Aleria's Adventures

For a week, we've been watching the super container ship 'Ever Given' lodged across the Suez Canal blocking billions in cargo traffic stuck behind her in both directions. Tugs tried to push her, diggers tried to dig her out. Yesterday, the Egyptian President ordered her unloaded which would take about a week. The memes were relentless.  The 'Ever Given' is one of the largest ships permitted to transit the Suez Canal. According to BBC, "The Ever Given is 400m long (1,312ft) and weighs 200,000 tonnes, with a maximum capacity of 20,000 containers. It is currently carrying 18,300 containers. The ship is operated by Taiwanese transport company Evergreen Marine and is one of the world's largest container vessels." Had they unloaded her cargo, it would have been done ecologically and culturally appropriate... Meanwhile, some ships took off around the bottom of Africa while others dropped anchor and counted the losses . Estimates are that Egypt alone is losing...

Photograph courtesy of US Sailing .  What a great editorial in Scuttlebutt today *. I have often written about youth sailing programs being unfit for purpose. Yet I never thought about the fact that most race committees choose the most experienced, and hence often oldest, club members to populate race committee posts. That effectively does several things to disadvantage both the race committee and the youths.  Without experience on RC, young people don't understand how decisions are made. So they feel like decisions may be made against them unfairly. When they serve on RC, they get a deeper understanding of the rules and interpretation of them. They also gain the training to populate the next cadre of RC members.  A succession plan for effective RC management makes perfect sense, involves the kids at a decision-making level, passes on skills from one generation to the next, and could possibly prevent a Moosehead  from being awarded.  *Jamie Jones (Area Race Offi...