when your on your side like this the narrow cockpit and wide, angled up side decks keep the Liberty cockpit and its sailor amazingly dry.

We had earlier shipped one to San Francisco a Liberty and it had travelled with me on our trailer across the centre on the previous cruise, its world ceremonial launch being scheduled for cruise 7. But I’d been too cautious with this first boat and it was under rigged so we later added mast height and shortened the boom to give it a much higher aspect ratio rig, 

***

I remember we carried a lot of excess baggage on the cruise 7 flight to Tampa, new trophies, servo gear, spare parts and tools, but fortunately we had again acquired business class upgrade certificates which gave us extra weight allowance and lifesaving access to America Airlines lounges. 

Writing this 20 years plus after the event means a lot of detail is forgotten, but thanks to our regular Telltales newsletters, it’s all there digitised and saved on our Sailing for Everyone Foundation’s website. So the easiest way to tell the story is plagiarise Jackie’s words from Volume 3, issue 2, November 2001.

The Editorial reads – “hello to all our friends around the world. As usual I  am frantically short of time and apologise for the shortened newsletter. But a little is better than nothing, and there were too many interesting items to leave until March.

Chris and I have just returned from the USA and Europe where we were lucky enough to participate in many exciting projects and events. See notice below page 2 regarding France and Portugal and the report on page 3.

Our final stop  Europe was the World Sailing Summit which was held in conjunction with the ISAF Annual Conference in Lisbon. Chris and I were fortunate to have the opportunity to give a presentation entitled “Sailing is for Everyone “. Here we addressed and spoke with leaders of the international boating and sailing industries, giving our perceptions of sailing around the world.

While in Florida we met up with our good friends Ian and Pauline Harrison of IFDS. Then it was bizarre to run into them again in the hotel lobby in Lisbon at the ISAF Conference and think nothing of it. The world is getting smaller all the time.

While I  really enjoy meeting old friends and making new ones all around the world, I must admit that I am truly happy to be home again (for the time being at least)”.

Jackie mentioned in that editorial having spent time in Florida with the Harrison’s, so I’ll explain that by plagiarising the lead story on the front page of the November 2001 Telltales.

“The Access LIBERTY is Launched in the USA”. “Ian Harrison, Chairman of the International Foundation of Disabled Sailing (IFDS) launched the latest model of the Access Dinghies on 24th October (2001). During the IFDS Display on adaptive sailing equipment at St Petersburg Sailing Centre, Florida USA, Ian officially performed the world wide launch of the Liberty in front of a small gathering “.

During the launch Ian said: “I am very excited about the growth of Access Dinghies throughout the world. It is enabling many people with an infinite range of disabilities to sail confidently for the first time. The simplicity and safety of the boats is remarkable yet provides an opportunity to learn all about racing and to become familiar with the rules. The class hopefully enables someone to gain sufficient confidence to progress to more sophisticated boats if that is their wish”.

“The Liberty is the latest of Chris’s remarkable designs and I had the  pleasure of sailing it a few days ago. It had no vices and appears absolutely  controllable in all but the most extreme conditions. The twin rudders prevent the boat from screwing up into the wind in a gust, and the job boom is a very clever  and innovatory idea which works well. All the other controls are light and easily accessible and the boat is a pleasure to sail. Above all else I enjoyed going out for a sail without getting wet”.

And then we have Jackie’s report on page 3:

***

The“2nd North American Access Dinghy Championship, Clearwater, Florida – 20th to 22nd October 2001”. 

The North American Access Dinghy Championships were a fantastic experience for everyone involved. Alder Allensworth, President of Sailability Florida (and Sailability USA), and her band of jolly volunteers ran an efficient yet wonderfully relaxed and happy Regatta”.

“Competitors included Herb Meyer of California (Chairman of Sailability USA and competed in this year’s Australian Championships),: also competing were a number of Canadian Paralympic sailors with Danny McCoy and John McRoberts in the 2.3 Gold Fleet, and Ron Ingalls (John McRoberts coach) in the 303 Gold Fleet.

Whilst the guys in the Gold Fleet got down to some serious sailing, they also had a novel way to sort out on water disputes – there were no protests over the entire three days. After one race in which Meredith fouled John McR, he and Danny cornered her and removed her rudder blade. (Meredith is the program co-ordinator from Shake a Leg Miami. At the end of the next race after a physical tussle (John is a quad while Meredith is an able bod), John was relieved of his rudder blade and Meredith sailed back to the dock leaving John stranded in the bay. John then convinced Herb to lend him one of Herb’s twin rudders off the 303S. This was a sight to behold as the 2 quads sorted themselves out. There was a lot of good natured bagging out over the weekend.

There are many other humorous stories – like the 14 year old Jessica, her story is below. And there is Alder co-ordinator of the event. After months of hectic preparation and a busy weekend Alder woke up on the last day of competition, put on her swimming costume and T-shirt and after a day in front of TV cameras and being photographed with every trophy winner at the presentation ceremony, realised she was actually still wearing her nightie !

And Tracy one of Nava’s nurses who entertained us by doing the splits between Nava’s support boat and the dock while preparing for a race and ended up taking a dunking ……… and there were the young disabled kids from Shake a Leg Miami – they endeared themselves to everyone with their fun loving antics out on the water prior to the races.

It was wonderful to see Canadian Paralympic 2.4 sailor Danny McCoy taking time to give the young sailors coaching sessions on the shore as well as offering advice out on the course to those who were having a little difficulty. This was the atmosphere of the entire weekend – sharing and helping out wherever possible.

Nava George was the only Australian competitor. Nava is a 21 years old and a ventilatored quad, in the regatta she sailed an electric 303s from Shake a Leg Miami (thanks Harry). Over the 3 days of the championships Nava experienced a myriad of emotions. The excitement of her first international competition, probably a little fear with sailing in unknown waters in an unknown boat with unknown competitors as well as the frustration of a mechanical breakdown during one race and then the exultation of winning a heat for the first time. Attending the championship in Florida was a massive undertaking for Nava as she travelled with 4 nurses and her dad. Well done Nava.

The sailors, the volunteers (and the volunteers children), the City of Clearwater and many local community organisations really did make this an event to remember.  Full results have been posted to the Sailability Florida site; www.Sailability.org/us/florida”.

And at the bottom of page 3 we have the contribution by Jessica one of the local Clearwater sailors.

“An embarrassing Moment – Jessica Ackley, aged 14.

“I waited so long and worked so hard for this day. There I was sitting in my favourite orange Access Dinghy waiting for my turn for the race instructions. I was thinking this is my first competition. I started getting real nervous, my stomach was jumping and I knew I needed to shut it all out and relax for a few minutes. I laid my head back and stretched out my legs. I tuned into the sound of the sound of the water hitting the sides of my boat with the wind gently moving across my face. I was feeling real good when all of a sudden I was awoken. I had the most relaxing nap and found myself kissing the sea wall as the safety boats were heading in my direction.

Although I was embarrassed at the way in which I was found it was worth it. I totally tuned into my boat and what I needed to do in the next upcoming days in this regatta”.  The results Show that Jessica finished first in the 303 Silver Fleet.

All the “Telltales” newsletters from July 1999 can be found at www.s4e.org/blog/?cat=5

That 2001 event at Clearwater was obviously a pretty relaxed affair, for some just fun, for others it’s serious racing, which is what it was like in those early days, but as a class matures the pool of competitive sailors grows, and by the time it has broad global distribution and achieved World Sailing recognised class status its serious business, attracting sponsors and with the opportunity for world championship medals comes MNA coaching and government support.

Another side of competition is it’s role in therapeutic recreation, not only for the obvious people with a disability (PWD), but also all those able bod people who are NYD’s, the not yet disabled members of the community. Yes, that’s who they are when you step out of the bubble and see everyone on a scale from severe mental impairment to genius on one plane and the final stages of motor neurone and olympic athlete on the physical scale. We are all somewhere along those 2 lines, and although we generally draw a circle around the centre and think inside that is the normals, in a non polarised world we all members of the one inclusive society.

In an article quoting James Rimmer, Director of NCPAD, in Palaestra Journal September 2005, it reads: “Participation in sports can have a positive and valuable effect from the dynamic interplay between mind and body. Although researchers do not have a wealth of knowledge about how the brain works during sports competition, it is reasonable that major neurological reactions are transmitted to create links within the highest functioning levels of the brain. Learning to deal with competitive pressure, learning strategies to overcome uncontrollable situations, reacting to equipment and other players all require motor skill, determination, and brainpower. Synchronising the mind and body to function together facilitates optimal growth and development. More than in many other types of activities, sports can provide a sense of excitement and accomplishment”.

“According to James Rimmer, for children who have a disability, sports and competition can provide an opportunity to learn the value of hard work, sportsmanship, how to adapt to any situation, and the pleasure of performing with others. He believes every community should provide an enriched sports experience for children who have disabilities, and that this is as important as providing access to computers and books. “Sports is the one time in a child’s life when there is no planned sequence, no organised assignments, no structured lessons, only spontaneous, enjoyable, interactive play, sometimes many children with disabilities are deprived of during their brief childhood”.

So the same goes for all kids across both those mental and physical ability scales. But back on the water sailing, there’s a saying that when the paths of any 2 sailboats converge and they find them selves heading in the same direction, it always turns cross into a race as sheets and other controls are adjusted to see who’s the quickest. An Extra Terrestrial observing this odd behaviour when 2 wandering strangers meet may wonder if it’s a bonding ritual, or could the desire to race be embedded in a sailboat’s DNA.

***

With this regatta behind us we loaded up our trailer of demo boats and returned our rig to Herb’s place in St Petes for a few more months in storage. As mentioned earlier we had several appointments in Europe and flew out of Tampa to Geneva, the closest international airport to Pierre and Helena’s place across the border in France.

Pierre was our first French distributor and we had asked him to purchase a van for us to use around Europe. So we now owned a Renault Boxer diesel van and as soon as we arrived I installed a bed, with storage under, shelves on the sides above, similar to our mini RV we had just left at Herb’s. It had a typical stand alone drivers seat with a wide 2 passenger bench seat across the front, so we ditched that and bought a nice Peugeot drivers seat from a wrecker which was bolted down on a boat seat swivel on a rugged fibreglass over timber box I made, so we now had a step through into our accomodation. Now this custom seat may not be legal, but it did provide a really comfortable “captains chair” for Jackie, and as long as we didn’t get involved in any serious accidents no one would be the wiser.

When the van was ready we drove down through France, across Spain to Portugal where we help establish several programs and attended the ISAF annual Conference in Lisbon where we delivered our “Sailing is for Everyone” PPP.  We had time for a more leisurely drive back to Geneva so consulted our road atlas and chose a winding route along the Mediterranean coast from Barcelona and into France. We followed the highway west from Barcelona till we came to our turnoff to the coast. We had only gone a mile when we to our surprise we come to this bill board sized sign, “Welcome to the Costa Brava”.

We knew this iconic name, but didn’t know where or what it was, so what a surprise, and a reward after all the weeks of hard work, to explore along this famous string of tourist towns and beaches, each in its own bay bounded by headlands, each with its own character, having evolved to service its social level. It was winter and mid week so all but deserted, but it was obvious which ones attracted budget backpackers, or families then up and over the next dividing headland to another beach this one fronted by 5 star hotels and restaurants. But no people.

The now redundant border crossing with France was marked by a deserted outpost up on the dividing ridge, then down into a French flavoured village. For us this coastal drive was a mini adventure within this great adventure exploring, creating memories of the diversity, each a piece of our global jigsaw puzzle world.

Following coastlines is fun, always seeking out each road or laneway heading along or towards the sea, past the gates of the trophy houses on headlands, imagining who owns or lives in them, or swims from their private beaches.  I’ve done that in Sydney, from South Head all the way to Manly at North Head, only a mile apart but a thousand miles by road.

If one had nothing better to do for a year I’m sure it would be quite an adventure to circumnavigate the Mediterranean following the closest road to the sea, starting out from Gibraltar through Spain, Provence in France, past Marseille, through Monaco, around the curve past the port of La Spezia in Italy, down the coast past San Felice Circeo where we held our 2005 Liberty Worlds and on around the heel of Italy, then back up to Venice.

That’s the easy part as it’s all been inside the modern EU, must get progressively adventurous as you go down the east side of the Adriatic to Greece, the EU’s tired member and political crèche, to Turkey, cross the Bosphorus, through the ports of the recent Ottoman Empire, through coastal Syria, Iraq, Lebanon. Imagine as you go the civilisations past, where black from African meets white from the north which produces the Proto-Semites, who evolve through the Akkadians, Assyrians, Sumerians, the Babylonians, the Phoenicians, then leap frog over whoever built the pyramids of Egypt, sailing with Dido, the Phoenician Princess who founded Carthage at what is Tunisia today. Imagine all that as you explore the coast in search of what’s become of their ports, and ponder the politics, the origins of today’s 3 Abrahamic religions, to spice it up have Jehovah donate Israel to a chosen few, wow what a show, is there a conductor of this mega ultra diverse choir and orchestra or is it composing its own path to the crescendo with clashing, crashing of cymbals and the drums of war.

While Europe is predominantly Christian, North Africa is Moslem so both are relatively stable, when compared to the melting pot which is the Middle East.

That’s too much of a headache to ponder so we can drive off around the Mediterranean coast of Africa, what’s been known as the Maghreb, the Barbary Coast, which also has its convoluted history.  Whether it’s a safer drive to Morocco to complete our circumnavigation is another story.

Fortunately we had to turn left after the Costa Brava to head up to Geneva where we left our van and flew back to Australia. It had been a busy month, Cruise 7 in the US hadn’t covered many miles, but we had made up for that with about 5000km across western Europe.

***

Cruise 8. April 12th, 2002. To Phoenix to collect our trailer and move it to San Francisco.

We’d left our van and trailer in St Petes at Herbs place, but our next USA adventure would be on the West Coast so it was opportune to have our rig moved across to Phoenix Arizona where Jack could make use of our boats for a few months.

I arrived as usual via LA and spent a couple of days with Jack touring around, inspecting sites, trying to identify something realistic to focus on. Arizona is Hot, surface evaporates of lakes is very high, infrastructure projects take years to complete, and there are always well connected groups at the front of the queue seeking access to resources. So we usually persevere to the end of the road, but here, like so many places away from the coast where sailing is on few peoples radar setting up a “sailing for everyone” program in Arizona was always a long shot.

But being naive foreigners we always thought we could buck the trend. In hindsight we passed up on many opportunities and would have had more lasting success if we’d given up our idealism and got on board “sailing for the disabled programs”. Our problem is weren’t trying to sell boats, which is what a consumer society expects of you, we had in mind a culture change, instead of an opportunity for a few and realise now our place is on a Culdesac not the mainstream Highway.

Thats not to confuse the common English language use of cul-de-sac to mean a dead end, quite the opposite, a Cul-de-sac in practice means a no through road for cars, with far less pollution and hazards, more green space with trees where you walk or ride a bike. It’s therefore a safe haven for mothers and their children, whole families, it’s not a dead end street but a living street, a home to a more discerning even privileged community. 

While still in Phoenix, Google Culdesac Tempe, which claims to be the first purpose designed vehicle free residential development in the USA. If this was how the mainstream lived today then our program and priorities wouldn’t be fringe at all, we’d be mainstream and we’d all be living in a magical utopian lefty dream.

Except here we were, a few months after September 11 and the US led invasion of Afghanistan, the impending invasion of Iraq about to give rise to ISIS which emboldens the military interventions of Vladimir Putin into Syria, Georgia, Chechnya, Crimea and Ukraine. America goes fundamentalist Christian and elects Donald Trump while China stands its ground and defies the USA brokered global rules based order.

So there’s an escalating trend here to a nightmare in the opposite direction.

There’s been an interesting twist in all this from the old white man dominated east-west global polarity which he was able to control, to a new binary equation, which boils down to the newly empowered unscrupulous totalitarian “no rules baddy” states who have brainwashed and disempowered their populace through all the tools they control, versus the self indulgent democratic “goodies” who are constrained by their self imposed rules, but who have lost control of their message to increasingly polarised and defiant social and mainstream media. But more about that in chapter 7.

I only stayed the weekend in Phoenix as we had an appointment at the Strictly Sail Boat Show, 18th to 22nd April at Jack London Square in Oakland across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco.

We had a lot of friends in SF so we’re given a small indoor display area alongside the NFP BAADS. We were looking for a US based boat builder and opportunities for new programs so met many people and arranged a few demonstrations for our next visit in May which would take in a cruise the full length of the USA West Coast.

The Jack London Convention Centre backs onto the 200m wide shipping canal which forms Alameda Island to the south. While our booth was manned mainly by BAADS volunteers, our real focus was down on the waterfront pontoons where we had our Liberty, 2 x 303 and a 2.3 on the water set up for demonstrations and visitors to have a sail, solo if they were up to it.

I have several very clear memories from that boat show, the fondest has to be our faithful friend Bob Betancourt who was there each morning, duffle bag full of sailing gear over his shoulder ready for whatever came up that day.

Bob is a Vietnam Veteran, he was on some sort of disability pension as he’d been accidentally poisoned by agent orange. As said elsewhere the US is a hard nosed place with minimal social security protections so volunteers aren’t as readily forthcoming as we find in other English speaking countries. So Bob was my right hand man and it was generally just the 2 of us organising the sailing.

Our Liberty was one of the first we’d made but it had already done a circumnavigation of US on its freeways. San Francisco is renowned for its big winds which the Liberty loves so I was keen to show off what it could do. Here at Jack London the stage was set with this excellent 15 knot breeze blowing along the length of the outer pontoon, inside which was a small marina packed with exhibiting yachts. So while Bob took visitors out for a ride I’d head out in the Liberty, turn and come in on a very tight reach angled into the pontoon at full speed heeling to 45 degrees. As we were about to crash I’d throw over the joystick going about so sharply that the mainmast would sweep low in an arc just clearing the heads of the spectators.

After a few runs at this I’d come alongside as there would be a suitably impressed sailor wanting a go. This went well, until one pretender freaked out at the extreme angle of heel and in panic was trying to get up out of the cockpit to hike on the gunwale. He felt trapped, the boat was rolling over for an imminent capsize and dunking.

But that was just panic for the more the boat heeled the more righting moment she created. All you had to do was enjoy the moment, let it heel, don’t fight it, lean over with it. Eventually I got him to ease the sheets and come alongside so he could escape. From then on I took the sailors seriously if they had any doubts about their capacity to tame this wild beast.

When the show was over Bob and I packed up the boats and took them back to the big shed at Pier 40 where BAADS was based, next door to the San Francisco Giants baseball stadium. It had been a quick short trip, a successful boat show, but importantly our van and boats were now back on the West Coast and ready for our next cruise planned for barely a month away.

***

Cruise 9. May 17 2002. San Diego to Seattle and the Pacific NW Access Championship.

Cruise 9 was a holiday, a 27 day tourist drive from San Francisco up to  Coeur d’Alene just over the Washington state/Idaho border, across to Seattle, then down the coast road towards San Fran, veering left to Sacramento, then back west to San Francisco.

The next leg was down the scenic coast road through Monterey, Big Sur, and Santa Barbara to LA, then down to San Diego close to the Mexican border. Then it was back to SF, a demo and meeting, pack up the rig, next day take the flight back to Sydney via LA.

On Cruise 9 we covered a few thousand kilometres, did 17 sailing demonstrations and meetings over 27 days. It was great, we were dealing with the right people and the USA was taking shape. Unsurprisingly, progressive California was very receptive and we were on a roll, but it doesn’t take much to derail a train, or a fledgling movement like ours.   Sadly that’s what happened to us and Cruise 9 turned out to be the last run with our gutsy little RV.

***

We flew out of Melbourne on a Friday arriving SF at 12.30 PM with a rigging demonstration scheduled for 17.30 later that afternoon with the team at Treasure Island. TI is an interesting place as it was man made in the 1930’s for the 1939 Golden Gate International Expo. It stands on a shoal to the north of Yerba Buena Island which is about midway across the 7 kilometre long Bay Bridge which spans between San Fran and Oakland. The bridge traffic passes though the worlds biggest diameter bored tunnel, because it’s a double decker bridge. I’ve said it before, everything in America is BIG.

TI has served as a naval base, a training and staging post for the Pacific wars, and airstrip and port for the PanAm flying clippers among others. When we were there in 2002 it was being transformed into San Francisco’s most Liveable suburb and the marina was planned, since constructed in the cove formed by the short causeway joining TI to the 100 metre high Yerba Buena Island.

So the TI sailing club was in early development, a yard surrounded by chain wire fencing with shipping containers standing in for future buildings. We used to park our trailer there. On this day Jackie and I were there for a rigging demonstration, a bit weary and jet lagged but we managed and got back to Herb Meyers house in Larkspur just over the Golden Gate Bridge for a nights rest. We slept on a mattress in the lounge room at Herb’s as we saved where we could being a tiny organisation with a tiny budget.

Next morning we were on the road over the Richmond Bridge onto i80 which put us on i5 heading for Redding in hilly Nth California, 5.5 hours away. There we stayed with our friend Mike Strahl of Hobie Trapseat fame.

Everywhere we stoped we were listening and evaluating the locals needs, imparting ideas and demonstrating what we had to offer. As we have always said, we don’t sell anything, if people buy our boats it’s because they will full-fill a need, and they want them. If we see it’s not going to work for them we say so.

Next day we continued on i5 to Eugene in Portland. This is a 7.5 hour drive if you don’t stop, so we’d take a bit longer as we could pull into a rest area or truck stop to eat and sleep, as long as we were at our next appointment on time. So generally we’d cover the miles and get close. But we were heading for a lake in a public park so why not camp at the waters edge. No that’s not a good plan, it’s safer to be nestle in between those king size RV’s, buses or trucks and fly under the bad guys radar.

In Eugene we met with disability service providers on a misty morning at Fern Ridge Reservoir, so no waves or current. If these places are for irrigation then there’s usually a floating pontoon, but it’s it’s for recreation the water level is more constant, so there can be a wooden fixed jetty, made of Douglas Fir, which in Australia we call Oregon.

So here we were in Oregon launching a boat and coming along side a well seasoned low freeboard Oregon jetty with an old time toe rail or hitching rail running its full length. You don’t see this often, it’s been lost, but full length 4” x 2” lumber planks coach bolted down at 1 yard intervals through 6” blocks of the same timber elevating the toe rail and creating a full length mooring rope tie rail as well.

Further on the upside this prevents someone driving their wheelchair over the side, the downside is inconvenient to “bum” over when you need to sit and slide over into your boat, and in the mind of paranoid bureaucrats and risk averse designers it’s a trip hazard. But that’s what Fern Ridge Reservoir had and I loved it.

Our next appointment was at Coeur d’Alene in Idaho so we continued north on i5 through Oregon’s capital of Portland where we took i84 heading west, then turned north, crossed the mighty Columbia River (how big American is that) into Washington then up the old US highways 730 and 395 to T the i90, the northern most of the cross nation east/west interstate highways. Our destination was just across the border in Idaho.

Coeur d’Alene is a beautiful place which looks and sounds like an elevated tourist town, sounds French, but it’s named after the Coeur d’Alene people, a Native American tribe who live along the rivers and lakes of the region. They were hunter gatherers who followed seasonal cycles, practicing subsistence hunting, fishing and foraging, according to Wikipedia.

Today it is a tourist resort town and we were here to meet Miles Moore, a very energetic budding entrepreneur who wanted to add accessible sailing to the areas attractions. It was good for us to meet Miles and Corine his wife as they were righteous Mormons and he was fighting hard using all his imaginative resources to protect and secure the families future.

Miles had established SAIL, (self awareness in leisure), and we were here with a few more boats to help Miles run the Pacific NW Access Championships.

The event report published in our June 2002 Telltales newsletter began with the following paragraph: From all indications the first ever Access Dinghy Championships in the Pacific North West and the first Access Dinghy only event west of the Mississippi River w as a tremendous success. Initially only four people signed up for this event, but due to coverage by the local TV station (Q6), and newspaper coverage (Spokesman Review) the response to the event was overwhelming.

We arrived to find Miles had lined up a breakfast time live cross interviews and sailing demo with Q6 on Coeur d’ Alene Lake in front of the city. So next morning we were down there early setting up, with a spot of difficulty I recall as we didn’t have a floating pontoon to work from. But all went well and Miles showed himself to be a natural entrepreneur.

The event also went well and was a welcome rest for Jackie and me. Present was our friend from “Footloose”, the program in Seattle. Denis Hanna who had helped me back in 2000 to unload our trailer from the shipping container, get it registered and road ready, and source all the material to build in the interior to turn our empty cargo van into a mini RV.

Denis was our race officer and starter, but was also our nighttime security guard as he had parked his much loved silver Airstream caravan under the trees by our launch ramp on Lake Pend Oreille. So thank you Denis for all your support.

High country lake sailing in very deep, crystal clear water, surrounded by tall timber and high mountains, with fish rising, reflections and morning mist can be a mystical experience. We could relax and made the most of it as we would be away soon enough on the very busy drive down to the Mexican border.

***

We left for Seattle the morning after and stayed at the home of friend Bob Ewing the co-founder of Footloose Sailing Association. Bob lives on Mercer Island, across which runs i5 which we take to begin the journey. We could only stay a day but had to squeeze in a sailing demo at Sail Sand Point which bills itself as Seattle’s Community Sailing Centre – spelt centre in America.

Sail Sand Point is located on land previously a naval base which was deactivated in 1970. A large portion was donated to the City of Seattle in 1975, and renamed Magnuson Park. Much of this was developed as parkland which has since been redeveloped into Sand Point, a community housing suburb of Seattle. This is a remarkably similar story to that of Treasure Island in the middle of San Francisco Bay.

To reinforce the similarlity, a Community Sailing Centre has managed to establish itself on the waterfront in ex naval sheds, expensive and sought after territory, and therefore in a very politically charged environment. A few years earlier I went there with Bob for a public meeting where the inaugural Sail Point Committee were jostling with all the vested interests who were trying to swing things their way.

We know that our boats are perfect as an introductory craft at a Sailing Centre like this with its deep water and floating pontoon, with the added bonus that they can be handled by the most diverse cohorts of people, including those with very severe disabilities. You might get rapport with instructors and office staff, but that’s how far it goes as the top guys have relationships and connection with the industry. So in that environment we don’t stand a chance as all those powerful pleasure boat industry suppliers have it all sewn up. Plus they will use American made sailboats not something from Australia. But it’s enlightening to be there and watch and listen to it unfold.

As a reminder, the difference between a yacht or sailing club is they are generally a club for sailboat owning members, while community sailing clubs own their own boats and provide access to sailing to the non boat owning public.

***

From Seattle we wanted to take the scenic coastal route as we’d been up and down the express i5 several times. American highway diversity ranges from, 1.Major Freeways – like the national interstate system and of similar quality, Major Tollways. 2.Other Multilane Highways. 3.Principal Highways. 4.Other Through Highways. 5.Other Roads where conditions vary so local enquiry suggested. 6.Unpaved Roads – conditions vary, local enquiry suggested.

These can be either – 1.Interstate Highways System. 2.Tollways. 3.Old US Highway System. 4.State Highways. 5.Secondary State and County Highways. 6.County Trunk Highways.

All those roads are pretty good and we are happy cruising on any of them, except we’d try to avoid those unpaved. The question is how much time did we have for this drive down the coast? From Portland to Sacramento is 1368 km (850 miles) and 18 hours driving time. Straight down i5 it’s 1022 km (630 miles) and 9.5 hours driving time.  That’s 1/3 longer distance down the coast, but twice the time, caused by the need for slower speed through dozens of cities and towns, and of course the bends.

The coastal route is designated US Highway 101 so should be as good, possibly better than the single lane highways we use in Australia. We had allowed 2 days, we could always drive into the night, or we could cut across anywhere to i5 if we had to. So we gave it a go.

From Bob’s house on Mercer Island the first leg south is too easy. Drive north one mile, enter the on-ramp of westbound i90 which T bones i5 in about 4 miles. As you cross the 2 mile long pontoon bridge (second longest in America), look south if it’s a clear day to get a great view of snow covered Mount Rainier, a 4400m active stratovolcano rising above the Cascade Range. On the other side of the bridge you curve left to join the i5 heading south.

We chose the express route down through Washington as the adjacent coast road was disjointed so would cost too much time. i5 took us across the border to Portland where we veered right onto State Highway 99 heading south west to the coast near Lincoln City.

This drive down 101 deserves a casual meandering, not a dash like we did. If you love natural, unspoilt, picture perfect scenery, where the background ranges and forest push the winding road to skirt the sea, past beaches, headlands and bays, punctuated by fantastic towns and little cities, often on rivers and ports offering recreational and commercial fishing, and safe haven or refuge for visiting yachts, then for you this is the most rewarding drive in the world.

But stunning natural beauty is not all the coastal strip has to offer. The communities, towns and cities all have their stories, Native American Culture, museums, B&B’s, budget housing, fresh food. And of course, the usual hotel chains, fast food and casinos.

But what an exciting drive, because you never knew what was around the next corner. Sadly we only stopped briefly for fuel and food, so we sort of missed it, which is a regret, as unfortunately we are now beyond returning to drive it again.

***

The coastal drive on Highway 101 had brought us down through Oregon and Northern California to the city of Eureka where it leaves the coast and grows into a multilane highway. So we followed this away from the coast for 250k’s where we veered left at Calpella. We needed to get on i5 as our next appointment was at Camanche Reservoir about midway between Stockton and the famous Wild West gold mining town of Sutter Creek.

Camanche is a great place to sail with a sheltered marina and lakeside accessible accomodation within the park. Our little mobile fleet was augmented with boats from Stockton, sponsored by the Tradewinds Foundation and managed by our friend Fred Hess. We stayed there 3 nights and with the enhanced fleet organised a mini regatta as well as took dozens of locals out sailing and entertained the media.

From Camanche we moved to Stockton to give a presentation to service providers and council people with a sailing demonstration on the canal in the heart of the city. This waterway is the end of the Stockton Deep Water Channel which carries small ships to the Port of Stockton. That evening we drove the 2.5 hours back to Larkspur and Herb’s house with our mattress on the lounge room floor. It had been another long day, particularly for Jackie who has MS.

We stayed 2 days, repaired things, washed clothes, then after that “day off” we drove to Lake Merritt, a lagoon in the centre of Oakland. Fifty years on, Oakland still shows it hasn’t shaken off it’s role as a home base of the 60’s Counter Culture Movement. Hippie, Anti Vietnam War, Flower Power. LSD.

“If your going to San Francisco be sure to wear flowers in your hair”. That song was written in 1967 and used to promote the Monterey International Pop Music Festival which marked a turning point for the world as it launched the public careers of Hendrix, Joplin, Ravi Shanka, the Who and Ottis Redding, and created the template for the modern music festivals to follow. We would pass through Monterey a few days later on the next leg of our West Coastal tour heading south towards LA, this time on US Highway 1.

At Lake Merritt we took many people sailing, and next day returned for an appointment with the harbour master. That meant we had an afternoon off, but would be away early next morning on the 8 day excursion down to San Diego and back with 5 appointments scheduled.

In Australia we know about long distance driving, where the land area is big at 7.7 million square km with only 25 million people. So there’s long distances and sparse traffic on the roads between the centralised cities and towns. For me it’s relaxing, invokes a trance like state where the control is to stay to the left of the blurred white line down the centre. It’s the perfect scenario for visualising those elusive universal design solutions.

Plus they only started polluting the Australia, digging mines, building roads and solid structures round 220 years ago when the white man arrived, or if you prefer the First Nations Peoples perspective, Invaded Australia. So there’s still plenty of open space and clean air for relaxed highway driving. At night and outback you are often the only car on the road.

Compare that to the USA with 330 million people on just 25% more land than Australia, so it’s far more congested, where the scale of everything seems to be so much bigger. Take the North to Central East Coast, from Maine to Virginia its one long urban sprawl. While on the West Coast it’s not so bad as the states combined population (Cal, Ore, Wash) is only 50 million.

While over on its northern coast is the picturesque highway 101, out of the mainstream but still very accessible. What makes 101 special is its string of cities and towns, like pearls on a necklace, have been manicured and pruned, to blend in, even complement the pristine natural beauty between them. You can feel their desire for perfection.

 ***

Next day we headed South, again down the coastal road, stopping first at Santa Cruz where we met with Barry Barrett who built the range of Ultimate Yachts. We were always looking for a US builder for our boats, so had arranged to meet with Barry to discuss the quirks of the US sailboat industry and our options.

At the Jack London Boat Show we where all treated each day to one of Barry’s performance drop keelers (Ultimate 20 ?) planing at speed past the venue pontoons in the brisk breeze funnelling through the canal.

Next stop was Watsonville to stay the night and meet with Randy Repass, founder of West Marine and board member of Sail America. I even got to go on West Marine’s Staff Friday afternoon sail aboard their comfortable 40 footer.

We were back on the road next day, past Monterey and Big Sur on one of the worlds most iconic coastal drives. In places the road is pushed right to the rocks, sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and the Santa Lucia Range. Our next stop was at the Santa Barbara Maritine Museum, then on to LA where we planned to stay for a couple of nights.

We took the next day easy, a “day off’ and drove around LA’s outer eastern suburbs searching for small lakes suitable for a sailing program.  Next morning we had a meeting with Frank Butler the ageing owner and founder of Catalina Yachts, after that we took off for San Diego 2 hours drive South. SD is only 10 miles short of the Mex border.

In San Diego we met again with Glen Brandenburg, the father of US contemporary community sailing centres, then turned our van around and drove the 800 kilometres back to San Francisco where the following day we had a meeting at South Beach Yacht Club. The last event on this West Coast Cruise.

And that was it, a pretty hectic holiday, twice driving the length and breadth of the USA west coast states. We had an evening and a few hours next morning to pack away our mini RV and trailer before heading to SF airport for the flight via LA back to Sydney. Cruise 9 turned out to be our last together driving the US Highways, but it was one of our best.

***

Back in Australia from 2002 to 04 we were busy perfecting the Liberty and soon the powerful SKUD 18 would take over. So it wasn’t till 2004 that I could get back for Cruise 10, this time it was all by air, fly in fly out, for the 5th North American Access Dinghy Championships in Erie. But all the while momentum had been building, the movement was growing, and we were busy elsewhere so thought we could take a backseat. Here are 4 highlights from those years.

March 2002. Award for Sailability Florida.

By Alder Allensworth, President Sailability USA and Sailability Florida.

We begin with a quote by Margaret Meade. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has”

“The Community Sailing Council of US Sailing awarded the Clearwater Community Sailing Centre the “Outstanding Ned Program “ Award for Sailability Florida disabled sailing program. We were nominated for this award by the Sailors With Special Needs Committee, and won it over all the other new community sailing programs across the country.

This award exemplifies what a community can do when it joins together for the sole purpose of benefiting all of its citizens. I am very proud to be a part of a community that has done so much in such a short period of time to make sailing accessible to everyone.

September 2002. Baltimore. 3rd North American Championships.

In September 2002 was the 3rd North American Access Dinghy Championships sailed at Baltimore’s Downtown Sailing Centre. I’ll quote here from our “Telltales“ newsletter the story by Kirk Culbertson, Executive Director of DSC.

“I Martin O’Malley, Mayor of Baltimore set the scene for a great weekend’s sailing with the following proclamation – I Martin O’Malley, Mayor of the City of Baltimore do hereby proclaim , September 20, 2002 as “The 2002 Access Dinghy Championship Regatta Day” in Baltimore, and do urge all citizens to join in the celebration”.

Racing on Saturday and Sunday began in light air but by noon the breeze was a nice 10 knots – perfect for DSC’s fleet of 11 Access 303’s. Competition was tough with aggressively contested starting lines and multiple boat mark rounding. The racers demonstrated that 303’s are not just colourful toys! The provide smart handling, easy to control sailing platform that allows tactile to determine the results.

This event was one of the greatest highlights of my long association with the DSC. Like many events at DSC, some things go planned late, but the job got done. It might have been bigger but it Puls the have been better. Thanks to all of the unsung heroes that made it the Percival event that it became. With such volunteers, there will always be “Sailing for Everyone” at the DSC”

There were 3 divisions, Accessible Solo, Accessible Team (doubles), and Open. Two names stand out in the Solo division. Gold went to Jim Thweet of San Francisco / Treasure Island SC / BAADS, and Silver went to Carwile Leroy, then a member of DSC, but who moved to California. Twenty years later both these guys continue to compete in Hansa events and Travel the world to our Regional and World Championship.

Clearwater 2003. 4th North American Championships.

“This 3 day event was sponsored by Sailability Greater Tampa Bay Inc and held at the Clearwater Community Sailing Centre, October 17 to 19, 2003. It was Chamber of Commerce weather for the entire regatta, sunny in the 80’s and nice breezes. Gene Hinkel was Primary Race Officer.

There were 28 sailors participating. The youngest 12 and the oldest 87. We had a Sip & Puff sailor competing against able-bodied and winning. The national champion was Bryant from Miami sailing a 2.3. The 303 Champion was Chris Atkin from GBR. The Encouragement Award was given to Brandon Cardenas and Ernest Winegardnr of NaplesFlorida. The Sportsmanship trophy was given to Zac Ackley.

This was an outstanding regatta in many respects but what shines out, is the success and capabilities of sailors using servo assist controls. Young Bryant Amastha from Shake-A-Leg Miami became the North American Access Dinghy Champion sailing servo assist.

***

Cruise 10. June 18, 2004.  Erie. 5th North American Access Dinghy Championships.

Erie is a Port with a rich maritime history on the eastern side of Lake Erie in Pennsylvania. It’s a tidy little city that had the foresight to fund and construct the Bayfront Maritime Centre, one of the most impressive maritime education and sailing centres in the USA. The new building was still being fitted out when I visited in 2004.

I arrived a day express the event as Fred Hess was competing and his muscular dystrophy was well advanced, his only effective moving part was his right hand for steering and a left finger could control the sails. You can see there the importance of fixing his body position, because if his hand moved he would loose contact with his joysticks. So a way around this can be to mount the joystick’s enclosure to a plate and strap that plate to his wrist. To make this work Fred’s trunk needed to be held securely and not move, even has his Liberty punched to windward through lumpy waves while heeling as 45 degrees. That’s easy to achieve, it just takes a little time. Trial and error.

We only had 2 Liberty there in Erie, Fred sailed one I sailed the other. Erie has a small fleet of 2.3 and 303, we had the 8 x 303 fleet from Baltimore, and a few others from around the region.

The Maritime Centre is on an inner basin approx 100 metres x 300, enough to set a course as it was blowing hard outside. This style of short course racing might be frowned on by sailing purists, but it brings the start and finish lines close to the spectators, and change over time is reduced to minutes. It was most impressive to see all those blazing colour sails little sailboats On the day I couldn’t get my Liberty to go no matter what I tried.

I’ve seen that several times, like in an earlier chapter there’s a gent on board my keelboat whose considering buying the boat, but it behaves like a dog, until he gets off, then away it goes. It’s got a mind of its own is a well used expression, but that’s not the ultimate answer.

Anyway Fred beat me resoundingly, which had the great outcome of bashing my ego which one’s little self doesn’t like, and inspiring in Fred an enormous joy and new purpose in life. He wrote a thank you note to me after the event, for Jackie’s “Telltales” newsletter. It’s a bit over the top but even toned down shows what a great equaliser sailing can be. Fred used to own a marina and the greatest on water love of his life was sailing which had been taken away. Imagine the joy when you discover its back, and you are again in control and winning.

“Dear Chris

I can’t thank you enough for the tremendous amount of effort and help you gave me to get me properly fitted in your Liberty, and then let me go out and thrash you. I really think that what happened was absolute magic and a watershed event. Disabled sailors, even very seriously disabled can now sail equally against able – bodied thanks to you and your incredible little boat. Unless you were just absolutely sand bagging me, it seemed like I was able to compete against you on all points of sail, even downwind with a weight disadvantage.

The whole two days were absolutely incredible for me, and I am totally grateful to you. It has been 30 years since I have been racing dinghies, and the feeling of joy and achievement was so overwhelming to me that I was simply unable to peak at the awards ceremony to adequately express my appreciation to you and everyone who had come to help me and cheer me on. I was crying with tears of joy and happiness. It IS possible now for many of us seriously disabled sailors to race.

My new goals are to attend every Liberty Worlds if I possibly can, and to build towards a campaign to go to Beijing 2008. You have given me a new life. My gratitude is beyond words, and I am so choked up even now trying to express my feelings to you that I am having a lot of difficulty with my voice recognition dictation system! So enough already! THANKS MATE!!

***

What Fred was really saying is what a fantastic little sailboat is the Liberty. And no I wasn’t “sandbagging” or deliberately letting him win, as I just couldn’t get my boat to go.

As it turned out the Liberty was not chosen for the 2008 Paralympics, they opted for a Two Person discipline instead, to which we responded with our SKUD 18 and won. Fred’s story is a timely place to end our exploration of  the USA as it was my last trip to the USA till 2007 for the SKUD 18’s inaugural IFDS World Championship and the first of the 2 Paralympic qualifying events.

***

With that 10th US cruise behind us it was like the end of a journey, the end of a chapter. It was always a battle to keep up the van’s registration as it needed a home linked to an address in a state that allowed auto insurance for foreign driving license holders. Arizona was one, Virginia another, California was not, so when our van’s Virginia rego ran out we had to move it before it became stranded, unable to drive on California roads, uninsurable, so unable to be registered in our name. The US may be called the land of the free, but with 50 independent insular states it’s a contradiction jammed up with constricting rules.

So Jack came to Herb’s for the keys and took our rig back to Phoenix, coincidentally where the 4 year, 10 cruise epic had started. It marked the end of our US adventures and soon after the structure we thought was secure began to unravel, and collapsed. We let it collapse as we were not in a position to prop it up and rebuild as we were entering a new cycle, centred on our SKUD 18 being selected as the equipment for Paralympic’s  new 2 person discipline.

So one book closed as another one opened. But it was sad as it appeared the stage had been set to build a network of Sailability clubs across the nation, and incredibly clubs with a sailing for everyone ethos. Sailability, was a registered 501(C)3 tax exempt charity, Debby was building up her contacts for her role as Sailability’s salaried coordinator, Bruce had provided business support and office space in Naples, he also had serious contacts with major sponsors in the wings.

It’s exciting how networks grow, how you gather a following, particularly for a social misfit like me. So for a start we need to acknowledge Jackie’s role in all this as she, a mother with social skills was our connection to the world of people.

There were 2 network threads that kicked us off in the USA. First was Herb Meyer who led us to Florida for the US Sailing Community Sailing Conference, and to BAADS in SF where Herb lived. Second was Alistair Murray, the CEO of Ronstan the Melbourne Australia sailboat fitting’s manufacturer who had set up the USA market for Ronstan products.

Alistair is a charismatic entrepreneur so had many influential sailing industry connections who together had organised a series of “Sailing Summits” at which we were presenters. The first summit was in Geelong near Melbourne in 2000, where 7 delegates, primed by Alistair, sponsored a container of boats for the establishment of Sailability Hellas, in Greece.  The second sailing summit was in 2001 in Lisbon on the side of the annual ISAF conference, mentioned at the end of Cruise 7.

One of the Sailing Summit’s drivers was Randy Repass the founder of West Marine, the worlds biggest pleasure boating equipment retailer which has branches in every USA state. This thread ran to Sail America and its “Strictly Sail” boat shows. In Naples Florida we had met financier Bruce Conley who  lived in Wisconsin in the northern summer and had connections to serious Great Lakes sponsors including the Harken brothers. We were on a roll it appeared, but just as easily as all the doors had opened on our way up, it even more efficiently came crashing down.

At a meeting of SUSA (the Sailability USA acronym), the chairperson Alder, whose residential address was the registered office of SUSA, and board member Herb decided that Debby should not be the SUSA paid coordinator. With Debby out of the job I received an email from Bruce saying “I think that SUSA is fatally poisoned”. And so it was, we were in no position to step back in and resurrect it as our full attention was required elsewhere to establish our SKUD in its Paralympic role. Debby went on to set up the “Freedom Waters Foundation” and SUSA retreated from its grand plans to its single branch at Alder’s Sailability Clearwater.

The 3 elements of a successful sustainable sailing organisation are Manufacturing to supply the equipment, Programs which use the boats, and a Class Association which represents the sailors and owners and connects them with the World Sailing network and the rules of racing.

We had all these in place in the USA with a very efficient and working import and distribution structure which conformed with US Coast Guard regulations. SUSA was the start of our Programs network with a growing number of Community Sailing Club coming on board, and we had already hosted 5 annual North American Championships sanctioned by US Sailing. So our 3 Classes were linked into the national mainstream and internationally for global competition. So it was a shame to have come so far, to have established all the infrastructure for it all come crashing down.

With that our USA dream, the vision had reached its end. We had tried to impose a model which worked elsewhere in the world, but the USA is as its name suggests, a grouping of 50 independent states, each with its own character and laws, united as a nation under its federally enshrined extreme capitalist libertarian banner. Meaning free market trading, individual freedom to choose, which fosters an entrepreneurial spirit, but with a very poor safety net for those who fail. A system which discourages the unpaid volunteering which our Sailability model relied on.   

That’s not to say we had failed or it was in some way someone’s fault as life is a journey, the vision is the place where you like to think you are going, but the journey there is a series of learning experiences which make up the play.  When the show is over the vision fades leaving the time line of memories in its wake, while everyone involved grows older, for some the purpose of the journey was not just to survive, to pass time, but to learn and come out of it wiser.

An ending like this is not by chance as it’s timing and purpose are eventually revealed to signal the end of a chapter, there were important lessons in the manner of the ending, with questions asked why it stopped there and didn’t follow through with the vision. You ponder these questions though you are now heading off on a tangent and focused elsewhere. For us that was the SKUD and the Paralympics.

***

When we established the International Hansa Class Association and our classes were recognised by World Sailing we divided the world into 3 Regions. Asia Pacific, the Americas which cover North, South, Central America, the Caribbean, and Europe. Prior to the WS connection we had organised our American events as the North American Championship, grouping Canada and the USA, as we had very little going on south of the USA southern border.

We had successfully run 5 annual North American Championship events and were planning more when our project came to its abrupt end. So far I’ve only mentioned the internal personality conflicts and individual self interest which fatally poisoned SUSA, but to complete the picture we have to be aware of the politics turning the wheels in the background.

Politics is of course a big driver which has to be managed when building any organisation. You often hear people say their not interested in politics, but that’s not an option if you want to build an organisation involving people. Playing the politics is the art of getting things done, and is exciting to watch as you learn so much about human misbehaviour. It’s also quite transparent if you’re asking the right questions, but best to stay aloof, don’t invest too much emotional capital and don’t try to outdo the powerful players working against you because you’ll most likely loose.

Ours is a story about inward focused MNA’s (US Sailing and the Sail Canada), the influence of coaches, equipment suppliers, even politicians and national heroes. The USA is a very insular nation imagining itself, understandably, to be the centre of the universe. Canada’s different, it’s got a strong sense of national pride and nepotism, maybe because it is ingrained to defend its identity and interests against takeover by its much bigger neighbour.

Politics is often dubbed as being “clever” politics, even though it’s better described as dirty tricks or just short sighted self interest. It played its roll in shutting us out, but in doing so the real losers are North Americans as they are excluded from what enriches many other countries and delights hundreds of thousands of sailors around the world.

But that’s the sad, negative side of human nature which played its role in bringing to an end what we should acknowledge was an impossible dream. In hindsight it’s easy to say it was never gong to work for us for a number of reasons. Like if we had managed to create and hold together a volunteer based network spanning those different states, which accounted back then an estimated 20 percent of the worlds pleasure boat market, the spoils of success would have come too easily. It’s too easy when you have the money to throw at big problems, to bulldoze your way through. In the long run its better to hit hurdles, learn patience, use the time to consolidate what you have as you wait for the doors to open revealing the new path ahead.

Again, if we had succeeded we would have created a national organisation based on altruistic principles at odds with the hard nosed reality which is the USA business model. Which tells us America never did have much space  for us, though there are little fleets and pockets of love for Hansa scattered around the nation.

In marketing terms ours is a niche product. At one level we are seen as disabled sailing which begins to appeal to a society when it has reached a level of wealth and social security. But we always pursue the next level of inclusion, to see beyond the disability, to include disabled people in a more tolerant and accepting world. But that narrows our market even further as that’s a concept the mainstream has difficulty understanding and you can’t change an established culture, as that’s like changing the course of a river which takes far more resources than we could ever muster.

So this attitude of ours has played its part in spoiling many business  opportunities, which we can put down to naivety. Or is it deliberately taking a stand on the principle, to reject sales and marketing as our priority. People buy our boats because they want them, but if their not going to work how they think our responsibility is to tell them.

We don’t use marketing language referring to customers and products, even find reference to our boats as a “product” offensive. You arrive there when you see the true nature of “things” as being made from living material, from the source of life itself, as in the ultimate analysis, that’s all there really is.

It says something that we actually thought we would prevail and could change the world. Kind of arrogant self belief which unfortunately had in its sights a vision of a better world, when the world was, actually still is heading the other way. But that’s what you learn about as you live your way through it.

If we take ourselves back to a seat on the moon we can see just how sick things are down there on planet earth with all those different nations squabbling over the scraps for themselves. They are swirling around chasing their tails, unable to live within their means, way beyond preserving and rationing the finite supply of resources or addressing the waste and pollution piling up in their wake.

Interesting to ponder where it’s all going, or how long can it last?

***

In America’s case we can go back to the end of world war 2 with America eyeing its future, poised for greatness. Much of Europe lay in ruins and needing a rebuild while America was intact, in business and ready to supply. Which it did with gusto generating a financial windfall and a new found confidence. It then set about reinventing and unifying itself by building its Interstate Highway network, linking its mainland states and cities to better facilitate free trade, commerce and cultural exchange. It made America great.

But it seems open and free democracy with unbridled capitalism has its limits which you see when travelling these freeways. The casualty is diversity and balance, it’s lopsided as every truck stop, every shopping centre, every factory retail outlet and fast food restaurant you pass are parts of a corporate chain. From truck stop to truck stop, across state borders, across the length and breadth of the country, big business is obviously in control.

You would think the ideal democratic state, that envisioned by the “free world” as it reinvented and rebuilt itself, would be there for all its people, not just the lucky few. It would be progressive, tolerant, welcoming, with government, industry and unions working together to secure its future and an adequate living wage for all, including its workers. Globally there would be variations along that theme depending on each nation’s experience and cultural heritage.

It may have started out with that as the dream but there are always power brokers pushing buttons and pulling strings as they try to improve the lot for themselves and their factional cohort. That seems to be human nature. People look out for themselves and aren’t interested in the much bigger picture. Some nations manage to stay on course towards the original goal, but in others things change as complacency and absence of rules allows capital and greed to take control and more than their share of available resources. It’s all done in the name of freedom of choice, get the nanny state out of the way, stop telling people how to live and what to do. It’s the Trickle Down Theory, encourage business to prosper and wealth will trickle down to the workers.

But it now seems obvious, even automatic that when you remove regulations people with spare capital will invest in the stock market, but instead of paying out dividends to shareholders corporations invest in share buybacks and acquisitions, so diversity shrinks as commerce is controlled by fewer and bigger players.

This is what you see as you traverse the US interstate freeways. It looks like the country is run by cartels and monopolies which have increased their share of the pie at the expense of those who actually produce stuff and do constructive things. The whole structure ends up controlled by over compensated bankers and bean counters, who in the natural world would be classified as parasites. That’s too harsh, maybe “opportunist” is kinder.

In 2018 in wealthy Michigan outside a McDonald’s junk food outlet was a sign – Wanted store manager $12 an hour. We are told America is the land of opportunity but there must be a lot of struggling people bouncing along the bottom, trapped and desperate in that cheap labour grave.

You don’t make things great by causing division and argument, but that seems what capitalism and liberal democracy eventually does, as over time it neatly corrals society into two warring halves. No their not halves as capital automatically moves to fewer and bigger corporations as they buy out each other, paying their select people more and more, leaving the scraps for the growing powerless mass who have less, and less, more and more with nothing.

In America in the early twenty first century it degenerated into a limp Democrats Party backed by the traditional middle ground media, accused of being pedlars of fake news by the Cult of Donald Trump controlled Republican Party. The greed driven power hungry conservative media led by Murdoch’s Fox News, the real source of fake news lost control of the angry, disillusioned social media mob it had marshalled and given voice to. It ends up a divided society heading for armed conflict, even a civil war.

It appears then that as you deregulate democracy, under the guise of giving people more freedom to choose, you are actually transferring resources and power over to those who already have more than their fair share, so society progressively polarises which eventually leads to basket case status and anarchy. Well that’s where it seems to be going.

***

There are man made laws we need to obey to maintain an orderly society, then there are moral and ethical rules, or more correctly they are (man’s) mind made rules which ethicists and religions put forward. Then there are 5 principles that it pays to also be aware of, called the  Aberrations of Mind. It’s where an out of control mind will take us if we let it. In the end, as pure consciousness we all have total free will to do as we please, so these are the consequences of allowing mind to control our actions.

Really it’s just common sense, moderation is key, like don’t be greedy as there is no need, don’t lust after other people property, it’s there’s not yours, don’t get angry, avoid vanity, and don’t get overly attached to and love material things. If mind isn’t kept in check and allowed to pursue its desires it will draw you into its web and entrap you. Once ingrained it’s habits can be impossible to break.

But a simple principle to live by which helps keep us in the clear is don’t do things which impact negatively on others. Which says don’t focus on yourself, consider others needs before you act, don’t be selfish.

We all know that if we behave contrary to society’s laws eventually we will get busted and punished. If we don’t control mind’s aberrations something similar will happen, but its judicial system is invisible and goes on  unspoken. It’s like an automatic accounting system where positive and negative inputs, produced by our mind’s thoughts and bodily actions  are entered in an etheric ledger, it’s called karma. When it gets way out of balance there will be a reckoning, which I call a balancing act, which is more broadly known as an accident.

We get warnings that things are getting out of balance, which we probably ignore not knowing the cause. Maybe it starts when we sense our usual good luck has run out, and if we are lucky enough to tie events in our life to their real cause we can take remedial action by changing our ways.

Presumably this principle applies equally to an individual, to a community, a nation, as broadly as the globe, to global karma?

There’s a difference between the cause of an action and the mechanism used to enact it. For example, take a so called accident where a car skids off the road and hits a tree. The cause is the behaviour which led to the drivers imbalance. The balancing act, ie the accident, is the mechanism which brings the individuals back towards a sustainable equilibrium. So the mechanism was the skid caused by excessive speed rounding the corner.

But that’s not how modern educated man thinks it works, an accident is defined as a random unrelated event. But spiritually there is no such thing as an accident, look behind it and you will see the cause. So the present is the product of someone’s, or a community’s past decisions.

So we should be able relate those principles to the unraveling of a self indulgent society, as a consequence of the cause. The cause is brought about by the compounding self centred, self indulgent, sometimes debauched, or egotistical, self important behaviours of its citizens, accumulating through thousands of lives, called incarnations.

So here’s a long bow you may think. A society that deregulates itself, advancing unbridled freewill, removing rules and regulations which constrained and discouraged behaviours which bordered on or led to forms of mind aberration, combined with ignorance of karmic laws, is accelerating its own undoing.

But if you don’t give people freedom to make their own choices you deny them a life that leads to mistakes and learning, as that’s the way many of us learn, as I certainly found out.

So a sustainable balanced society, possibly an oxymoron, needs a government which allows both freedom of expression and regulation to control overreach by either side. We have seen how the trickle down theory works in capital’s favour, but if left unchecked, under a sympathetic government labour unions will develop too much power and the pendulum swings to the left.

I say oxymoron because the human mind behind making political decisions is torn between numerous forces. The temptation of corruption is always there just below the surface. It’s a powerful force to secure for yourself, your friends, your electorate, your political party, to buy the support of the police, the military, to win at all cost. The more polarised the politics the more divided the society. That’s exacerbated by mind itself, as it’s programmed to default to the bottom, without a strong moral and ethical uplifting force that’s where it will always go.

So no political system and its civilisation can survive for long unchanged, they all evolve in up and down cycles and eventually unravel. Even the most righteous benevolent dictatorship cannot last long beyond its enlightened founder. The successor, or chain of successors if it’s tail is long are never the founders equal. It has been said the least worst system is a democracy, which could be true as it too is constantly under threat from the destructive downward force of mind.

To complicate matters will be the level of truth on which its mainstream religion is based. All religions are relative truths as will be discussed in chapter 7, so the karmic debt will be compounded if the government enacts laws based on very dubious religious beliefs.

So the age of the white man cannot be understood without an understanding of his Christian religion, it’s inspiration, and it’s foundation in truth. So where on the path from foundation to demolition do you think the USA is today? What about its principle colonial founder and empire builder England. Have you noticed it’s government’s, and citizens bizarre decision making, like Brexit, as it demolishes itself.

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With America the sole global power following the Second World War it led the so called free world to establish a set of rules based on its own success. This encouraged free trade and open markets, which allowed capital to spread what is really a greed based model, and divide the world. That worked well until nations with centrally controlled economies gamed the system, playing the free trade West for fools, and establish themselves as next global superpower.

The advantage the autocratic central controllers have over the free trade  marketeers is they can control all their resources including their dissenting populations by propaganda, coercion and force.

The whole thing comes unstuck when American democracy descends into polarised chaos with both sides using the propaganda tools perfected by the autocratic central controllers.  But America has to lead its global rules based coalition to defend themselves against the similarly armed tyrannical super power states which defy them and ignore the rules.

It’s where we are in the 21st century. There appears no easy solution, and why should there be when the West cast their destiny in the unscrupulous practices of their colonising ancestors. Let’s not forget the theft from, and enslavement of those “primitive “ societies decimated by the Christian colonisers as they built their empires. Unfortunately they probably can’t see the connection as their religious doctrines display a limited understanding of the basic rules of karma.

So the probability is it can only get worse, which is why people should know why it’s like this. Put bluntly, by design, this is a naturally polarised world. Here there will always be at least 2 sides of a story, often there’s  conflict. Today we are well advanced in a cycle and it’s end could get ugly. We are witnessing a change in the world order, from one side to the other.   The old East versus West divide has now morphed into the Rules Based Liberal Democratic States versus the No Rules Autocratic/Dictatorship States, with both sides nuclear armed to the teeth.

The no rules autocratic states are led by Russia and China. China is intent on toppling the democratic government of Taiwan, by force if necessary, while Russia engaged in war with Ukraine which will damage Democratic Europe, cost dearly all those nations supporting Ukraine and deplete Russia itself. This leaves China as the beneficiary which should emerge unscathed as the rising global power,  facing off against a diminished America and its Rules Based Order allies.

China and the West will experience their ups and downs and with every up the Western conservative media pundits will applaud how the tide has turned, but lads, better to hold your fire as the wheel is still turning, and down you will go again.

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One thing we have learned from this chapter is America achieved greatness by uniting itself, a symbol and factor of which was building its network of interstate highways. It didn’t reach greatness by infighting itself into an impotent basket case, which makes a mockery of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” mantra.

Meanwhile from your seat on the moon you see China go by, and as well as its Great Wall, you now see an enormous interstate inter capital city freeway system taken straight from the USA playbook. But the advantage of coming late to the party is you can avoid mistakes and pick up all the latest and proven technology. So China’s nation building transport system also includes a network of intercity very fast trains. 

Here’s a 2022 extract from Wikipedia about the size of the Chinese expressway network. See Wikipedia for the latest updates.

“The expressway network of China, with the national-level expressway system officially known as the National Trunk Highway System, abbreviated to NTHS, is an integrated system of national and provincial-level expressways in China”.

“With the construction of the Shenyang-Dalian Expressway began between the cities of Shenyang and Dalian on 7 June 1984, the Chinese Government took an interest in an expressway system. The first modern at-grade China National Highways is the Shanghai – Jiading Expressway, opened in 1988. The early 1990’s saw the start of the country’s massive plan to upgrade its network of roads.”.

“On 13th January 2005 Zhang Chunxian, China’s Minister of Transport introduced the 7918 network, later renamed the 71118 network, composed of a grid of 7 radial expressways from Beijing, 9 north – south expressways, (increased to 11), and 18 east – west expressways that would form the backbone of the national expressway system”.

“By the end of 2019, the total length of China’s expressway network reached 149,600 kilometres, the worlds largest expressway system by length, having surpassed the overall length of the American Interstellar Highway System in 2011. Planned length is 168,478 kilometres by 2020. Many of the major expressways parallel routes of the older China National Highways”.

If the US Interstate Highway System helped make American great, then China with 4 times the population and the public transport system already 50% longer, if the scale, length and speed of construction of your highways is a tangible measure, there should be no doubt that China could be headed for unprecedented greatness.

The big difference is China is following the US example, but with central govt control. This then compares the performance of two opposing systems, each building similar state owned mega projects.

In the first quarter of the 21st century it’s the Chinese highly regulated Command and Control model, versus the ingenuity of the mid 20th century free wheeling Democratic USA Capitalism. You’d think the Chinese, if they manage to marshal all their ducks in a row, could be about to achieve a significantly impressive result.

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If it’s true for an individual that the best thing you can do for yourself is to help others, does it follow that this principle also applies to a community and even a nation. If so it suggests that social justice and community welfare should be the primary goals of a citizens representative political system.

Capitalism likes to present itself as the best economic management system but unfortunately a democracy will always have its two opposing sides, one leaning left towards community needs, the right believing social benefits stem from a thriving economy.

So in there lies a dilemma for liberal democratic capitalism as it’s instinct is not primarily social justice but about self, what’s in it for me, ownership, that’s mine, the rights of the individual as opposed to what’s best for the community.

Also the polarised argy bargy of democratic politics is very wasteful, and how often are political decisions made with an eye on winning the next election. Plus many decisions will be to benefit the government’s partisan support base, so not necessarily in the national interest.

So what about the centrally controlled authoritarian regimes like is governing China, will they prove more efficient? Probably not as so much of their success is rooted not in inventiveness, but reliant on copying others designs, or intellectual property theft, cheap labour, and artificial community spirit built on propaganda and a nationalism based on retaliation against the west for past humiliations inflicted on China.

Can this command and control system contain the pressure as it’s populace explodes onto the world stage and awakens to the realisation it’s been conned. Luckily for regimes at least half a population are disinterested in public policy matters and their consequences. Or is it’s achilles heel the temptation and waste of corruption, which is symptomatic of an overdose of self interest. Again an apathetic population accept corruption as the norm. One of the job’s perks.

Considering that the default tendency of mind is to enrich itself, a powerful mind will invariably not be able to resist using its power corruptly. Unless they are a truly enlightened person, who is not necessarily the one with the skills to rise to the top of the political pyramid. The one who reaches the top will be someone with political skills, telling half truths, adept at spin, in another profession be branded a cheat, a petty conman.

This is not asking or suggesting one system is better than the other, or a change will foster a more enlightened world as it looks to me like the global trajectory is down, that we might have already lived through as good as it gets.

But of course the future depends on many unpredictable trends, like does the West manage to tame its hard right extremists and stay on a sustainable course? Does China loosen its hold on central control and become more tolerant of dissent? Do the big powers move closer together giving more time to secure man’s peaceful survival? Time is needed to diffuse all those seemingly insurmountable problems caused by climate change, pollution, over population and nuclear proliferation to name a few.

Or are we seeking answers to the wrong questions as we are already in a death spiral. That scenario says the insurmountable problems we see today are actually the karmic balancing acts earned in response to the unscrupulous and outrageous behaviour of the empire building European nations.

So instead of events being accidental in nature they are actually caused by people making choices in violation of laws which penalise selfish and greedy behaviour. So here we see the horse in front towing the cart, but it presumes the existence of a higher power who established those rules.

This may look like an explanation based on a fairly tale, and an oversimplification of a scientifically explainable story if we include the billions of words in the millions of books, theses, papers and articles which record and document how it all works. Well all that may be true, or more correctly relatively true as it’s documenting the complexity of life here in the binary bubble, without the benefit of knowing its original cause.

If your looking on from outside the bubble you’re obviously accepted a version of the fairytale story and that all those everyday events are actually the consequence of the laws of karma at work. All the detail is interesting in itself, but when you can tie it to the cause of what comes next you can join the dots which gives a 360 degree perspective with a less emotional understanding of why it’s all happening.

An advantage of this perspective though is you can pose questions about the future and cause of events which will be answered in due course by what you see playing out on life’s stage, or other tangential events you relate to.

But don’t hold your breath waiting for an answer as it wont come while your mind is busy as it goes about organising the binary bubble detail. Instead the answer will arrive as if by magic from out of the ether after your mind has moved on and the question forgotten.

I realise that’s a concept which cannot be explained in words, it can only be experienced in a clear state of consciousness, unencumbered by a pesky self serving mind. So from this you can see or get a glimpse of how these two levels of awareness are existing side by side here. One being your mind which relates to the time line of events in the binary bubble, and your true self, pure consciousness which exists it an infinite eternity where imagination is real, concepts just are, as they are not tied to a time line.

That concept can’t be understood by mind as its binary in nature, it’s a computer like machine so original imagination, and the power of vision are not in its arsenal of tools.

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