Several things conspired, like a perfect storm, to set me off. The first seemed innocuous enough: I rented a car at a faraway airport. No problem, except I couldn’t start it.
“The key’s in the car,” the rental staffer said, pointing me to stall D-14. All I found was a circular clicker-ish gadget with more buttons than my TV remote. I then tried to depart in a cockpit with more switches and dials than a supersonic Concorde—a far cry from my big, black, 20-year-old SUV. I flagged down one of the rental people, and it was clear I wasn’t the first to ask. “Put the clicker near the dash, put your foot on the brake, and push that button on the dash,” he said. Va-room.
Next, I considered all the fiddly parts on the dashboard. I didn’t know how to turn on the air conditioning or the headlights, set the cruise control, nothing. I reached into the glove box for the manual, but someone had taken it. Probably to sell on eBay.
Part two of my perfect storm came later that week with a cracking noise. I sat on my sunglasses. These were from the Blues Brothers era: large, wraparound, very dark. They gave my eyes a break from the glare that all skippers endure.
I used to buy my sunglasses at the drugstore for a couple of bucks, but to replace this pair, I visited a big-box marine store. The clerk asked, “How technical do you want?” I must have looked as blank to her as I had to the car rental worker. “Do you want vents? Side panels? Automatic darkening? Colors for skiing or bass fishing? Polycarb or nylon? Anti-fog? Spring hinges?” She went on.
Flash forward a few months after that, and I needed to replace my great duffel bag that was decades old. Thousands of sea miles had taken their toll. Again, I presented myself at the big-box marine store, where a different clerk asked, “How technical do you want?”
The choices included polyester or coated PVC, inner liner, backpack, waterproof and water-resistant. I thought of a flight I’d taken on a puddle-jumper airline, which had left my duffel sitting on the runway in a torrential downpour. So much for the spy novel I was reading—it was truly pulp. “Definitely waterproof,” I said.
Next, I tried to buy a new pair of foulies because I’ve puffed up a bit, and the Velcro hooks no longer reach the Velcro loops on my current gear. Again, a big box marine store clerk asked, “How technical do you want?”
This time, the choices were to retain water or shed sweat, hydrophilic or microporous, storm collar or hood. So, I’m still wearing my old foulies, but I’m working on a diet.
Last, I went aboard a friend’s brand-new trawler. He showed me around, and then we ended up in the pilothouse, where he proudly displayed his “glass dashboard.” He had more monitors than the big box marine store. All were touchscreen. As I tried to work through how to check the depth and see a chart, I recalled flying classes where teachers instructed me to “keep your head out of the cockpit.” Too many distracted pilots had flown into mountains. I also thought about my rental car, where I couldn’t figure out how to turn on the windshield wipers. Perhaps a younger generation can figure these things out instinctively. For me, this type of dash might as well be that Concorde—which had three pilots to do things.
We have, it seems, reached a point of over-teching. I’m old enough to appreciate stepping into the pilothouse, wiggling the throttles for neutral, hitting the start button and setting off, whether it was across the bay or across the pond. Paper charts resided in a flat drawer, a depth sounder (once cutely called a fathometer) was easily read on the dash, and a full set of gauges with needles kept my engines perking along.
I’ve decided it’s time to form a club of like-minded skippers: Luddites Anonymous. It’s named after the British workers who destroyed machinery in cotton and woolen mills, believing modern advances were threatening their jobs.
My club, in keeping with its goal of simplicity, won’t have secret handshakes or decoder rings. But when another skipper is tempted to rip all the simple stuff off the dashboard and replace it, we’ll have an 800 number to call. A fellow member will talk him off the ledge.
Who’s with me?
This article was originally published in the March 2023 issue.
