Did you know that the price of sailboats is more difficult to calculate than the required trajectory of the lunar landing craft? From what I understand, a few very smart African American women figured out the math for the early NASA space missions over a weekend with a calculator and scratch pad. But I have been waiting for a price tag on a new sailboat from a boat manufacturer since October and the math seems to be just too hard to even tell me what a boat might cost if I were to buy five of them for the purpose of filming a television show.
And to make matters more confounding, I have been trying to give away $100, 000 worth of sailboat equipment and a sailboat for the better part of a year, including teaching a novice sailor everything they need to know to navigate the full circumference of the planet and I can't seem to even give it away. I had 21 people apply to take the boat and when it was all said and done, not a single one could get their act together to do the deal.
This is all before the hard work takes place of actually paying for anything, fundraising or lifting a finger at all. I fear that now that the mysteries of the ancient world have been understood, the spirit of adventure has been lost.
When I was calling around to boat manufacturers like Lagoon, Hunter and Beneteau, to ask them if they had the capacity to even sell me five boats, they laughed at me and said they couldn't even dream of filling such an order. It was all I could do to just get them to answer the phone. Only one boat manufacturer in the entire World has the supposed ability to make five boat in a calendar year and they aren't in any rush to tell me what it might cost. It's hard enough to raise the funds for such a project, but I can't even get a price to begin to raise the funds.
The George Washington Bridge in New York City was an engineering marvel of it's time. The builders had to dig into sold bed rock on both the New York and New Jersey sides to anchor the cables for the span that crosses the Hudson River. Millions of cars cross that bridge every year and it is the jugular artery of the Continental United States. But if it was up to this generation to build that bridge today, it never would have gotten done. If our forefathers didn't have the foresight to build that bridge, we would still be using ferries to get 102 Million Cars between NYC and NJ annually.
In truth, were it not for the people that went before us, so many things would never have gotten done like space travel, the polio vaccine and hell even velcro might never have happened.
Apparently, big things scare us as a people now. The reason why YouTube exists, is people love cat videos. But it also exists because people love to live vicariously. Instead of doing stuff themselves, people like to sit passively by and watch others do it for them. Rock Climbing, Sailing, Skiing and Adventuring are all relegated to the brave souls who strap on a go pro and head for the horizon to make internet videos, while the consumers suck up Google ads and make the Google empire wealthy. Those crazy souls hanging off of rock faces don't make any real money for their efforts until they reach a Million viewers. They do it because they love it and love the fact that we watch them.
I'm not saying that we should all lose faith as a Nation, or conversely, that everyone should climb Mount Everest. Too many people are climbing that mountain as it is. But what I am saying is, take the chances and have an adventure. Lets be bolder in who we are and what we aim for as a Nation. Be Brave and Expeditionary. Greatness is only achieved by doing what everyone else thought was not possible. And if we are going to make a show about five teams of sailors doing the Great Loop, we need to have some ambition.
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