Reached Your Sailing Peak?
Article by Josh Colvin
How’s your sailing biography coming? Will your logbook eventually include that Pacific Ocean crossing, Race to Alaska, or ICW trip you’ve been thinking about forever? What are you waiting for, exactly? Life does sometimes get in the way of our plans.
Robyn Lee Graham of Dove fame was finishing up a 30,600-mile circumnavigation by age 21. Robert Manry, the copy editor from Cleveland, couldn’t manage to get away until he was 47, when he set off across the Atlantic in his 13.5-foot Tinkerbelle. When adventurer Webb Chiles ghosted into San Diego Bay aboard his Moore 24 in April of last year, he’d completed his sixth circumnavigation, at age 77. Sven Yrvind, who has already made several ocean crossings in tiny boats of his own design, set out from Norway again this year at age 81, before his overloaded boat forced him to aim for the Azores and back to the drawing board.
All of this makes me wonder, at what age do our sailing skills peak? Were you a more competent sailor when you were younger and more athletic, or are you still learning and polishing skills as you’ve gotten older but wiser?
They say the best age to learn a second language is eight years old and that brain processing power peaks around age eighteen. But as anyone who’s been around an 18-year-old can attest, peak wisdom takes a little longer—about 50 years longer, in fact, according to a team of psychologists who studied the subject. When it came to things like anticipating change, considering multiple outcomes, and searching for compromise, people between 60 and 90, outperformed every other age group.
There’s certainly no denying the physical advantages of youth—the agility, the balance. Strength is said to peak age 25, where it might remain more or less static for 10 to 15 years. The best marathon runners tend to be around 28 years old. Bones are strongest at age 30.
But what about dealing with tidal currents, sailing racing tactics, or quick thinking in heavy-weather situations? Scientists who studied chess “grand masters” found players typically peaked at around age 31, and research shows 50-year-olds are best at answering arithmetic questions quickly.
Of course, the most important metric is finding joy and satisfaction, whether it’s crossing an ocean or just pottering at the local lake. Studies show “life satisfaction” peaks at age 23. If those days are well astern already, don’t fret, the good news is that after a mid-life dip, life satisfaction has a second peak at age 69, and “psychological well-being” scores highest at age 82. If those days are behind you too, what can I say? Just keep doing what you’re doing. •SCA•
First appeared in issue #127
Interesting article...Just when does an adventurer reach the perfect age to go off and adventure? I married at 21, so I am positive that 21 is not the perfect age to set off on an adventure. Neither is thirty years of age, for that is when I became a parent. Forty through early fifty is not a time to be alone at sea for my parents needed me more than I needed to leave.
It took years of preparing myself to fin contentment to be alone in life and to not depend on others to support my efforts. I left at 59 to single hand a twenty eight foot Morgan Out-Island through the Pacific and back home to Los Angeles. The problem with sailing alone is there is no one to share the event with. Instead I had learned I was really never alone, for God was with me each waypoint of the way. He was there when I imagined I was surrounded by sharks as my ANN MARIE was chased by sixty knot gusts and when I was soaked to the bone on cold nights on the helm during bad weather. He was there when I needed my ten horsepower diesel to run when sea water polluted my diesel fuel. He was there to share the calm after a storm passed over me while I slept on the cabin sole. He is always there with the single sailor because only single handed sailors know they survived when they were not sailing alone. There are too many mistakes made when no one was there to tell the tale to, yet not forgotten to those who traveled alone. Or maybe the tale I told is only told by the lucky ones who traveled alone.
Last week Karen & I, both 82, sailed ten foot four inch Clam Girl the 1st time this year. Floppy winds at 10-15 knots, so began with the double reef that was already in, thinking it would be comfortable to beat south against the current. Tack & tack & tack, barely making it in failing wind as we looked forward to a broad reach return at the top of the tide. Since hurricane Helene oyster islets & mangroves had changed so leeboards crunched unexpectedly & the fully kicked up rudder tried to lift out once! Four knots of vacillating zephyrs said to shake out to full sail.
Old fingers battled the sticky snap hook at the tack, re-hooked it & hoisted the full sail. Oops, of course the clew needed its hook moved. Lowered sail again & Karen fought the snap hook there, too, as we balanced the rolling while ducking below the boom. Full sail gave our best speed of the day, 2.5 knots, sore hands, new bruises, a small cut & aches & pains forgotten.
Twelve foot four inch Octo now inverted on her strongback to glass the outside, will have toggles for tack & clew, & her mizzen should help reefing. Nice, huh?