Are Tech and Productivity Apps Eliminating Free Time To Go Sailing?
Shouldn’t the Bay Area be the capital of “free time” for sailing? Since the early days of Fairchild Semiconductor’s pioneering development of integrated circuits, the Bay Area has been home to the digital revolution that has made all of our lives so much better. Right? Productivity soared when we all got our own personal computers, and expanded again when Apple put a computer in our pockets and added millions of apps to help us make our days more efficient. So how is it that so few people in the world’s epicenter of digital productivity tools have so little time to go sailing?
We think the Bay Area must have more productivity tools in everyone’s pocket per capita than any other region of the world, so we’d expect the Bay to be covered in sailboats seven days a week. It’s just not the case. The efficiency and marketing miracle of the internet has corresponded with a decline in sailing activity. Are computers the cause of the decline? The Guardian’s recent article offered an interesting perspective on how the early digital pioneers foresaw computers separating us from each other and nature. Any serious conversation on the subject can point to myriad contributing factors, but we can’t help thinking that screen time has distorted our relationship with far too many activities like sailing.
The computer has sped everything up, and most people arrive at their weekend wanting to slow down. Sailing is one of the great ways to do it. Rather than DoorDash your life, it’s nice to amble (“to walk slowly or leisurely; stroll”) down the docks to your boat, slip the dock line, hoist the sails, and head off for a leisurely (“done in a relaxed way, without hurrying”) sail. Distractions disappear, so conversations have more depth and continuity, and the ripples on the water and the flutter of the sails attract an attention that’s impossible to develop at higher speeds. Six knots is just right for a weekend.
Whether it’s Jack Johnson slowing down to make banana pancakes, Jimmy Buffett singing, “Mother, mother ocean, I have heard your call,” or Herman Melville writing in Moby Dick, “Whenever … my hypos get such an upper hand of me … then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can,” sailors find sailing to be an antidote to their life ashore and the digital hyperloop that distracts us from daily pleasure. The many cautionary tales of troubled child actors raised on screen should be a warning. Today we are all child actors and actresses.
While typing these words and showing photos taken with our universal pocket computer, we understand the challenge of disconnecting from the devices that have tethered us to the all-enveloping cloud. We’re fortunate to be reminded daily by stories coming from readers on the Bay, along the coast, and in Mexico and the South Pacific, that we can still choose to sail. Apps might make some of it appear easier, but we think the pleasure begins when you put it all away. The metaverse makes us feel as if we’re all lab rats in a digital maze with no exit, until you find your way to the Bay.
Right now there are boats returning from Hawaii after the Pacific Cup. The Farr 53 Atalanta left from Monterey to sail to Hawaii yesterday. Other boats are sailing from the Northwest on their way to the start of the Baja Ha-Ha. And any of us with access to a boat can head out on the Bay today.
We were proofing a story about the Ha-Ha for the September issue and this paragraph from the author, four-time Ha-Ha vet Mark LeFevers, captured a feeling he gets at sea: “What brings us, and others, back lies in the larger question of why we return to the sea in general. My answer is the rich sensations that sailing and the cruising life fulfill: a return to the joy of the simple rhythms of full-contact living; sunrises and sunsets; meal preparation; reaching into one’s bag of tricks to best meet the challenges of the day; celebrating shared appreciation of the experience.… In short, a microcosm of the collective traits and instincts that brought us here as a species.” (Isn’t it terrible not to be able to read the rest of the story instantly? It will be in the September issue, coming September 1.)
We think there are very few problems that can’t be solved, or at least forgotten for a while, by a day of sailing. The Bay Area remains the world epicenter of digital apps and productivity tools, theoretically designed to make life better. Yet we know Steve Jobs and many tech titans severely limited the time their kids were allowed to be on screen. Can you follow their kids on Instagram? While we certainly wouldn’t deny the many benefits of the digital age, we never forget that all those benefits aren’t worth much if you can’t find time to go sailing.
It really comes down to what one considers “quality time”. Productivity is also dependent on personal values. For me, at a healthy 70 years of age, is actual active time in my life. Sitting in a chair, pushing buttons, sitting in a chair, in Bali, but only due to the goggles, sitting on a chair, theoretically making money on Kalshi, or Fan Duel, where a real assessment reveals that you are only making other people sitting in chairs money, just doesn’t cut it, in the end. In the end, the dude or dudess with the most money or toys is still dead, without having had done a HaHa, Farallones race, brought a boat up to Astoria from Bodega, soloed back from Stockton, or just sailed from the estuary to Angel Island for a picnic.