How modern tech has influenced sailing

by Andy Du Port, Yachting Monthly
Bob Dylan’s ageless song was released at about the same time as I started sailing yachts. Its aim was to influence people’s views about society, so it seems to be an appropriate title for an article about how we have been influenced by developments in yacht design and equipment over the last 60 years or so. The views, however, are entirely mine!

I would have sailed anywhere, in any conditions, with Patrick O’Brian’s Jack Aubrey in the early 1800s. He was the consummate mathematician and seaman, but his only knowledge of electricity was thunder storms. Electronics would have totally bewildered him, and he would have refused to believe that ships of the future could be made out of iron or steel, let alone plastic and glass fibres.

If he were around today, we would have a very baffled man on our hands, but I think he would envy our ability to keep going when the wind fails. – Full report