Coming from a Southern family and having hunted as a child and adult,
and having backpacked the Smokies, I would not want to depend on
a mountain
man scenario for survival during TEOTWAWKI.
I want to walk a bit further with this. Most particularly consideration
of a sailing vessel
and the ocean as a way of survival. I seriously question the
concept of mobility, particularly mobility at sea. I remember Sun
Tzu said something to the effect that "when the army of maneuver
meets the army of the fortress, the army of the fortress generally
looses." But I think that the mobility concept here may be an
exception to what Sun Tzu said. Having sailed since I was 9, and
my first offshore
passage with a friend of my dad's and his son when I was 10, I ve
been drawn to the ocean rather than the golf course. My first and
incidentally most survivable offshore capable boat
was an old converted
ships lifeboat, wooden hull, wooden masts, plow wire for standing
rigging and canvas and cotton for sails. Simple, basic, rough. The
preceding sentence is read in a few seconds and many can visualize
what's written there. But its a little more in depth than that.
The “in depth” goes something like this. With a wooden
hull and plow wire rigging and cotton sails a knowledgeable person
can take a vessel like that and maintain and/or repair her anywhere
in the world given a lot of [time and] luck. Taking
an axe to cut down a tree then a foot adze to rough out a plank,
the
a box
plane and a draw
knife to fine the plank up (bear in mind all of these tools you carry deep
sea
in something that is less than 40 feet on the waterline) and spike
it in to the hull to replace a defective plank. Then
the aforementioned plank is in the hull the same material that the
sails are from , raw cotton is used to caulk the plank periphery
to make the repair watertight. Then its paid or sealed with a
white lead and copper oxide and linseed oil mixture. Or use
the same tools on another tree carefully chosen to be a mast or bowsprit
or gaff or boom. Where of course all of this leads is to the
discipline nay more like way of life of wooden boat building and
seamanship,and being able to survive that way. Or survive any
way--whether on the ocean or a ranch or farm its no different. It
is the same way of life with each of their own peculiarities, for
many different paths of survival but all of them take time
and none are learned in a year or 18 months from a book.
My first and second boats were both wood, the second one was a 42 foot
John G. Alden design, cutter rigged and built in 1936, that I sailed
and lived aboard for 15 years. She was still going deep water and crossing
oceans over 50 years after she was constructed, and still is today.
I remember the first major re-fit I did taking the working sails off
and storing them in my parents basement, (I was a youngster then and
they were still alive and tolerant of an eccentric non-golfing kid)
and the second night of that, going to get the bare minimum (mainsail,
working jib, staysail, a genoa and storm trysail) at 10 PM because
I didn't like the feeling of insecurity--of not being able to
sail out of my slip, sail out of the marina, sail out of the harbor,
and the bay if necessary. My parents did not understand then .I'm not
sure I did completely either. I do much more clearly now.
An offshore vessel departure is something that does not involve just
slipping the lines and leaving the marina. It starts years before
that point in the preparation and continuing maintenance necessary
to prep a small (under 60 feet long) sailing vessel to cross oceans
and more importantly those who sail in her. I think its the same with
a survival retreat. With a boat, each hull material is a complete discipline
in itself. Each way of life (ocean, farm, ranch) is a discipline unto
itself with many interlocking parts. Wood hull with galvanized
plow wire or for that matter the same wire (1 x 7) that the utility
companies use to guy poles, and cotton, flax or canvas sails and manila
line for running rigging is a survivable vessel. More modern more easily
maintainable materials at least now: aluminum(my favorite
hull material hands down) , steel (my second choice)or fiberglass (my
least
favorite)
accompanied by stainless steel running rigging, dacron or carbon fiber
sails and sometimes masts are only maintainable with the society
and level of industrialization that we have now. I was
a navigator in modern
fiberglass boats years ago in Latin America. I tried to replace a
piece of 1 x 19 stainless standing rigging and its fittings on a sailing
vessel. If you want 1 x 7 or 7 x 7 [mild] steel or galvanized rigging,
no problem. However, stainless, dacron sails, synthetic line running
rigging, argon gas for aluminum welding and or the equipment to do
it with, then forget it. That pretty fiberglass (barrels of
oil for resin and glass fibre cloth) production boat is repairable
these days
on
the shores of the
industrialized countries, but in the third or fourth world
it won't happen. Post-TEOTWAWKI it won't happen, either. Post-TEOTWAWKI,
what the h**l are you gonna do with a refrigerator with a TV in the
door? Post-TEOTWAWKI you will find families who build boats out of
wood and galvanized steel and so forth and have been doing so for generations.
Primitive but effective .That pretty GPS chart
plotter you carry
and its backup--and
for that matter all of your onboard electronics and electrical may
be a victim of EMP.
The navigational gear may be a victim of the vulnerability of the GPS
satellite constellation going down due either to EMP (unlikely
to get them all in high orbit with one shot) or lack of ground correction
of satellite position due to orbital perturbations. Interesting concept.
How many carry paper charts. How many can do the old lunar distance
sights and calculations to determine with reasonable accuracy, the
correct time to determine one's longitude a.k.a. Joshua Slocum (remember
the EMP? WWV and WWVH probably along with CHU and a host of other
time stations are off the air either temporarily or maybe for good
along with,--depending on your luck quotient--most or all of your onboard
electronics, particularly in a wood or fiberglass
hull. And for that matter how many carry a sextant and the tables
(HO 214,
219, 229 or
249) to reduce the sun, moon and star sights you take or even better
yet found a 1920s-era copy of Nathaniel Bowditch's “The
American Practical Navigator” to learn the spherical trigonometry to reduce
the sights without tables?
This brings up another point: Carrying firearms is a sensitive
business because many , if not most foreign governments are
mildly nervous about this practice unless you
are a commercially documented
vessel, have a bonded stores area in the vessel where you can lock
up tobacco, spirits and firearms when in port. (The most likely time
the firearms are going to be needed is in harbor) and the customs agent
can come aboard and seal that locker. And in TEOTWAWKI there is
no guarantee that pratique procedures in a foreign country are going
to be followed. There is also always the possibility that at sea,
you well may be outgunned and at sailing vessel speeds (maybe 7 knots,
which is about 9 mph ) you can't run away. And there you cannot bug
out to a pre-cached position either.
When I was younger and had my Alden I lived alongshore in the Gulf
of Mexico. A group of us all live-aboards (in those days we were
rare and a close knit community) used to sand table what it would be
like if the balloon went up. The most likely scenario we envisioned
was a limited nuclear strike on the CONUS. Consider if one will being
alongshore in the Northern Gulf of Mexico and what it would take to
get “away” provided
one survived the first strike. And we lived the life (many of us
did with a minimum of 60 days dry stores aboard) and walked the walk,
always
prepped for sea (not an easy thing to do.) Figure say from Mobile,
Alabama to get out of the Gulf of Mexico basin where one would be deep
sea, the closest being the Southern littoral of the North Atlantic
Ocean
would take a minimum of 7-to-8 days on
a vessel with a 40 foot waterline length. (Considering that will
provide on a very
good
24 hour noon-to-noon run, 150-170 miles driven hard with cooperating
weather. We then figured if we could get past Cuba and the tip
of Florida. From
Mobile, depending on the time of year and the weather that can be a
daunting task. We might have a chance. There was another cadre
of people in the marina, who rarely left their slips. They took
a minimum of 24 hours to get gear below decks stowed in lockers to
be able to get underway. Those in our group could be stowed for sea
and underway in 30 minutes. We practiced it routinely.
Also consider the very long distance most of it along shores of various
countries (you are much safer when deep ocean both from wars, storms,
and people.) Then one begins to appreciate if one will, the risky scenario
for
a person or family. But eventually one must put
in to a harbor. Somewhere. Today ( when I was young we didn't have
them) with water makers
a vessel with deep bunkers (my last vessel, 48 feet LOA carried 600
gallons of diesel and 1,000 gallons of water in deep tankage)--the
diesel fuel needed to make the electricity to charge the batteries
to run
the water maker to fill the tanks and fishing equipment and solar and
wind adjuncts and rain catchment and so on and so forth. Eventually
one must put in. That of course is when you are the most vulnerable.
Even in a large vessel where you can carry the depth of stores--line
and sails and wire and welding equipment and blocks and parts--material
needed to repair the ravages of days and days and days at sea, finally
the larder runs out. Depending on how far down things fall then you
may well have no idea of the conditions where you are putting in.
And if you are putting in under duress for example, dismasted and under
jury rig while trying to double Cape Horn--and it has happened to many
vessels in the high latitudes of the great Southern Ocean--then the
options considerably narrow. Have you ever thought about in a small
boat what even considering a passage through he Canal might be like
during
TEOTWAWKI? The only other alternatives are either
Cape Horn or Cape of Good Hope. Look at a chart.
I grew up sailing and surfing and diving. I would not consider
the ocean as a refuge if the balloon
goes up. In my humble opinion one is too vulnerable. Vulnerable
to whom? To a Caribbean Island fisherman
whose family is starving because the inter-island freighter has stopped
running and he needs antibiotics/pure water/salt/diesel fuel/gasoline/toilet
paper. Or vulnerable to a rogue element of a Third World military
--or for that matter a First World military--who have the materiel
to be
the
top
guy on the
heap
of post industrialization in your part of the ocean. Or,... Well
you get the idea. Post 9-11-01, I sold what will probably be my last
offshore vessel, a 48 foot aluminum pilothouse ketch with five watertight
compartments.
I finally woke up and realized that although I could (and did) single
hand her offshore without problems, being survivable and secure did
not seem to be a practical scenario. That plus my age led me to other
considerations. - CMC
JWR Adds: I agree with CMC's basic assertion. I consider blue water sailing a viable retreat alternative only for someone that is: A.) An experienced yachtsmen that lives close to his boat harbor, and B.) has the means to afford the right boat and can afford to fully equip it, and C.) that has an established overseas retreat destination that is well-stocked in its own right. So in effect, a well-stocked sailboat is not in itself a retreat, but rather could be your G.O.O.D. vehicle to get you to an established offshore retreat. In all, the preceding list eliminates most of the people reading this! It may sound brutal and terse, but for anyone else "sea-mobile" retreating is just another fantasy--unaffordable and unrealistic. I briefly discuss some issues regarding seA-mobile retreating in my non-fiction book Rawles on Retreats and Relocation. The following is a quote from the book:
Unless you are an experienced blue water yachtsman with many years
of experience, then I cannot recommend “sea mobile” retreating.
I only know a few yachtsmen with this level of experience--most notably
Mark Laughlin and Matthew Bracken. (BTW, Some of the characters and
descriptions in Matt Bracken’s recent novel “Enemies
Foreign and Domestic” shed some light on sea-mobile retreating.) IMHO,
for a long term Crunch with anticipated fuel shortages, only a sailboat
with an auxiliary engine makes sense. If you do choose this approach,
then by all means select the largest sailboat you can afford (and that
can be manned by a small crew) with the following features:
A minimal radar cross-section.
A retractable keel so that you can navigate shallows.
A very quiet auxiliary engine.
The largest fuel and fresh water tanks possible.
A full suite of communications gear (marine band, 2
Meter, CB, and
HF.)
At least two Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers, plus a sextant
and a couple of accurate hairspring or quartz watches. (In case your
GPS receivers fail, or if the GPS satellites ever fail. (Such as if
the GPS constellation is ever destroyed or significantly degraded by
anti-satellite weapons.)
A hull and rigging design that will “blend in” with the
crowd of seasonal yachtsmen.
Plenty of spare parts.
Be forewarned that your inevitable desire to add a large photovoltaic
array will be in direct opposition to blending in. If you buy photovoltaic
(PV) panels, buy canvas covers to make them less obvious when sailing
near shore.
A sailboat moored at night is vulnerable to sea-going looters. Even
today, piracy is a problem, particularly in the Caribbean and the waters
around Southeast Asia. This threat will surely expand by an order of
magnitude WTSHTF. So plan your landfalls carefully!