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As someone whose goal in life is to be blown about the oceans by the wind, I have mixed feelings about this. With the "traditional" freighter I would have the right of way, my being a sailboat under the wisdom of the wind, they have to make allowances for me and change course, but things are different when that freighter is also under the wisdom of the wind. The same goes for things like offshore wind power, my life is made more difficult because most people expect their home to be 70F when it is 60F outside and 60F when it is 70F outside, anything else would incur undue hardship.

It is a complex situation, should I be penalized for wanting to live a life that has little or no environmental impact at cost of those who want to live in reasonable comfort while being a part of/contributing to, society? Probably not but I can't help but wonder about what happened to the first 'R' of the three R's (reduce, reuse and recycle), no one seems to reduce anymore unless technology gives them a way to do it without any inconvenience no matter how small that inconvenience is.

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> The same goes for things like offshore wind power, my life is made more difficult because most people expect their home to be 70F when it is 60F outside and 60F when it is 70F outside, anything else would incur undue hardship.

This is an overly simplistic view of demands on energy, but it might be one of the easiest for people decry. (As it happens, comfort is nice though.)

> should I be penalized for wanting to live a life that has little or no environmental impact at cost of those who want to live in reasonable comfort while being a part of/contributing to, society?

No, but it's also unrealistic to expect to be sheltered from all externalities of society.

After all, switching to sail cargo ships is itself reducing an externality incurred by others.

> what happened to the first 'R' of the three R's (reduce, reuse and recycle)

This is a good principle, but it's not universally accepted, and it still permits things that involve cargo via ocean.

As more and more people are pulled from poverty, they too will begin to use more energy to improve their lives, perhaps to the point that they can choose to follow their dreams upon retirement.

I admitted or strongly implied everything you used as rebuttal with the exception of your final point, I don't believe using more energy improves ones life. Also, this is not a retirement dream, this is going to happen in the next year and I will be pulling over to work for ~6 months every couple years.

>I don't believe using more energy improves ones life

That's a very interesting perspective and I would love to hear some arguments or examples supporting it.

Not OP, but in general, while some things do improve my life (climate control, hot water, cooking), I'd say there are also plenty of things that don't.

I don't think my device usage habits or media consumption actually improve my life. I'm not sure the energy that's been dumped into producing the many gadgets I've bought over the years really improved me life.

I'd say that a lot of energy goes into distracting me in a way that I can't genuinely say is an improvement.

I think the point is larger than any individual. It involves the environment in which you're located. Infrastructure changes require energy, lots of energy. Increasing quality of life for most things we've built in our world requires investing lots of energy at the state level. You reap the benefits of this by living in the state.

Yeah, but even looking beyond individuals, my personal take is I'm no longer convinced, for example, all the massive amounts of electronics, fast fashion, and other consumerism-oriented production (which definitely do all use energy) are actually improving life. Same goes for a lot of online businesses that are occupying data centers and using electricity.

eg I'm unconvinced smart phones are truly improving life, let alone getting yearly incremental updates from every manufacturer.

So yes, to some extent, most life improvements are going to use some energy, but I wouldn't argue that most increases in spent energy lead to quality of life increases for a majority of people.

Why do my beliefs require anything to prove them? My beliefs are not fact and I never represented them as such, I said plainly that I have mixed feeling and that society should not bow to me. The exchange in response to my post are a good example of why my goal in life is to retreat from society, everyone ignored what I said to be "right." Admittedly I did not actually say that society should not bow to me, I said probably not, but that is simply because I don't actually know and I don't believe I ever implied that I did, putting on a sweater seems a small sacrifice to me.

> "With the "traditional" freighter I would have the right of way"

In theory, perhaps. In praxis, might makes right, bigger wins, and if you in your sailboat want to play chicken with a freighter of any kind, you're taking an unreasonable risk. Actually, commercial boats get priority over pleasurecraft, so even in theory it's probably your job to stay out of the way.

Not even in theory. Sure I may loose my boat but they will be liable for it and will not even question being liable, the cost is tiny to them and I would get a new boat if they ran me down. Things are more complex when that freighter is also under sail and most of the world lacks any legal bearing here.

You might want to read more about the right of way rules and USCG apportionment in maritime accidents. In the scenario you describe you most definitely would not be getting a new boat.

What makes you think the USCG has any bearing on my life? Even if I am an American I stated that my dream was to be blown about the oceans, which strongly implies that I will be out of USCG jurisdiction the majority of the time. You are right in context of a busy seaway like New York Harbor but in that situation a sailing freighter will be under power, not under sail and anyone in a small sailboat will be very alert. Most of the ocean is not under jurisdiction of the USCG and the rules for open water are different than those for near the coast or in the harbor.

I’m not sure where people get the idea of the rules don’t apply in international waters. The COLREGs clearly state commercial vessels have right away over recreational sailboats. End of story. You get run over by a commercial vessel, it’s your fault for being in the way but it’s their fault for running you down.

Here is the COLREG order:

  Not under command
  Restricted maneuverability
  Constrained by draft
  Fishing (actively dragging)
  Under sail

Ignoring not under command; in the open sea only the fishing boat has right of way over a sailing boat because the rest are not restricted by maneuverability or draft when in the middle of the ocean unless the crew is negligent. Fishing vessels in the open ocean tend to give way unless they can raise the boat on the radio and get them to change course because they really do not want the sail boat to foul their lines, especially the long line boats. In restricted waters boats under sail often have the right of way because they have restricted maneuverability (restricted by the wind) and their deep keel means they are restricted by draft but it is not so black and white here; if the sailboat can fire up its engine it is more maneuverable than that tug pulling a bunch of barges so if that sailboat has less draft restriction than the tug and its barges, it has to fire up its engine and get out of the way.

But COLREG is not the rule of the sea, just the rule for countries who are a part of the UN. But the truth is that a collision with such a sailboat will not phase these boats and generally writing a check is an insignificant cost and rare enough that it is what they do.

You can be right, and dead; your posthumous estate would get a new boat.

A large ship is very unlikely to just instantly destroy and sink a small sailboat, bow wave pushes it aside and destroys the rigging leaving the boat adrift, crew either abandons it or scuttles it when rescued unless they are near land and can be towed.

Having witnessed a large commercial ship going 15 kts run over a smaller 30 foot sailboat I can assure you it was not “pushed aside” unless by aside you mean pushed under.

If hit just right it would destroy the boat but that is a one in a million hit. The shape of displacement hulls and their need to part and push the water aside so they can move through the water will almost always mean that small boats will be pushed aside and damaged but not sunk. An open boat (which a small number of 30' sailboats are) would be a different story, the hit would almost certainly heel them enough to flood and sink them, but I think it is obvious that I am not talking about open boats but boats with a deck and a cabin that you can live in. I could be wrong in that assumption, many do not know the difference between an open and a decked boat and I could have been more clear there.

I find it somewhat inconsistent that you feel people's choice of indoor temperature is an imposition on you, but also that your choice of sailboat should entitle you to having something that is literally hundreds of times larger and less nimble than you have to make the effort to go around you.

> that your choice of sailboat should entitle you to having something that is literally hundreds of times larger and less nimble than you have to make the effort to go around you.

That's how the rules of the road work. See: COLREGs.

We also travel by a small sailboat, and it is always reassuring to see huge tankers make small course changes tens of nautical miles away. That way everybody stays safe and nobody is majorly inconvenienced.

I know it's the rule of the road, but that's not the point.

The point is the inconsistency in tone between "your life choices make me go around your wind farm, that makes my life difficult", and "my life choices make your giant freighter go around me, I have right of way".

Small sail boats do not need to go around wind farms, they can just sail right through them assuming the weather is agreeable. The problem is more that if you are caught up in a storm anywhere near a windfarm (within range of the storm carrying you into it) it makes everything very dangerous for you; instead of dropping sail and letting the boat find its way through the storm from the safety of below decks you have to stay on deck and fight the storm. To put this into metropolitan terms, it would be like routing the main pedestrian path through the most dangerous part of town for the sake of a highway.

Either way, to repeat myself again, I did not say I was right or better and plainly stated my mixed feelings.

I didn't say that I am entitled or that it was an imposition, just that it was complex and I have mixed feelings about it, literally said that I don't think society should make allowances for me.

Yeah idk. Maybe it's the tone of stuff like "it would incur undue hardship" (re indoor temps) that comes across to me as a bit holier than thou and makes the rest of your first paragraph seem more self-centered.

I plainly stated that society should not bow to my needs and that those who contribute to society and are a part of society are more important than me, what more do you want?

I know, I know. Look, I'm sorry for nitpicking.

I actually agree with the idea of having a lower footprint, reducing, etc. I think you're doing a good thing, and I hope you stay safe at sea.

We all get hung up on such things on occasion, realizing it is probably better than never doing it.

A freighter is always the stand on vessel when you’re sailing. They don’t have the turning radius to even try!

That's true only in constrained waters. But obviously they need to see you from afar to be able to make that course change. That's where AIS transponders help a lot.

We've crossed some of the busier shipping lanes of the world, and have had to call the bridge of a freighter on radio just a couple of times. And usually the watchstander immediately confirmed seeing us and clarified their intentions.

In a bay, sure, but in a busy bay this is not much of an issue, the solo sailor is not going to be asleep in their berth when sailing about the bay.

I think "reduce" has always been pipe dream by the de-growth sector. At its core I'm not convinced that humans can ever willfully engage in managed decline. When I say this I mean societies, large groups, cities, etc. Not individuals. De-growth has a serious scaling issue. It's fundamentally incompatible with the bedrock of why humans come together.

Maybe? I don't think this is beyond societies, but it does require society to expect it. The idea of reducing had an effect on society back in the 80s and into the 90s, people did reduce, but it didn't last. This is not "de-growth," unless you think growth is a measure of the number of people who live a life a leisure.