The Sailing Mind (Studies in Brain and Mind Book 19) 3030896390, 9783030896393

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Studies in Brain and Mind 19

Roberto Casati   Editor

The Sailing Mind

Studies in Brain and Mind Volume 19

Series Editor Gualtiero Piccinini, University of Missouri - St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA Editorial Board Members Berit Brogaard, University of Oslo, Norway, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA Carl Craver, Washington Universty, St. Louis, MO, USA Edouard Machery, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA Oron Shagrir, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel Mark Sprevak, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

The series Studies in Brain and Mind provides a forum for philosophers and neuroscientists to discuss theoretical, foundational, methodological, and ethical aspects of neuroscience. It covers the following areas: • Philosophy of Mind • Philosophy of Neuroscience • Philosophy of Psychology • Philosophy of Psychiatry and Psychopathology • Neurophilosophy • Neuroethics The series aims for a high level of clarity, rigor, novelty, and scientific competence. Book proposals and complete manuscripts of 200 or more pages are welcome. Original monographs will be peer reviewed. Edited volumes and conference proceedings will be considered provided that the chapters are individually refereed. This book series is indexed in SCOPUS. Initial proposals can be sent to the Editor-in-Chief, prof. Gualtiero Piccinini, at [email protected]. Proposals should include: • • • •

A short synopsis of the work or the introduction chapter The proposed Table of Contents The CV of the lead author(s) If available: one sample chapter

We aim to make a first decision within 1 month of submission. In case of a positive first decision the work will be provisionally contracted: the final decision about publication will depend upon the result of the anonymous peer review of the complete manuscript. We aim to have the complete work peer-reviewed within 3 months of submission. For more information, please contact the Series Editor at [email protected].

Roberto Casati Editor

The Sailing Mind

Editor Roberto Casati CNRS, EHESS ENS-PSL Institut Jean Nicod Paris, France

ISSN 1573-4536     ISSN 2468-399X (electronic) Studies in Brain and Mind ISBN 978-3-030-89638-6    ISBN 978-3-030-89639-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89639-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1 Introduction: Sailing Minds��������������������������������������������������������������������    1 Roberto Casati 2 Engineering, Daydreaming, and Control����������������������������������������������   13 Daniel C. Dennett 3 Sailing, Flow and, Happiness������������������������������������������������������������������   17 Christine Tappolet 4 Sailing: Gourmet Food for the Brain ����������������������������������������������������   31 Luciano Fadiga 5 The Multisensory Brain at Sailing���������������������������������������������������������   39 Alberto Gallace 6 The Language(s) of Sailing����������������������������������������������������������������������   65 Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini 7 Communicating the Space of Sailing�����������������������������������������������������   73 Thora Tenbrink 8 Messing About in Small Boats����������������������������������������������������������������   89 David Papineau 9 Situation Awareness in Racing Sailors ��������������������������������������������������   97 Robert J. Matthews 10 Wild, Uncomfortable and Reckless: A Darwinian Debate About Sailing��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  117 Ophelia Deroy 11 The We-Perspective on the Racing Sailboat��������������������������������������������  131 Frances Egan

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12 Epistemology of Sailing ��������������������������������������������������������������������������  143 Nicla Vassallo 13 Inclusive Sailing���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  155 Anna Oddone 14 Navigation in Real and Scientific Waters����������������������������������������������  167 Randy Gallistel 15 Navigation and Mètis ������������������������������������������������������������������������������  185 François Hartog 16 Anchoring: What’s Going on Down There?������������������������������������������  189 William Sharpe

Chapter 1

Introduction: Sailing Minds Roberto Casati

Sailing is and has been with us for thousands of years, and it will be with us for as long as there are oceans and winds for us to travel through. Much has been written about its history, about the law of navigation, about its anthropology, about navigation techniques. Can we gain a fresh perspective on it, a viewpoint from the inside, by asking theoretically minded sailors? This is the key idea behind this collection: inviting philosophers, cognitive scientists, and humanities scholars who happen to sail, and asking them to write a short piece on what they perceive to be the intellectual complexities of sailing. “The intellectual complexities of sailing” was meant to be a very broad assignment. Many of the scholars around this table do not study sailing directly, but have been intrigued by the exceptional intellectual context provided by their own sailing practice – the challenges of the open seas, the peculiarities of that wondrous artifact which is the boat, the fascination with that alien environment which is the ocean, orientation and wayfinding in extreme conditions, environmental awareness, human factors and human interaction, the language of sailors, bodily feelings, spatial cognition, perception and action under pressure. Interest in this peculiar human-artifact-environment interaction can lead to unexplored research paths, and scientifically-minded sailors are in a unique position to open new paths. Sure enough, some interesting theoretical breakthroughs have been Thanks to the Disorientation Team at Institut Jean Nicod; to Pablo Fernandez Velasco, Valeria Giardino, Jade Nijman, Pamela Osuna, Bastien Perroy, Francesco Pierini, Samaneh Yasaei, for help with many aspects of the project. Thanks to grants ANR-17-EURE-0017 FrontCog, EHESS-­ Cognition in the Wind for supporting my research on sailing, and to so many sailing companions for so many teachings. R. Casati (*) CNRS, EHESS ENS-PSL, Institut Jean Nicod, Paris, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. Casati (ed.), The Sailing Mind, Studies in Brain and Mind 19, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89639-3_1

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provided by observing sailing practices  – one example above all, Ed Hutchins’ introduction in cognitive science of the concept of “distributed cognition” (Hutchins, 1995) – but, in times further past, sailing has both fueled philosophical metaphors, from Theseus’ ship to Plato’s image of the intellect as the boatperson of the soul, and inspired philosophers’ views about our relation with the elements, as happened to Herder during a stormy sea trip (Scholtz, 2016). The ecology of sailing is highly constrained: sailboats move at the surface between a compressible fluid and an uncompressible fluid. Wind originates in certain specific circumstances, as do waves. Only certain sequences of actions are possible in order to take advantage of this ecology. The ontology of sailing must comprise heterogeneous items such as the boat, the ocean/wind system, the sailor, the coastline. It highlights the fact that, for centuries, sailboats have arguably been the most complex technological artifacts in each of the cultures that developed them, precisely because the environment they are engaging with is so peculiar and demanding – so alien, in the sense that it is almost the precise dual of Sapiens’ adaptive environment: no fixed landmarks, no stable, walkable ground, a narrow horizon, undrinkable water, no shelter from the rain, the sun, the wind. Sailing practice has evolved with technological progress and has fed back into it. Long-range navigation in the open seas required highly specialized theoretical skills (Wolfschmidt, 2008). Navigation involves planning, constant monitoring of progress, and coordination between crew members. The individual/social epistemology of sailing includes topics such as trust in others’ capabilities, trust in ones’ senses in the constantly changing environment, coping with disorientation and seasickness, the necessity of relying on highly theoretical knowledge about tides, currents, winds, and of facts about astronomy. Epistemological problems, if not specific, are particularly acute in the navigation context, and co-evolved with the use of technical artifacts: at first oral or written verbal instructions, later iconic representations of various sorts, then maps end eventually GPS-assisted navigation have given rise to problems of interpretation, of truth, of accuracy, of usability, and, nowadays, of over-reliance (Huth, 2013). Navigation instruments such as the compass and the sextant are extraordinary solutions to the problem of generating knowledge in conditions in which the production of knowledge is under constant threat. Embedded/ extended cognition are handy options for describing these interactions, but more should be known of the precise mechanics of the interactions between mind, artifact and environment. Boats themselves are bundles of constraints – arguably, this being a price to pay for guaranteeing relative freedom of movement in a demanding, unforgiving environment. These constraints percolate through practice and affect even the use of language: sailing evolved a highly idiosyncratic, specialized language, that minimizes ambiguities to make communication robust in a noisy environment where multiple perspectives need integration. Ambiguities of a directional term such as ‘left’ are potentially dangerous: my left hand, your left hand, the boat’s left side, that island’s left side, our left when we sail South, to the left of the wind – use of ‘left’ gets differentially lexicalized in maritime parlance.

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Action and perception are further challenged by the movements of the boat; embodied cognition acquires a specific aspect in sailing practice. Seasickness at one extreme, more generally the boat’s six degrees of freedom, its progress in the frames of reference provided by waves, currents, the wind and the coastline respectively, force sailors’ sensorimotor system to cope with a rich kinematics and dynamics. What do they perceive, how is their body image mobilized, do they have an extended body representation of a large boat as one may have of a bicycle one rides, how do they exert their sense of control, how is attention engaged in the all-absorbing task of helming? Probably it was no coincidence that (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) introduced the concept of ‘optimal experience’ and ‘flow’ through mention of the sailing experience: “it’s what the sailor holding a tight course feels when the wind whips through her hair, when the boat lunges through the waves like a colt – sails, hull, wind, and sea humming a harmony that vibrates in the sailor’s veins”. In the words of Ed Hutchins, sailing is a ‘bottomless domain’: the more you learn about it, the more you discover you still do not know. Sailing requires a long apprenticeship, and learning to sail, as all sailors will confirm, is a never-ending process, like playing a music instrument or perfecting an art. The organization of the sailing learning is sensitive to the complexity of the activity and the environment, and on top of the physical engagement with the boat and the elements, relies not only on formal instruction but also massively on narratives and anecdotes; why is it so? When sailing, a number of frames of reference are available and active for the helmsperson. The pilot’s body, bodies of crew members, the vessel, wave direction, wind direction, true North, magnetic North, distant coastal landmarks, ephemeral landmarks such as cloud lines, stars, other vessels, the orientation of the wheel/tiller, and graphical frames for each representational instrument or support (compass, GPS, map, wind instrument). Negotiating a path, both second-by-second (helming) and on longer distances (routing), incessantly requires some integration of information available on multiple frames. The order “pass the blue boat over there to its port side” sets a course of action that involves interpreting the command, changing one’s route considering the relative positions of our boat and the port side of the other boat, monitoring change and progress – especially as both boats move – acting on the wheel, changing the shape of the sails according to the new angle to the wind, maintaining/adjusting the shape of the sails over time and under accelerations imparted by the interaction of the vessel with waves; all this keeping an eye on the environment and monitoring one’s posture to keep balance on the highly unstable boat surface (Tenbrink & Dylla, 2017). Confronted with this computational load, sailing practice, implicitly or explicitly, often makes one rely on representational shortcuts. A representational shortcut reduces the complexity of the computation by reducing the input’s complexity, at the same time maintaining or sufficiently approximating the full functional equivalence of the new computation with more complex ones to the same effect. An example is the constant monitoring of the shape of the sails to keep a course. For instance, in close haul, sails are kept at their power limit to maximize trajectory gains. If the limit is approached the jib starts flapping. This turbulence is interpreted as a symptom, and a (hopefully small) steering correction ensues. The changing shape of the

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sail is a physical recapitulation of the sail-wind interaction. When you see the sail change its shape, you know that the interaction is evolving. Taken as an indicator, the shape of sails can be considered a cognitive “naturefact” (Heersmink, 2013). It replaces another set of computations, which include checking the wind instrument, checking the compass for route, and integrating the results of the two checks. If in some cases, sailors use simplifying shortcuts, in others they add imaginative detours, and this may let us reconsider some simplistic readings of claims about the extended mind. When sailing downwind in running point of sail (wind comes from the back of the boat), one can hoist jib and mainsail on the two opposite sides of the boat (goosewinging or wing-on-wing). This set is unstable as each deviation from the course diminishes the pressure on one of the sails. For instance, if running downwind on starboard (main winged out to port, i.e. the left side of the boat facing the direction of movement), whenever we head down (turning to leeward), the mainsail loses pressure and eventually the wind flows on its back. The situation is potentially hazardous as it is conducive to an involuntary jibe, the boom can sweep the deck and the boat can subsequently broach and become hard to steer, not to mention damage to the mast or to the crew. The inherent instability of goosewinged sailing is compounded by the presence of high waves, whose negotiation forces continuous course corrections by the helmsperson. The helmsperson must compensate the change of course but at the same time she also has to pay attention to the shape of the sails to avoid the involuntary jibe and has little spare attention for checking the compass. However, the shape of the sails is here an indicator of direction, that she can use reliably. It is a simple and effective representational shortcut. The shape of the sails in a sense summarizes the situation of the boat relative to the wind, and sailors are trained to spot the slightest variations and changes in their shape. What about the course correction when sailing goosewinged? On small sailboats one can implement a nice representational detour (I was taught this by sailing instructor Giorgio Tognocchi), in which the tiller becomes a pointing device: point it towards the sail that is losing power, is luffing and in danger of jibing, and imagine the tiller works as a hairdryer (Practice 1). Air from the tip of the reconceptualized tiller will imaginatively “inflate” the suffering sail. The physics behind this situation is simple. The mainsail in our example (on a starboard tack) lost power because the boat was heading up on the port side (i.e. it was “turning left”), getting more and more wind from the port side. In order for the boat to turn right, the tiller should then be moved to the left. Thus, it would appear to point to the underpowered mainsail. At this point, the wind takes care of restoring power to the mainsail. This sequence requires some training to be performed efficiently, but both the indicator function of the sails’ shape and the representational redescription of the tiller as a hairdryer, as well as the imagined causation (inflating the sail thanks to the tiller) stick in the practice and organize it. Here, the opportunistic mind of the learning sailor heavily relies on the regularities of the artifact to diminish the huge representational set of inferences that would require too much time in the situation (just reread the complex sequence above.)

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But here is an interesting twist. Some boats have a tiller, others – larger ones – have a wheel. And if the gesture that turns the boat to the right on the tiller is contralateral (pushing the tiller to the left), the gesture on the wheel is ipsilateral (turn the wheel to the right). So if you learned the hairdryer trick on a tiller sailboat, you must unlearn it on a wheel sailboat! (Typically, when you upgrade in life from small sailboats to cruisers.) But why unlearn? Here (Practice 2, personal experience) you can retrain yourself by taking advantage of your learned sequence. I just imagine the wheel to command not the rudder directly, but a virtual tiller-hairdryer joint to the wheel in front of it and hinged in the middle. Thus, anytime I steer to the left, the virtual tiller-hairdryer will point to the right, and conversely.

Left pane: In order to turn to starboard, the tiller must be moved to port (contralateral), and the wheel to starboard (ipsilateral). Right pane: the virtual tiller (green) is imagined hinging on the wheel and on the boat, so that the movement of the wheel generates a contralateral movement of the imagined tiller. At this point the enhanced “hairdryer” representation is effective. Right pane: redrawn by RC Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b3/Tiller_and_helm_orders% 2C_1912.svg/200px-­Tiller_and_helm_orders%2C_1912.svg.png

The interesting element of this story is that I use (I still do, after so many years, when doubts arise) a purely mental representation of the tiller in order to avoid retraining myself to the use of the wheel. The imaginary tiller is simply not part of the ecological scene. But this representation satisfies many of the standard requirements (Sprevak, 2019) used in the “offloading” discourse that allegedly diminishes the role of internal representations. Actually, both the real tiller of practice (1) is representationally enriched and redescribed (as a hairdryer) and its enriched representation is operant in the imaginary tiller of practice (2). And effectively so, as it saved me the work of retraining myself in the use of the wheel.

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The powerful representational shortcut of the shape of sails invites the “offloading” metaphor. But from the fact that a certain representational artifact, or a certain naturefact, takes away the cognitive load from the cognizer, it does not follow that it performs the cognitive operations it takes away (which is what happens when you offload driving to a cab driver – the driver does precisely the work you don’t). At least, it takes quite a bit of arguing to claim that the artifact or naturefact does cognitive work ((Hutchins, 1995) claimed that maps “precompute” routes). Whatever the fate of the argument in favor of offloading, the hairdryer imago is a bit of an antidote to the offloading metaphor. The fictum is an essential computational ingredient of the steering operation. In lieu of a mind that literally “extends” to actually external physical items, we have a body that is imaginatively extended into an imagined object performing an imaginary operation. In order to take advantage of the shape-of-sail representational shortcut, one could of course mint and follow an explicit rule: “if you see the sail on the right (be it job or mainsail) become underpowered, steer towards the left,” or more generally, “steer contralaterally relative to the underpowered sail”. One thing that strikes me is the resilience of the fictum, the imagined representation. After years of sailing, I still feel as if the tiller-hairdryer was blowing into the sail, or (although, to a lesser extent) as if the wheel was commanding an imaginary tiller blowing into the sail. It is as if the simplicity of the process involving the imaged representation blocked the onset of the implicit learning one acquires by repeating the correct gestures thousands of times. Imagination is to be found in other provinces of sailing. Sure enough, imagination is an enemy to be tamed when it takes over perception- and knowledge-based decision making; long days in the doldrums, waiting for a whisper to get the vessel going, are associated with instilling negative visions and eventually with developing insanity. But in other circumstances imagination is once more a computational ingredient. A much discussed and insufficiently understood example is the “moving island” (etak) technique of Micronesian navigation (Lewis, 1994; Hutchins, 1983). The navigators referred to invisible (because below the horizon) islands (actual or artificially concocted ones) whose imagined location was used to keep track of progress against the patter of rising and setting stars. The issue that intrigues readers of ethnographic reports is how a non-visible, inaccessible entity can figure in an explanation of wayfinding, in particular of vision-based wayfinding. How could micronesian navigators navigate using etak, i.e. imagined (or real but invisible) islands? In order to understand how etak-based computations works, consider the following environmental analogy: “It is rather like sitting on a train and looking out the window. In your little world you sit and talk while the scenery slips by. In the distance there are mountains which for long periods of time seem to pace the train. Looking at them you are distracted by nearby houses which flash backwards between you and the mountains. The mountains are the stars and the houses the islands below.” (Gladwin, 1974). The procedure tracks progress by parallax to very distant landmarks (Hutchins & Hinton, 1984). If there were real islands between you and the stars, you would see them “move back” relative to the stars as you progress. But the hard question remains on how you can get the parallax of something you do not see. The solution is in the visible stars. Etak islands are imaginative star

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markers for assisting dead reckoning. They are not used directly for computing position; this computation is done elsewhere, and it requires a large number of independent and superposed techniques and knowledge (Lewis, 1994), such as interpreting swells, winds, patterns of bird flight, color and temperature of water, drifting objects, mastering one’s boats features, and using the sky for directions, in a delicate pattern of constraint satisfaction. Imagining an invisible island below the horizon on the vertical of a given is then a star marking device that comes after the dead reckoning computation to remind the sailor of progress made, the marked star being then used as an input to dead reckoning during the subsequent leg. Other imaginative devices could have been used, such as, say, projecting a mental halo on the star to be marked, but they would have been disconnected from the experiential practice of parallax, that in turn could well have arisen by observations made when sailing by real islands.1 The collection of essays in this volume reflects a relatively specific perspective on sailing, that of recreational or sport sailing in Western waters and cultures. Much more of course should be said about the many sailing practices that are today or have been in the past in use in other parts of the world, where sailboats could have different economic significance, being used for e.g. fishing or shipping, where environmental conditions (winds, currents, shape of the coast) have their own peculiarities, and not only boats, sails and riggings are or have been of different design, but also the availability of infrastructure and craftsmanship could vary considerably. At the same time, some fundamentals of sailing are determined by the same invariants in all cultural contexts; the physics of winds and water and of floating bodies, and the cognitive and bodily capabilities of sailors, constrain the range of variation in techniques. Thus, it is expected that at least some of what is described in this volume will generalize to many other sailing contexts. In the end, sailing has hidden intellectual complexities, and this is what allows it to provide an intriguing viewpoint on many human activities and representations. It goes without saying that the specific perspective investigated in this volume is necessarily partial, as any perspective is. There are other complexities of sailing that are certainly worth mentioning, but whose critical treatment is beyond the scope of this volume. If historically sailing has been associated with adventure, discovery and technical innovation, it has also been instrumental in the human colonization of the planet, and in the reshaping of cultural influences and patterns of domination; male figures are prominent, perhaps stereotypically, in the history of Western sailing, and only as of late the sport is addressing population biases, giving a yet too timid place to underrepresented communities. The anthology opens on a piece by Daniel Dennett on the adage that if one cannot control the wind one can trim the sails – being in control requires knowledge and access to information, but it also requires keeping overthinking in check, and balancing an assessment of the present situation with long-term goals. He tells an 1  Arguably, the practice of naming stars could have started in navigation. Even today, in navigations on the high seas, stars get ephemeral names used to assist helming and coordination between crew members (Casati, 2019).

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enlightening tale about the way his autopilot outsmarted him on minimizing helm adjustments, within a much shorter learning period, but without factoring in the many environmental and informational data and constraints that drive the helmsperson’s attention. Our sense of control, in the end, is the key to understanding free will and responsibility, in a human-shaped environment that optimally delegates control to reduce uncertainty and allows for the cultural transmission of strategies. Wellbeing at sea and on a boat depends on many factors, but one may wonder why it is the case that helmspersons enjoy hours of engagement with the boat and the elements that most people will find demanding to say the least. The above quote by Csikszentmihalyi inaugurated research on “flow”, the optimal experience; and although the fluidity evoked by the metaphor is appropriate to the watery environment, the very notion of flow is not fully specified in the literature. Christine Tappolet takes up the task and argues that the experience of flow is a kind of emotion, as it satisfies the conditions definitory of emotional states (possessing a phenomenology, having both intentional and formal objects, involving evaluations and motivations.) This reframing opens the way to a better understanding of flow: if emotions are accounted for perceptually, what is the perception of flow perception of? And if flow is a type of emotion, it is possible to see how it contributes to happiness, construed as a positive balance of affective states. One of the most paradoxical feelings is the tranquility sailors experience even if they are surrounded by the liquid, unwelcoming environment. Luciano Fadiga makes the perception of the boat responsible for this calmness, suggesting that the feeling is enhanced by the perceived contrast with the element. Equally puzzling is the absence of boredom in an activity that is, by all measures and comparisons, a slow one: most leisure boats hardly go faster than a fast walker. According to Fadiga, the signature of the sensory stimuli available when sailing is a high signal-to-noise ratio, something our predictive brain is very fond of; a form of hyperstimulus, like gourmet food. When the autopilot is off and we enjoy the full experience of helming, our eyes are wide open, but vision isn’t the only sense used for sailing. How is multisensory information dealt with by the sailing brain? Alberto Gallace draws a comprehensive review of recent neuroscientific and behavioral findings about perception and multisensory integration, highlighting the role played – mostly in an unconscious way – by less considered modalities such as touch, olfaction, and the sense of balance, and addresses the explanation of the conditions of wellness at sea and, of course, seasickness. If many of the findings are not specific to sailing, and if sensory impairments do not prevent sailors to be proficient, multi-channel integration is at the heart of the issue. The boat/body/water interactions evolve at many temporal scales, and only a long, dedicated training and exposure to the environment makes sailors proficient in their reliance on multiple sensory inputs. Seasickness  – when sensory integration breaks down dramatically – is there to remind us of the formidable challenges of aligning our senses on a boat at sea. As every novice will be eager to report, the physical and sensory challenges of the initial steps of sailing are difficult enough; but mastering the terminological jungle is felt as absolutely prohibitive. A modern 30-foot sailboat may contain

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thousands of types of components, and although most of their names are only known to naval constructors and ship-chandlers, quite a few of them are needed to refer to the parts that are most used in sailing. There is an aura of snobbery in all this, as Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini observes in his cross-cultural contribution, and the seemingly capricious renaming of commonsense notions such as left and right appears to be designed to repulse many would-be sailors; but the communication advantages of unambiguous naming are obvious in hectic, noisy contexts. Piattelli-­ Palmarini shows, by comparing the English, French and Italian technical languages, that each incorporates a perspective, a viewpoint on the practice. The study by Thora Tenbrink tackles the issue of top-down influences on spatial perception by sailing expertise. Using a questionnaire submitted to sailors and non-­ sailors, she is able to show that the two groups attend to different aspects of the same situation shown in a video, and use different ways to refer to those aspects, reflecting the difference in concepts available to them, where sailors prefer technical notions when they are relevant. Interestingly, sailing appears to affect the sailors’ apprehension of spatial situations in non-sailing contexts, in particular environmental awareness of landmarks and of winds. Attention is what it is all about; the sand desert may be hostile, but the sea is an alien environment, rewarding but unforgiving, impossible to approach without constant focus on its ever-changing details. We are never close enough to it for learning about it and from it, claims David Papineau, whose plea for small sailboats, which offer a privileged point of view on and sustained engagement with water, is cum-­ substantial with a passionate description of the details of the sea and river environments the sailor can thoroughly and intimately get to know. Our brain evolved in rich, complicated, even luxuriant environments; the sailing stage – sky, water, waves, clouds – is more austere but not thereby unstructured, and it offers effective if subtle affordances the sailor can learn to harness. Robert Matthews focuses on racing contexts, which exacerbate the need of immediate reactions with far-reaching consequences. Situation awareness builds upon the ability to perceive affordances. Situation awareness – perceptual, action-targeting and modulated by an awareness of long-term goals – is what distinguishes experienced and professional racers from novices. Affordance perception is not a simple matter of sensory coupling with the environment: illusions of affordances explain why certain sailors get themselves into complicated situations, and are in turn related to different levels of expertise and of assessment of one own’s capabilities. Risk taking is part of the game and it too shapes affordance perception and benefits from it. Skilled skippers appear to avoid high risk/low reward action, and take low risk/high reward actions “without hesitation”. Boarding a boat is a risk-taking endeavor in itself, even more so when remote sailing is involved: hundreds of miles from shore, away from naval infrastructure, and beyond the reasonable possibility of rescue. Special, tailor-suit insurance is needed for offshore sailing, if at all available. The most practical thing to do in order to assist a sailor in distress during offshore regattas such as the Vendée Globe, is to reroute the nearest participant to their help, as it has happened time and again in various editions of the race, bearing in mind that “near” could mean days of

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navigation in extreme conditions. How are we to think of risk-taking at sea, in particular in remote sailing? In Ophelia Deroy’s account, experienced sailors are better at evaluating (or just accepting the possibility of) compounded risks, which are the major source of serious accidents, and, if the situation evolves negatively, they both accept ambiguity and the difficulty of estimating probabilities and head towards avoiding the worse case scenario, i.e. damage to the boat. The boat itself, for Deroy, is the centerpiece of the sailor’s attitudes and provides the indispensable comfort that repays and sustains the risky activity of sailing. It is often said that more people have been on spaceships than solo around the world on a sailboat; most sailing is performed by crews, that must work in concert. According to Frances Egan, this requires them to adopt and maintain a we-­ perspective, framing their thoughts in the first person plural. The crew perform joint actions, mediated by the boat, where someone’s steering is modulated by and modulates someone else’s trimming or easing out the sails, towards a shared goal such as, say, keeping a route or gaining speed to overcome a competitor. The we-perspective, that includes the experience of we-emotions, is conducive to encouraging each individual’s best effort in challenging circumstances, and generates entitlements to appraise and influence other crew members. Assembling a good crew is an art in itself; people come with different profiles, and must flexibly fit into various roles; if a plural subject is most definitely more than the sum of its parts, cementing the team is constant work in progress. And as Egan reminds, the most difficult and trying conditions in a race are those of light air – nothing seems to ever happen, technical skills are under stress, and cohesion is threatened. In sailing we learn by doing and by formal instruction on board and on the shore; today textbooks and tutorials abound to explain maneuvers of all types. But this codified body of knowledge covers only of a fraction of the diverse situations that may occur at sea. Where can one learn about them? As many authors in this volume agree, conversations at the tavern on the pier appear to be an inseparable part of training, even if they are not marketed as such. Their content is mostly personal anecdotes and narrations. Now, anecdotal evidence is generally considered of low epistemic quality; science abhors it, as a signature of lazy and unfinished work. There are two main issues here. One is the reliability of witnesses, whose storytelling abilities can only be useful if the circumstances they describe are relevant for training. Trust in the report of witnesses is an important epistemological issue that gets specifically modulated by what we observe in sailing, as Nicla Vassallo reminds us. The second issue is the use of anecdotes as opposed to other more formal types of communication. A hypothesis is that the endless narration of anecdotes has a signaling function: they indirectly hint at the vast unpredictability of sea conditions and at the complexity and inherent fragility of the vessel. More structured, but contextually sensitive feedback is provided in the de-­ briefing meeting at the end of a training session (of a race, of a crossing). Anna Oddone documents and analyzes the practice in the peculiar context of a proof-of-­ concept sailing initiative which by design leverages the diversity of the crew in order to show the liberating power of inclusiveness, both at the personal and the collective level. The de-brief, structured by the skipper, fulfills many functions:

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informing, aligning crew knowledge, but also cathartically easing pressure, making thus possible to acknowledge what is good in others and what can be improved in us. Randy Gallistel traces back his study of animal navigation to his fascination with sailing and the need to reliably orient oneself when sailing close to the coast, when navigation errors are the most dangerous. He reviews the breath-taking series of researches on insect (in particular bee) navigation of the last century and the controversies around the notion of cognitive map. (In a minimal reading, cognitive maps are the best explanation of certain types of animal navigational behavior such as being able to find shortcuts and detours through places the animal has not visited.) He defends the mechanistic aspect of explanations based on cognitive maps – here interpreted as metric vector spaces in neural tissue – against a number of objections, proving that navigation in academic waters is not without analogies with negotiating winds and currents at sea. Describing navigation techniques that predate the use of GPS, on sailing boats that have no onboard engine, François Hartog introduces the concept of “time at sea” on long sails, a way of apprehending temporality on a boat, breaking with time on land. It is paced by watches, miniature days and nights that optimize effort and efficiency of the crew, and is dynamized by the necessity to cope with the constant updating of meteorological, tides and navigation conditions; this in turn creates new temporal cycles of observation and recording on the logbook. At some point the skipper steps back and prioritizes the various parameter, thus displaying Ulyssean cunning intelligence, mètis, as navigation is under the responsibility of Athena, not of Poseidon the master of the sea. Navigation techniques evolve, but the open sea will always be a demanding, unforgiving environment, and good judgment will be always requested to cope with its strength. But at the end of the day, no matter how troubled the sail was, each of us would like to focus on the final task of the cruise, dropping the hook in the perfect cove, looking forward a moment of rest, of sharing of memories, and perhaps contemplation. Not so simple, reminds us William Sharpe, for whom the mind of the mariner preparing to anchor is divided in three parts, one studying the water surface, winds, currents and obstacles, one thinking about the invisible bottom and its uncertainties, and the third – the social mind – “repressing awareness of critical onlookers”, so as to let the two other parts do their job. The anchoring part of sailing is so important (how to impede the movement of an artifact that was designed to ensure maximum slipperiness) that it is the source of countless metaphors; these in turn cast a light on the mind of sailors, on the way they apprehended the medium that makes sailing possible, reminding them that humans are not inhabitants of the sea, and that they need to touch land, sooner or later.

References Casati, R. (2019). Navigation as instrumental negotiation Report and observations on a transatlantic field trip and training on sailboat « “Albatros” » (2016–2017). 42.

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Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience (1st ed.). Harper & Row. Gladwin, T. (1974). East is a big bird: Navigation and logic on Puluwat atoll (3. printing). Harvard University Press. Heersmink, R. (2013). A taxonomy of cognitive artifacts: Function, information, and categories. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 4(3), 465–481. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s13164-­013-­0148-­1 Hutchins, E. (1983). Understanding Micronesian navigation. In D. Gentner & A. Stevens (Eds.), Mental models (pp. 191–225). Lawrence Erlbaum. Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the wild. MIT Press. Hutchins, E., & Hinton, G. E. (1984). Why the islands move. Perception, 13(5), 629–632. https:// doi.org/10.1068/p130629 Huth, J. E. (2013). The lost art of finding our way. Harvard University Press. Lewis, D. (1994). We, the navigators: The ancient art of landfinding in the Pacific. University of Hawaii Press. Scholtz, G. (2016). Philosophie des Meeres (1. Auflage). Mare. Sprevak, M. (2019). Extended cognition. In Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy. Routledge. Tenbrink, T., & Dylla, F. (2017). Sailing: Cognition, action, communication. Journal of Spatial Information Science, 15, 3–33. https://doi.org/10.5311/JOSIS.2017.15.350 Wolfschmidt, G. (Éd.). (2008). « Navigare necesse est »: Geschichte der Navigation: Begleitbuch zur Ausstellung in Hamburg und Nürnberg. Books on Demand GmbH. Roberto Casati is a senior researcher with CNRS, professor at EHESS, and the director of Institut Jean Nicod in Paris. He sails mostly on 35–45 ft monohulls and completed two transatlantic crossings as crew member on Albatros, a Challenge 67. [email protected]  

Chapter 2

Engineering, Daydreaming, and Control Daniel C. Dennett

Philosophy and sailing go together beautifully in my experience. First, and most important to me, philosophers’ mistakes hardly matter (which is a good thing, since we philosophers make them by the dozens); our expertise, such as it is, seldom is called upon to deal with a crisis, help someone in peril, or—most dramatically— save a life. Nobody would get rich selling malpractice insurance to philosophers! Sailing on the open ocean, in contrast, is a place where one’s knowledge is put to the test. I have always relished the occasions when I and my crew and passengers would have been in mortal danger had I not known what I was doing. Calmly dealing with rough weather, a ripped sail, a deranged GPS, a seasick sailhandler is a demonstration—to oneself—that one is in charge, using knowledge to make a difference. To my taste, it is one of life’s most gratifying experiences. That may say more about me than about philosophers in general. I have always been in my own mind a sort of engineer who happened to specialize in philosophy, a deviser and critic of intuition pumps, a fixer of perspectives, a maker of gadgets that can open people’s minds to new ideas. Anyone who owns a sailboat big enough for overnight cruises has to be handy—or have a first mate who can be relied on to know how to set up a jury rig, retrieve a dropped tool from the bilge, reinforce a broken stanchion, and if need be sew up a nasty gash. The resourceful Robinson Crusoe was my childhood hero (long before MacGyver came along).1 But a sailboat is also an ideal floating platform for daydreaming, for extended solo musings. At the

1  I have been informed that Robinson Crusoe is an icon of colonialism, but that doesn’t change the fact that he was my childhood hero, a fact I wouldn’t want to suppress. Crusoe, importantly, said he loved Friday, a remarkable sign that he wasn’t such a villain.

D. C. Dennett (*) Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. Casati (ed.), The Sailing Mind, Studies in Brain and Mind 19, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89639-3_2

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helm of a sailboat, slower and quieter than a motorboat, I can let time pass unmeasured. I’m a gregarious chatterbox most of the time, but alone at the helm, while others are sleeping or reading or just looking at the waves, I can be content for hours, carving out a true compass course, checking my bearings and the set of the sails. Sailboats are also ideal for long discussions, occasionally interrupted by sightings of whales, dolphins or seals, or by passing boats of interest. On my beloved Xanthippe, an old Beneteau First 42 I bought in 2004, I would invite my grad students and postdocs to choose a guest for our annual Cognitive Cruise, somebody they wanted to talk to at length about their work. We’d have no schedule, no formal talks; we’d just go sailing for a few days, anchoring in beautiful coves, exploring deserted islands, and talking, talking, talking. I know of no better way to share ideas constructively. The country singer Ricky Skaggs has a song (“Can’t Control the Wind,” 1995, in the album Solid Ground) the lyrics of which are as maudlin as only pop religious lyrics can be, but there is one great line: I can’t control the wind, but I can adjust the sail.

Skaggs is probably not much of a sailor, since a sailor would say “but I can trim the sail,” which would even fit the music better, but never mind; what he sings is an important philosophical truth. You don’t have to control everything to control something. If you took some philosophers seriously, you’d think that “control” is a synonym for “cause,” but that is just wrong. There is an obvious and important difference between a sailboat driven (caused to move) by the wind while being controlled by a skipper and a sailboat driven (out of control) by the wind alone (while the skipper sleeps, say). Control requires knowledge, as I just noted, or at any rate knowhow, or at any rate information in the form of feedback to a competent mechanism that can exploit that information in a purposeful manner. Life itself depends on information in just this sense, and the difference between being alive and not being alive is primarily a matter of being able to use available information to modulate some processes. Non-living autonomous robots and other such mechanisms can also exploit such information, such knowhow. I was once cruising with friends along the coast of Greenland, on a compass course for Disco Island, and in a choppy sea I was having a hard time keeping on course. Back and forth the boat swung, leaving a snaky wake, and wearing me out at the helm. “You’re working too hard, Dan, let the autopilot do it,” the skipper suggested, and he turned it on and set it for the compass course. The below-decks hydraulics kicked in, and began to move the rudder, whrrrr! . . . whrrrrrrrr. . . . whrr-whrrr . . . . whrrrrrr, as the helm spun back and forth on its own. “It’s working as hard as I was,” I commented, and sat back to rest. In a few minutes I noticed that the sound was different: . . . . .whrr . . . . . . . . . .whr . . . . . .whr. . . . . . . . . .. whr, and after about twenty minutes it was . . . . . . .r . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . r. . . . . . . . . . and the helm was almost stationary for longer and longer periods. The autopilot had learned to prune back its corrections to a minimum, and the wake was a straight white line behind us as far as I could see it. It had learned in half an hour what it sometimes takes me hours or days to learn—the “feel” of a

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boat’s helm under particular conditions, so that the slightest veer off the compass course gets just the right correction at just the right time. What was more surprising to me at first was the realization that it was using much less information than I was. It couldn’t see the waves cresting, or even note the heel of the boat in the wind. All it had to work with was the compass heading, swinging back and forth and the effects of its steering actions on this. I’d been overthinking the problem, apparently, and we do a lot of that when we’re novices at any activity involving our arms and legs—hitting a golf ball, turning on skis, returning a tennis serve to the backhand, doing elegant calligraphy or just ladling pancake batter on a griddle. When we “automatize” such behaviors, with or without wise advise from a coach, we streamline and optimize the information-handling without knowing how we do it or why— just like the reinforcement-learning algorithm in the autopilot. Of course it couldn’t steer around any icebergs or flotsam in our path and it couldn’t figure out when to change course (since we hadn’t programed in a turning point on the GPS). This is a nice example of a well-known irony: when the originators of the first wave of AI (Good Old Fashioned AI or GOFAI) tried to model human thought quite explicitly and directly, they created strange brittle systems that often output bizarre “misunderstandings” and failed to execute cognitive tasks that any normal six-year-old does with ease; when the creators of the second wave of AI (so-called deep learning systems) turned their backs on human psychology and just treated the tasks as engineering problems, they ended up creating systems whose behavior—in general— seems much more brainlike and “natural.” But before we decide that now we have found the right way to do AI, we should note that on many problems, such as deciding whether to alter course when some novel phenomenon looms, deep learning systems are as blind and useless as an autopilot. Yes, the self-driving car projects are confronting more and more of these issues and making impressive progress on them, but human-style judgment is still a promise on the horizon, not anything we should expect in the next few years. The “dividing line” (it isn’t a bright line) between the living and the non-living might well be drawn at the motor proteins that march by the trillions in all our cells, carrying materials around where they are needed. Are proteins alive or are they “just” very competent macromolecular robots with hundreds of moving parts? In either case, it turns out that Skaggs’ line might be their motto, for they exploit the energy in the chaotic storm of jostling intracellular water molecules to move so intrepidly and reliably along their tubulin highways. Without the uncontrollable “wind” of those water molecules bombarding them, they would not have the energy they need to locomote along their paths. They are nano-sailors steering a true course and keeping us alive. Of course their “steering” is simplified by the fact that they are on rails of sorts, like the underwater rails that keep the adventure boats at Disneyland on course no matter what the “guide” does with the helm, but there is one degree of freedom that they do control: whether to move forward or backward on the rails. Without these hypermodest deciders doing their jobs down in the engine room, there would be no more sophisticated alternative courses of action to ponder, no “free choices” to determine our trajectories.

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Can an agent with (real) “free will” be made out of parts that have only the freedom of motor proteins? Can something green be made out of atoms that aren’t themselves green? Can something alive be made out of non-living parts? Can something conscious be made out of unconscious parts? Of course! That’s the only way something could be green or living or conscious or free (in the sense that matters). Consider in this regard the flipping of a fair coin or the rolling of a pair of dice. The trajectories of these artifacts are caused, but practically uncontrollable. That’s what makes them perfectly good randomizers. The causation that determines the outcome is utterly incalculable. Dice are designed to be uncontrollable by us, and of course they are too simple to control themselves. We are also designed--by natural selection—to be uncontrollable by others, but we are able to control ourselves to a significant degree, thanks to the information we embody and acquire. A main task of cognitive science is to explain in detail how we merely physical bodies embedded in a deterministic world are competent enough—not perfectly “free”—to be wisely held responsible for our actions. It is language that most sharply distinguishes us from all other animals, largely because it makes possible the sharing of voluminous and detailed knowledge on thousands of topics of relevance to our expanded life interests, and with this explosive collection of interests and knowledge we have many more degrees of freedom—in the engineering sense—than any other animal. Controlling all those degrees of freedom is practically impossible, but we have discovered hundreds of ways of improving our self-control and passed them on, culturally, to our offspring. By the time most of them become normal adults, they have the cognitive and moral competence to be held responsible for their actions. That is the free will worth wanting, and it has nothing to do with causation.2 Daniel C. Dennett  is the director of the Center for Cognitive Studies and Austin B.  Fletcher Professor of Philosophy at Tufts. [email protected]

2  Kristin Andrews and Susana Monso, in “Animal Moral Psychologies,” forthcoming in John M. Doris & Manuel Vargas (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Moral Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, argue that many animals exhibit signs of the psychological attributes that are held to be prerequisites for moral responsibility. They do not advance the claim that animals are, or could be, morally responsible agents, which I think is a wise forebearance. Young children exhibit many more signs of these moral attributes than any animals, and yet are not considered morally responsible agents. Animals and young children used to be tried, convicted and even executed for crimes, but we human animals have advanced beyond that barbarous practice. Human exceptionalism at its best.

Chapter 3

Sailing, Flow and, Happiness Christine Tappolet

“Nice? It’s the only thing,” […]. “Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” Kenneth Grahame, Winds in the Willows (1908)

3.1  Introduction I enjoy nothing half as much as sailing. What I love most is being at the helm of a fast and well-balanced sailboat, which responds instantly to the slightest changes in trim and course. I love to beat up against the breeze and the waves, close-hauled, or else to race downwind under flying sail, surfing on the waves, with only a few fingers on the tiller-extension. What is this experience of mine and why do I like it so much? Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi would characterize it as an experience of flow. Indeed, Csikszentmihalyi uses sailing as his first example in his book Flow (1990) to illustrate the concept of flow: On the rare occasions that it happens, we feel a sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of enjoyment that is long cherished and that becomes a land-mark in memory of what life should be like. […] It is what the sailor holding a tight course feels when the wind whips through her hair, when the boat lunges through the waves like a colt—sails, hull, wind, and sea humming a harmony that vibrates in the sailor’s veins. (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, 3)

Thanks to Roberto Casati, Pablo Fernandez Velasco, Kevin Mulligan, Mauro Rossi, and Gopal Sreenivasan for comments and discussions. C. Tappolet (*) Philosophy Department, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. Casati (ed.), The Sailing Mind, Studies in Brain and Mind 19, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89639-3_3

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Flow is defined as “a psychological state in which the person feels simultaneously cognitively efficient, motivated, and happy.” (Moneta & Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, 277). But what is flow, exactly? The concept of flow has gained popularity within the movement of positive psychology, and psychologists have characterized the experience of flow in great detail. Even so, maybe because they are not philosophers, psychologists have not been interested in what type of mental experience flow consists in. The hypothesis I want to examine in this chapter is whether flow is an affective state. More precisely, I think we have good reason to believe that flow is an emotion. Flow is often characterized as a kind of enjoyment, which is a state that is generally considered to be an emotion. Flow is also contrasted with states that are standardly taken to be emotions, such as boredom and anxiety. Hence, the thesis that flow is an emotion has initial plausibility. The question is whether flow shares all the essential features of emotions. Answering this question requires bringing two bodies of research together: the psychological research on flow and theories of emotions, be they philosophical or else coming from the interdisciplinary field of affective sciences. The plan is to first present the main characteristic attributed to flow, something which will allow us to understand why sailing is particularly apt to induce flow. In the following section, I will specify what emotions are by listing the generally acknowledged features of such states. On the basis of this, I will argue that flow is an emotion, and more precisely that it is a kind of enjoyment, a positive emotion that contributes to happiness.

3.2  The Concept of Flow In an early characterization, Csikszentmihaly describes flow, which he also calls the “optimal experience,” as “the holistic sensation that people feel when they act with total engagement.” (1975, 36) He explains that in such a state, the agent experiences action “as a unified flowing from one moment to the next, in which he is in control of his actions, and in which there is little distinction between self and environment, between stimulus and response or between past, present, and future.” (Ibid.) According to Csikszentmihalyi (1975), Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi (2012) and, more generally, according to flow researchers (Engeser & Schiepe-Tiska, 2012), who mainly base their results on interviews, flow has the following two conditions: • Perceived challenges, or opportunities for action, that match existing skills, or more precisely, that match or stretch, but neither overmatch nor underutilize existing skills, such that one is engaging challenges at a level appropriate to one’s capacities; and • Clear proximal goals and immediate feedback about the progress that is made.

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Furthermore, the experience of flow is thought to have the following characteristics: • Intense and focused concentration on what one is doing in the present moment, to the point that the rest of the world seems to be cut off; • Merging of action and awareness, in which a person is aware of her action, but not aware of the awareness itself or of herself as separate from what she is doing; • Loss of reflective self-consciousness, such that considerations about the self become irrelevant; • Feeling of control of one’s action and over the demands of the environment, a sense of mastery and power in that one feels that one can deal with the situation; • Distortion of temporal experience, such that, typically, the time passes faster than normal; and • Experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding, so that there is no need for external goals or rewards. A few comments on this standard list of characteristics are in order. Somewhat surprisingly, an intuitively important characteristic fails to figure in the current list. By all accounts, what is characteristic of flow is that it involves enjoyment, something that explains why flow is experienced as intrinsically rewarding. The importance of enjoyment is clear from the beginning of flow research. Thus, Csikszentmihaly explicitly refers to Karl Bühler’s notion of Functionlust, i.e., “the pleasurable sensation that an organism experiences when it is functioning according to its physical and sensory potential.” (1975, 24, see Bühler, 1930) Moreover, Csikszentmihaly, who had set out to study the nature and conditions of enjoyment, writes that flow “is the crucial component of enjoyment” (1975, 11), the activities that cause flow being experienced as highly enjoyable. Indeed, the questionnaires in the studies that lead to Csikszentmihaly’s 1975 publication already use enjoyment of the experience as an indicator of intrinsic reward. Since he allows for other, more passive kinds of enjoyment, flow is in fact associated with a specific form of enjoyment. However, Csikszentmihaly suggests that people feel the highest enjoyment when engaged in activities that cause flow. As stated in the first condition of flow experience, what is crucial to flow is the perceived balance between the challenge involved in the activity and the skills of the individual, something that results in the sense of control or mastery. When the challenge is experienced as too demanding, given an individual’s skill at the activity, anxiety is the result. When the challenge is perceived as not demanding enough, given the individual’s skills at the activity, the individual will feel boredom. “Flow”, by contrast, “is experienced when the perceived opportunities for action are in balance with the actors’ perceived skills.” (Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012, 94) Flow is thus directly opposed to anxiety and boredom. In a more complex model of how levels of challenges and levels of skill interact, flow is contrasted not with two, but with seven states: arousal, anxiety, worry, apathy, boredom, relaxation, and control (see, for instance, Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2012, 95). Flow is claimed to be experienced when the perceived challenge and associated skill are above the agent’s average levels, while apathy, for

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instance, results from the perception that the challenge and the associated skill are both low. On this new model, boredom is thought to result from the perception of low challenge associated with medium skill, while worry comes with a medium challenge and low skill, and anxiety with a high challenge and low skill. We are now in a position to see why sailing, and in particular, being at the helm of a fast and well-balanced sailboat under a good breeze is liable to induce flow. Let us assume that you are an experienced sailor and have mastered the complex skills of steering a sailboat even in high winds. Given this assumption, the first condition is easy to meet. The perceived challenge of sailing upwind, say, matches your helmsperson’s skills. Indeed, as the challenge increases, it will just pleasantly stretch your skills, at least up to the breaking point. It is also clear that there usually is a clear proximal goal, be it only the goal of having your boat sail as fast as possible in the present weather conditions. Importantly, sailing involves a good amount of immediate feedback. Consider sailing upwind. If you fail to notice the tell-tales’ lack of air flow, your foresail will start luffing, indicating that you should bear off. Indeed, good sailors are aware of all the minute changes in speed and heel as the boat responds to the changes in wind and waves, and they will constantly be ready to correct their course or trim their sails. Maintaining the balance between all the interacting forces requires an intense focus of attention, so it is not a surprise that the first three characteristics of flow are common features of a sailor’s experience. In contrast to voluntarily directed attention, however, the focus of attention is exogenous, in the sense that it is guided by external changes. Therefore, unlike effortful and voluntary concentration, it is experienced as easy. Given this, it is no surprise either that you will experience the time as passing faster than usual. You are intensively focused on the activity and you forget about yourself and the rest of the world. Moreover, as long as the winds do not increase to gale force, you feel in control. If you fail to anticipate a gust or a bigger wave, you might briefly lose control of the boat, but if you are experienced enough, you will immediately regain control and prevent the boat from broaching. Indeed, with increasing skills, you will experience flow even if the conditions become harsher, as you battle upwind in huge waves and have to control the heel by constantly adjusting your mainsail – at least, as long as your skills are not overstretched, and the boat can take it. All this makes for an exhilarating experience, in which the activity of sailing is experienced as intrinsically rewarding. Now that we have a better idea of what characterizes an experience of flow, let us turn to emotions.

3.3  Homing in on Emotions There is a multitude of terms used to refer to emotions. Consider the following, alphabetically ordered, list: “admiration,” “amusement,” “anxiety,” “anger,” “awe,” “boredom,” “compassion,” “contempt,” “disgust,” “envy,” “fear,” “grief,” “guilt,” “happiness,” “hope,” “indignation,” “jealousy,” “joy,” “pity,” “regret,” “sadness”,

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“shame”, and “surprise.” This list is by no means complete. Indeed, it would be much longer if we were to add terms from non-Western cultures, such as the Japanese amae, a pleasurable feeling of dependency (Doi, 1973) or the Russian toska, which roughly translates as melancholy-cum-yearning (Wierzbicka, 1992), to name but two examples. In any case, even if any such list might well need tidying, what is clear is that there would seem to be an unwieldy variety of emotions, which is difficult to capture in a single net. This in part explains the lack of consensus regarding theories of emotions. To keep things simple, I will focus on uncontroversial cases of emotions, such as fear, anger, disgust, and admiration. A second point to clarify is that, as is generally agreed, one should distinguish between episodes of emotions (also known as “occurrent emotions”), such as the anger you might have felt when a boat barged in at the downwind mark, forcing you to make a quick tack, and emotional dispositions. An important sort of emotional disposition is constituted by what can be called “single-track dispositions”, namely, the dispositions to feel specific types of emotion, such as, again, anger. Thus, you might be disposed to feel anger at any barging boat. Sentiments are in general considered to form another class of emotional dispositions. According to many, sentiments, such as love or care, are dispositions to have emotional reactions of different types towards a specific entity. When you care for someone, for instance, you will feel fear when things threaten to go badly for that person and joy when things go well for her, you will hope that things improve and regret if things do not get better. Finally, it is common to distinguish a further affective category—that is, moods. Examples of moods include apprehension, elation, and gloom. In contrast to emotions, which typically target specific objects, moods do not seem to be directed at specific objects. Moods are puzzling because they appear to be about nothing in particular and everything at once. Because my hypothesis is that flow is an emotional episode, I will focus here on that kind of affective phenomenon, using the term “emotion” to refer to emotional episodes. Theories of emotions are commonly divided in three broad families: feeling theories, conative theories, and cognitive theories (Scarantino & de Sousa, 2018). According to feeling theories, emotions are states that are characterized by their phenomenal properties, but which lack representational content, or at least a representational content about the world outside the body (James, 1884; Whiting, 2009). Conative theories focus on the motivational power of emotions and claim that emotions are, in essence, motivational states, such as desires or action-tendencies (Frijda, 1986; Scarantino, 2014; Deonna & Teroni, 2012). Finally, cognitive theories argue that emotions are partly or wholly constituted by cognitive states. There are different ways to spell out this idea, depending on the kinds of cognitive states that are considered. Judgmental theories, for instance, hold that emotions are or necessarily involve, kinds of judgments, namely evaluative judgments (Solomon, 1976/1993; Nussbaum, 2001), while so-called quasi-judgmental theories focus on states such as evaluative thoughts (Greenspan, 1988) or construals (Roberts, 2003). According to these different theories, emotions require the possession of evaluative concepts. By contrast, perceptual theories argue that emotions are perceptual

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experiences of evaluative properties, such as the fearsome or the admirable, where it is understood that there is no need for an individual to possess the relevant evaluative concepts to be able to feel emotions (Prinz, 2004; Döring, 2007; Tappolet, 2016). In spite of the fact that theories of emotions are hotly debated, there are a number of largely uncontroversial claims regarding emotions (see Deonna & Scherer, 2010; Deonna & Teroni, 2012; Tappolet, 2016, Forthcoming). Not all theories would agree that these claims are true, but all of them recognize their prima facie plausibility. The first characteristic is what we can loosely call the phenomenology of emotions. As all emotion theorists would agree, emotions in general involve a kind of experience. When you feel fear at broaching and losing control of the boat, there is a way it is like to be in this state. You might feel something like a pang, for instance. Whether or not bodily changes are considered to be necessary for emotions, it is agreed that what you feel is likely to depend in part on the bodily changes controlled by your autonomic nervous system that are involved in your fear reaction. On top of that, what you experience will also depend on things like the focus of your attention or the kinds of thoughts that are typically involved. Finally, the way emotions feel is generally taken to have a positive or negative valence. Even if there is disagreement about how exactly to understand this, it can be agreed that some emotions, such as admiration, feel good, while others, such as fear or disgust, feel bad. Because some emotion theorists hold that emotions can be unconscious, it is not clear that emotions necessarily are felt. Indeed, studies in neurosciences suggest that valence can be unconscious (Berridge & Kringelbach, 2015). Nonetheless, there is a consensus around the following thesis: (Phenomenology) Emotions typically have phenomenal properties. The second characteristic is intentionality. As we saw, episodes of emotions are at least typically about specific objects. For instance, you are afraid of broaching, you are angry at the barging sailboat, you admire the skipper who won the race. Such emotions are about particular events, things, or people. In all these cases, emotions have intentional objects. Again, the question whether all emotions have intentional objects is debated, but most emotion theorists would agree with the following thesis: (Intentionality) Emotions typically have intentional objects. The third characteristic is the intimate relationship between emotions and appraisals. When you are afraid of broaching, there is a sense in which you appraise that event as fearsome (or as dangerous). In other words, it seems to you that broaching is fearsome. Similarly, when you feel disgust at something, you appraise it as disgusting, and when you admire someone, you appraise that person as admirable. Again, most emotions theorists readily acknowledge that emotions generally involve appraisals. What they disagree about is the nature of these appraisals as well as the exact relation between the appraisal and the emotion. This gives us the following thesis: (Evaluation) Emotions typically involve appraisals.

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The fourth characteristic of emotions is closely related to the previous one. In addition to intentional objects, emotions are also taken to have so-called formal objects. For instance, fear has fearsomeness as its formal object, anger has offensiveness as its formal object, while admiration has admirableness as its formal object. Most often, formal objects are understood as what, in conjunction with the intentional object of the emotion, determines whether the emotion is fitting or not. In the case of fear, your fear of broaching would be fitting on the condition that broaching is fearsome. According to most accounts, there is a close relationship between appraisals and formal object, the former being thought of in terms of the attribution of the latter. Because one might hold that the content of the appraisal does not involve the formal object of the emotion, it is nonetheless useful to distinguish these two characteristics. Since most philosophers accept that emotions have formal objects, we arrive at a fourth thesis: (Formal objects) Emotions typically have formal objects. The fifth characteristic is the motivational force of emotions. According to some, emotions necessarily involve motivations (Scarantino, 2014). Even if this claim is in all likelihood too strong – it is far from clear that admiration or joy, for instance, needs to come with motivation – what would seem true is that emotions such as fear, anger or disgust are closely tied to motivations. Consider again a case of fear. When you are afraid of something, you are typically motivated to escape the perceived threat, be it by running away, by freezing, by attacking, and so on. Whether this has to be understood in terms of action-tendencies or in terms of goals that are set by the emotion is controversial (Tappolet, 2016). But it can be agreed that the following thesis holds: (Motivation) Episodes of emotion typically involve motivations. In general, whatever the exact theory of emotions that one favors, there is broad consensus regarding these five theses. Emotional episodes typically involve (a) phenomenal properties, (b) intentional objects, (c) appraisals, (d) formal objects, and (e) motivations. Now that we have a grasp of what emotions are, let us turn to the question whether flow is an emotion.

3.4  Flow as an Emotion The striking fact is that flow experiences share all the typical features of emotional episodes. To see this, let us consider these features in turn, starting with phenomenological properties. Does flow involve such properties? This is not something that is explicit in the characteristics of the flow experience mentioned in the standard list, but it is not difficult to tease it out from those characteristics. The first point to underscore is that flow is conceived as a kind of experience – that is, a state that is felt. Indeed, the experience of flow is described in terms of a feeling of control, or

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else in terms of a sense of mastery or power. Flow is also thought to involve a specific kind of awareness. We are thus told that a person experiencing flow is aware of her actions, but not of the awareness itself. Moreover, flow is claimed to involve an experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding. Finally, even if Csikszentmihalyi himself does not mention this, others have claimed that the experience of flow has a positive valence. Indeed, it is because of this trait that some have suggested that flow is related to enjoyment or to affects more generally. Stefan Engeser and Anja Schiepe-Tiska thus write that “flow is a positively valenced experience and is associated with feelings of enjoyment.” (Engeser & Schiepe-Tiska, 2012, 6) Similarly, Corinna Peifer, (2012) proposes to understand flow as state with positive valence and holds that this constitutes its affective component, even if she shies away from the claim that flow is a kind of emotion. Thus, not only does flow appear to involve phenomenal properties, but it also seems to have a relatively specific phenomenal profile, characterized by positive valence and a feeling or sense of control, mastery, or power. We can thus tick this first box: flow involves phenomenal properties. The next question is whether flow experiences involve intentional objects. A first point to note regarding this question is that we typically experience flow when we are engaged in an activity. In typical cases, the experience of flow is caused by an activity, which we are aware of performing. I say “typical cases” to make room for flow experiences caused by being under the illusion of performing an activity—the kind of flow a brain in a vat might experience—or by merely imagining that one is engaging in an activity. There might be disagreement as to whether such atypical cases are really possible, but there is no need to rule them out from the start. Let us consider the typical case, in which flow is caused by the activity that one is aware of performing. This suggests that the intentional object of flow is nothing else but the activity that causes it. Now, a well-worn point in the literature on emotions is that the cause of an emotion need not be its intentional object (de Sousa, 1987). You might feel anger at a friend because you failed to win the race, for instance. In that case, your anger is directed at your friend, but it is caused by your bad performance in the race, for which your friend has no responsibility. However, the cause of an emotion is most often also its object, and, indeed, unless there is a special reason to believe otherwise, it is natural to assume that the cause of an emotion is its intentional object. When you are disgusted by the weevil crawling on your biscuit, the weevil crawling on your biscuit is the cause of your disgust and it is also its intentional object. Because of this, it is plausible that the activity that causes the experience of flow is also its intentional object. Another line of thought takes us to the same conclusion. Emotions are generally thought to involve cognitive bases. The idea is that to be disgusted at the weevil, you need to see it crawling on your biscuit, or else you need to believe it is there or at least imagine this is the case. Now, a common claim is that the cognitive bases provide the intentional objects of emotions (Deonna & Teroni, 2012). Accordingly, your seeing the weevil crawling on the biscuit is what provides your disgust with its intentional object. Similarly, it can be argued that because your experience of flow has your awareness of the activity—or more precisely the awareness of the elements and steps that constitute the activity—as its cognitive basis, it is likely that the

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activity is the intentional object of your experience of flow. Things are slightly more complicated, however, since it could be argued that the cognitive basis of flow is not simply the awareness of the activity, but the perception of it as constituting a challenge that matches your skills. This, it would seem, is what follows from the above-­ mentioned claim that, among the conditions of flow, there is the perception of a challenge that matches existing skills. Given this, one might think that the intentional object of flow is the fact that an activity matches your skills. However, there is no need to accept this suggestion. What is perceived as a matching challenge is the activity. Therefore, insofar as the cognitive basis provides the intentional object of a state, the activity can well be the intentional object that is provided by the more complex cognitive basis. Similarly, the cognitive basis of your disgust at the weevil might well be the perception of the weevil crawling on your biscuit. In any case, there would be an intentional object in both stories, so that we can tick this box: flow appears to have an intentional object. This takes us to appraisals. That appraisals are involved in flow is immediately visible from the standard list of characteristics. We are told that the experience of flow involves an experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding. In other words, when you are in flow, it seems to you that the activity is intrinsically rewarding, and this is clearly a way to appraise an activity. Again, the picture might be somewhat more complicated. This is because it might be thought that the perception of the activity as matching existing skills is an appraisal. For instance, Peifer writes that flow would result “from an activity that has been appraised as an optimal challenge” (2012, 160), something she identifies with the cognitive component of flow. One question here is whether this appraisal should be considered to be the cause of the experience of flow or whether it has to be seen as an essential constituent of the experience of flow. Independent of this issue, another question that arises is what exactly the overall appraisal of flow amounts to. Is it simply the appraisal of the activity as intrinsically rewarding or does it in addition involve the idea of a challenge that matches existing skills? Maybe the activity is appraised as being intrinsically rewarding in virtue of being a challenge that matches existing skills. In any case, there is no doubt that we can tick this further box: flow involves an appraisal. What about formal objects? Given what we have just said, the obvious suggestion is that the formal object of the experience of flow is the property of being intrinsically rewarding, possibly in virtue of a challenge that matches existing skills. While there is a grain of truth in this claim, it might well fail to convince. There are in fact two ways to specify formal objects. Some prefer spelling out the formal object of an emotion in terms that are independent of the emotion itself. They claim, for instance, that danger is the formal object of fear (Prinz, 2004). Others, however, hold that the formal object of fear is nothing but the fearsome, understood as a response-dependent feature, that has to be explained in terms of fear reactions (Tappolet, 2016; D’Arms & Jacobson, Forthcoming). In the latter scenario, we would have to say that the formal object of flow is the property that is picked out by a response-dependent concept, such as the concept of the fearsome. Again, however, this debate does not prevent us from ticking the next box: flow has a formal object, whatever its exact characterization.

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The last characteristic of emotion—namely, motivation—is where the analogy threatens to break down. A look at the standard list of characteristics of flow does not help to associate flow with motivation, since it does not mention anything about motivation. It might be suggested that this is not so much of a problem, since arguably several kinds of emotions are not tightly connected with motivation (Tappolet, 2016). Alternatively, one could argue that flow is like joy, an emotion that does not come with any specific motivation. Instead, joy has been thought to involve an activation state with no specific goal (Frijda, 1986) or an action readiness with a generic goal to relate with the world (Scarantino, 2014). Upon reflection, however, it is not that difficult to associate flow with motivation. The reason is that insofar as the activity causing flow is experienced as intrinsically rewarding, flow can be thought to involve a motivation to engage in the activity in question. In fact, Csikszentmihalyi (1975) explicitly makes the link between intrinsic reward and intrinsic motivation, holding that the ability to derive intrinsic reward from an activity is key to intrinsic motivation—that is, motivation that does not depend on extrinsic rewards. In addition, flow has been thought to involve future-oriented motivations, such as carrying out the activity again or seeking challenges to improve one’s skills. In general, the motivational aspect of flow is at the heart of flow research (Engeser & Schiepe-­ Tiska, 2012). Given this, there is no doubt that we can tick the last box: flow involves motivation. Let me round up this discussion with a point about a further feature that experiences of flow and emotions share—namely, attentional focus. As the standard list of characteristics makes clear, flow involves a specific pattern of attentional focus. When experiencing flow, the individual focuses her attention on the activity and the present moment, so that she forgets about herself and the rest of the world. Interestingly, it is generally accepted by psychologists (Wells & Matthews, 1994), neuroscientists (Damasio, 1994), and philosophers (de Sousa, 1987; Brady, 2013) that emotions have a close relationship with attentional phenomena. When afraid, you will focus your attention on the danger. When angry at someone, you will focus on that person. By contrast, being bored will make your attention drift away, while feeling happy will come with a widening of your attentional focus (Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005). Clearly, that both flow and emotions involve attentional phenomena strengthens the case for the claim that flow is a kind of emotion. Let me pull together the threads of the argument. Experiences of flow share all five features that typically characterize emotional episodes. Moreover, such experiences are like emotions in that they are associated with a specific pattern of attention. There is good reason, thus, to hold that the experience of flow is a kind of emotion. This is the case in spite of the fact the standard list of flow characteristics does not mention emotions, such that, as noted by Engeser and Schiepe-Tiska, “flow is not defined through an affective state.” (2012, 8) Given this, the question is what type of emotion the experience of flow is. It will come as no surprise that my answer is simply that the experience of flow is a kind of enjoyment. It was after all Csikszentmihalyi’s project from the start to understand the nature of the enjoyment individuals find in some activities, such as play or games. The good news is that he did not just uncover “a crucial component of

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enjoyment” (1975, 11). He offered a theory of the kind of enjoyment we have when we are sailing. What kind of enjoyment, it will be asked? We can enjoy floating in a warm bubble bath or resting in the sun, and we can enjoy watching children play. Clearly, such enjoyments appear different from the enjoyment of sailing upwind in a good breeze. Again, my answer will appear less than surprising. What I suggest is that the experience of flow is the specific kind of enjoyment, which we take when engaged in activities that we perceive as challenges that match our skills.

3.5  Coda The thesis that the experience of flow is a kind of enjoyment might well seem a bit of a letdown. Didn’t we know this all the time? Of course we did. However, what is also true is that understanding that flow is a type of emotion and, more specifically, that flow is a kind of enjoyment nonetheless constitutes a step forward. Framing flow as an emotion sheds light on the nature of flow in that we can draw on our understanding of what emotions are to better understand flow. Indeed, framing flow as an emotion makes room for new questions regarding flow—for instance, the question of what the appraisal involved in flow consists in exactly. Relatedly, there is the question of how to spell out the formal object of flow. Furthermore, depending on the theory of emotions that one favors, new hypotheses about the nature of flow will arise. If one favors a perceptual account of emotions (Tappolet, 2016), the hypothesis will be that experiences of flow constitute a kind of perceptual experience of a specific evaluative feature instantiated by the activity. How exactly we are to understand this suggestion is controversial. What is clear is that there is a realm of possibilities, which merits thorough exploration. From the other direction, however, understanding the emotion of enjoyment taken in activities as an experience of flow, which involves the many characteristics specified in flow research, promises to afford a better understanding of the nature of that emotion. This should be particularly welcome for philosophers, given that, as yet, there has been a shortage of philosophical attempts to capture the nature of enjoyment (Warner, 1980; Davis, 1982; Crisp, 2006 are exceptions). We can thus be grateful to flow research for throwing light on the intricacies of enjoyment. Let me close by pointing out that the hypothesis that the flow experience is an emotion has explanatory power. What it explains is why flow is naturally thought to be related to happiness. Sailing, we sailors would say, makes us happy. The thesis that flow, understood as a kind of enjoyment, contributes to happiness follows directly from a plausible account of psychological happiness as consisting in a positive balance of emotions and, more generally, of affective states (Haybron, 2008; Rossi, 2018; Rossi & Tappolet, Forthcoming). Dan Haybron (2008, 121) holds that flow is a constituent of an important dimension of psychological happiness, namely engagement. This appears plausible enough, but flow can be tied to happiness in an even more direct way. Insofar as flow is a positive affective state, it necessarily

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contributes to happiness understood as a positive balance of affective states. Indeed, because we tend to forget about the world when experiencing flow, flow will tend to cancel negative affects, thus helping to tip the balance in favor of happiness. It is noteworthy that this suggestion is perfectly compatible with the empirically validated thesis that flow is not strongly associated with happiness (Engeser & Schiepe-­ Tiska, 2012, 8). The reason why individuals experiencing flow do not tend to see themselves as experiencing happiness is simply that the term “happiness” can refer either to an overall psychological state or to a specific kind of emotion, such as when we say that we are happy to own a shipshape boat or else happy that a friend won the race. Given this, it makes sense to say that when experiencing flow, you feel enjoyment at some activity, something that importantly contributes to your overall state of psychological happiness, even if at the time you do not feel an emotion of happiness at something or other. In other words, you enjoy the activity and this contributes to your happiness, understood as positive balance of affective states, even if you do not experience any emotion of happiness at the same time.

References Berridge, K.  C., & Kringelbach, M.  L. (2015). Pleasure Systems in the Brain. Neuron, 86(3), 646–664. Brady, M.  S. (2013). Emotional insight: The epistemic role of emotional experience. Oxford University Press. Bühler, K. (1930). Die geistige Entwicklung des Kindes. G. Fischer. Crisp, R. (2006). Reasons and the good. Oxford University Press. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1975). Beyond boredom and anxiety. Jossey-Bass Publishers. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. Harper and Row. D’Arms, J., & Jacobson, D. (Forthcoming). Rational Sentimentalism. Oxford University Press. Damasio, A. (1994). Descartes’ error: Emotion, reason and the human brain. Gossett/Putnam. Davis, W. A. (1982). A causal theory of enjoyment. Mind, 91, 240–256. de Sousa, R. (1987). The rationality of emotion. MIT Press. Deonna, J. A., & Scherer, K. R. (2010). The case of the disappearing intentional object: Constraints on a definition of emotion. Emotion Review, 2(1), 44–52. Deonna, J. A., & Teroni, F. (2012). The emotions: A philosophical introduction. Routledge. Doi, T. (1973). The anatomy of dependence: The key analysis of Japanese behavior (John Bester, trans.). Kodansha International. Döring, S. A. (2007). Seeing what to do: Affective perception and rational motivation. Dialectica, 61(63), 363–394. Engeser, S., & Schiepe-Tiska, A. (2012). Historical lines and an overview of current research on flow. In S. Engeser (Ed.), Advances in flow research (pp. 1–22). Springer. Fredrickson, B. L., & Branigan, C. (2005). Positive emotions broaden the scope of attention and thought-action repertoires. Cognition and Emotion, 19(3), 313–332. Frijda, N. H. (1986). The emotions. Cambridge University Press. Greenspan, P. (1988). Emotions and reasons: An enquiry into emotional justification. Routledge. Haybron, D. M. (2008). The pursuit of unhappiness: The elusive psychology of Well-being. Oxford University Press. James, W. (1884). What is an emotion? Mind, 9, 188–205. Moneta, G. B., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). The effect of perceived challenges and skills on the quality of subjective experience. Journal of Personality, 64(2), 275–310.

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Nakamura, J., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2012). Flow theory and research. In Oxford handbook of positive psychology (pp. 195–206). Oxford University Press. Nussbaum, M.  C. (2001). Upheavals of thought: The intelligence of emotions. Cambridge University Press. Peifer, C. (2012). Psychophysiological correlates of flow-experience. In S. Engeser (Ed.), Advances in flow research (pp. 139–164). Springer. Prinz, J. J. (2004). Gut reactions: A perceptual theory of the emotions. Oxford University Press. Roberts, R. C. (2003). Emotions: An essay in aid of moral psychology. Cambridge University Press. Rossi, M. (2018). Happiness, pleasures, and emotions. Philosophical Psychology, 31(6), 898–919. Rossi, M., & Tappolet, C. (Forthcoming). An affective theory of happiness. Oxford University Press. Scarantino, A. (2014). The motivational theory of emotions. In D. Jacobson & J. D’Arms (Eds.), Moral psychology and human agency (pp. 156–185). Oxford University Press. Scarantino, A., & de Sousa, R. (2018). Emotion. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/emotion/ Solomon, R. C. (1976/1993). The passions: Emotions and the meaning of life. Hackett Publishing Company. Tappolet, C. (2016). Emotions, values, and agency. Oxford University Press. Tappolet, C. (Forthcoming). The philosophy of emotions: A contemporary introduction. Routledge. Warner, R. (1980). Enjoyment. Philosophical Review, 89(4), 507–526. Wells, A., & Matthews, G. (1994). Attention and emotion: A clinical perspective. Lawrence Earlbaum Associates. Whiting, D. (2009). The feeling theory of emotion and the object-directed emotions. European Journal of Philosophy, 19, 281–303. Wierzbicka, A. (1992). Semantics, culture, and cognition: Universal human concepts in culture-­ specific configurations. Oxford University Press. Christine Tappolet  is a Professor in the Philosophy Department at the Université de Montréal and the director of the Centre de Recherche en Ethique. She has been on sailboats since she was 6 months old, when her parents took her on a cruise on Lake Geneva. Since then, she has helmed all sorts of dinghies and keelboats, including a 5o5, a Hobie Tiger, and, in more recent times, a J88 on Lake Ontario. [email protected]

Chapter 4

Sailing: Gourmet Food for the Brain Luciano Fadiga

Reading these words ten years from now, I hope we will have forgotten the situation we are experiencing in the present. Ordered to stay at home, frightened by a gruesome pandemic, confined from the outside and to the inside. Nothing to do with the life on a sailing boat, the endless sea, the journey. However, thanks to language, which in addition to allowing communication is also a form of dynamic memory (Schank, 1999), I now have the opportunity to write down some thoughts that will be kept over time. Thoughts coming from the time (the past), recalling what was normal just few months ago. The sound of the wind, the light. This is not a piece of scientific writing in the traditional sense. It is a chain of thoughts, a rest. Several things about sailing could be of interest for a neuroscientist. Two above all. The first is that in a boat, even if moored in the port, you never feel alone. The second is that in navigation, despite the slow pace of progress, you never get bored. On the first issue, I have no “scientific” explanations. I imagine that the small and safe space that preserves us from a medium such as water, unsafe for us humans, generates a feeling of contrast that gives us a sort of quiet euphoria. A natural but highly effective antidepressant similar to a mountain chalet in winter, where the fireplace is lit. Is it the ancestral need for protection that each of us feels? If I were a psychoanalyst I would probably talk about a maternal uterus, but I do not go that far. It is certain that there will be a reason if the Anglo-Saxons refer to the boat not as a thing, but by using the personal pronoun “she”. Probably there is a direct fallout from this sense of security generated by the contrast safe boat-unsafe water. We think better. Because when we are free, our thoughts run clearer. That feeling, enclosed within a boundless medium like the sea, defines, by a paradoxical contrast, freedom. L. Fadiga (*) Human Physiology Section, University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia of Genoa, Genoa, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. Casati (ed.), The Sailing Mind, Studies in Brain and Mind 19, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89639-3_4

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The second thing that I think could be interesting for someone involved in brain research is that the boat is never boring. This is an incredible thing: how is it possible not to get bored in a situation where everything has slowed down? We are the generation of the digital revolution; we have become accustomed to a world full of stimuli, where we are never at rest, where we run more and more and less and less stop to reflect. Today, thanks to emails, we send questions and receive answers from anywhere in the world within seconds, everyone being supposed to be always available. Apart from the doubt I have that the progress of scientific knowledge in the last twenty years has grown exponentially on a par with the growth of IT and the network, I do not think that increased stimuli and speed necessarily lead to an increase in efficiency. Sailing, on the other hand, means going slowly. My boat, a 40 foot that is now thirty years old, hardly exceeds eight knots. When it does, one feels like flying because normally with ten knots downwind, I go at six. Little more than a fast walk (Fig. 4.1). I remember the first time I went sailing many years ago. The thing that struck me most was the slowness. You saw the arrival in front of you and there was still an hour to go. It is true that when we travel by car or train we rarely see the point of arrival from afar. We go to the office, to the supermarket, we go home. Mental

Fig. 4.1  The Buba, my BA40 sailing boat (design by R. Starkel), built in 1990 at the Alb-Sail shipyard in Italy

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representations of targets that require a winding path through streets, traffic lights, houses. By boat, nothing of the sort. The arrival is often seen from afar, it attracts us like a magnet: First a slight shadow on the horizon, then shapes, more and more defined in the colors, in the details. And moving so slowly we think of many things, reassured by progressing, smoking a pipe or, in my case, a cigarette. The boat is slow and in general, going to sea must be done slowly, even during ordinary actions. It is necessary to coordinate ourselves with the forces generated by the moving water. The principle of action and reaction must continually be taken into account. I am often fascinated by watching the old fishermen when they moor. Slow in the movements but precise. Essential and aware of the fact that action on the boat must never be abrupt. Motor adaptation induces persistent modifications in our brain (see, e.g., Landi et al., 2011). This is also gourmet food for it. This slowness of progression towards the goal is very similar to what happens in another situation that I am very passionate about: trekking in the mountains. Those who have tried it know it very well: we walk for hours and the arrival stays always in front of us. Sometimes it seems an endless walk, similarly to what happens on the boat. Unlike sailing, trekking or climbing takes a lot more physical effort, but many sailors are also passionate about the mountains. I do not think it is a coincidence. I believe that a fundamental reason why we do not get bored on a boat depends on the variety of sensory stimuli we receive. I am talking about variety, not amount. The always-different images that the texture of the sea presents to our visual system, the always-different noises generated by the water, the continuous and variable vestibular and somatosensory stimulations. It is a unique situation, characterized by a very high signal-to-noise ratio. Our brain likes this a lot. It finds it extremely stimulating because its main task is not (as most believe) to just analyze incoming stimuli, but rather to continuously predict their dynamic. Our brain always projects the dynamics of the present into the future and does so because it is obliged to compensate for the temporal differences due to the different conduction times of the different sensory modalities (and with respect to action times). For example, if we clap our hand on the table or drum on it with our fingers, we perceive a simultaneity of events that, conversely, involve the brain with very different timings. The motor command sent to the arm, the tactile and proprioceptive sensations linked to the contact of the fingers with the surface, the sound produced by the fingers on the wood, the vision of the hand in motion: all stimuli that come and go with time delays between 25 and 5 milliseconds. One could claim that perhaps the brain feels the simultaneity because it is not able to resolve such short time differences (a sort of approximation due to a reduced sampling frequency). This is not the case. Any misalignment of even a few milliseconds between the different sensory modalities (Aschersleben & Prinz, 1995) generates a very powerful alert response (as anyone who tries to experimentally manipulate the synchrony knows) because the stimuli are perceived as simultaneous thanks to a continuous prediction work performed by the brain and cerebellum (Cao et al., 2017). Perceived as simultaneous when they are not simultaneous. This is an extremely fascinating aspect for anyone interested in neuroscience. The explanation is that delays are compensated prospectively (see Nijhawan, 2008). In other words, we live in the future and not in the present and,

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due to our hardware “imperfection”, we do not know what the present is. More precisely, for our brain, the present does not exist. Efficient sensory predictability on a boat is almost impossible. Or rather, it depends on the scale of the phenomena. Let’s think about sea waves. In the case of waves, large masses of water move according to a dynamics that globally seems predictable and that we think we know. But in reality, by focusing attention on the space-time details of smaller parts of the mass of water, we realize that the sea wave is composed of elements that seem to individually move in a random fashion. Is it really like this? My answer is that it depends on the scale of measurement. What seems globally random is actually produced by the sum over time of individually deterministic sub-phenomena and, while on the sea, we have continuous confirmations (Fig. 4.2).

Fig. 4.2  The magic surface of the sea

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To better understand the point, next time you are on a boat just use that ability of our brain called “visuospatial attention”. The existence of attention is unknown to most people. Or rather, we all use it all the time without knowing we do it. The sea continually stimulates us towards a process of “attentional wandering” because the brain looks for rules (in order to be able to predict) and understands that the ripples of the sea surface are an excellent training ground. What does it mean to pay attention? Empirical evidence suggests that visuospatial attention (the phenomenon by which the attentional focus improves the perceptual salience of the stimuli it contains) may arise from the collaboration between the visual and motor systems (Rizzolatti et  al., 1987; Corbetta et  al., 1998). In other words, the unpredictable visual pattern is interpreted thanks to a sub-threshold programming of eye movements, predictable by nature as they are generated by our brain and therefore known. In this way, by changing resolution, we can perceive the global motion (the movement of large waves) and the emergence of breakings on the waves but also, in more detail, the dynamics of every small ripple on the surface. Just by focusing our attention on the particular of interest. By doing so the brain is massively and continuously engaged, without ever getting bored. It is a bit of the same phenomenon that occurs when we look at the flames of a fireplace. Another apparently random phenomenon but governed by laws of fluidics that our brain, the brain of everyone, is very fond of. I talked about the waves and their movements. In reality, for the brain, the visual stimulus produced by water motion is even more interesting because it correlates with other sensory stimuli of different modalities. In fact, the waves are generated by the wind, the same wind that we feel blowing on our face and which stimulates our skin receptors. And the skin stimulation correlates with the visual one produced by the wave motion because wind and sea go together. The same goes for the sound of the sea and the sound of the wind. The search for the rules that allow the brain to “live in the future” is thus not only based on the analysis of local dynamics, but also on the existence of correlations between different sensations (and movements). Sailing represents the best situation for this. Very complex stimuli, apparently random but with an intrinsic predictability, correlate and collaborate. And the brain feeds on this by training itself to become more efficient in its reactive and computational abilities. A proof of this is the rebound phenomenon that we all experience returning to land after some days on the boat. We sit at the table in a restaurant and the terrestrial world (still by definition) appears to sway. A kind of reactive vertigo, an after-effect that is almost funny and that shows us how much the brain had adapted to the physics of the sea. In rare cases, some people do not re-adapt to the still land and experience a persistent vertigo. This is the “mal de débarquement” syndrome, originally described by Brown and Baloh (1987). I have to confess that, more and more, I feel a sort of debarkation disease when I come back to land. Not vestibular at all and much more “existentialistic”. Maybe another example of contrast-dependent feeling? I would like to conclude by talking about a further typical aspect of sailing: the need to build an aptitude for problem solving. Everything I have written so far is about smooth sailing, in optimal conditions. The sea sways calmly, the wind

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accompanies it, we are at the helm looking around. In the real world, sailing is not just that. Sea conditions can change unpredictably and can get really hostile. How many times have we found ourselves dealing with difficult situations? This is especially true in some particular circumstances where mid-term weather forecasts are often approximate. In fact, while oceanic navigation is accompanied by long-period waves and by weather phenomena that come from afar and of which it is possible to be warned in time, there are strange, short, narrow seas, surrounded by mountains where, among other things, the weather can change unpredictably within minutes. I am not saying that oceanic navigation is a quiet walk. When bad weather comes it can be terrible. But we can be warned about that with enough precision and prepare countermeasures. There are seas which are the opposite. An example of these is the Adriatic Sea, where I sail. Looking at a map, it looks like a serene lake, but in reality it presents some pitfalls that one needs to know. It is NW-SE oriented, with the northern coast closed by the Gulf of Trieste. This means that in the event of strong SE winds (the Italian “Scirocco”, from the Arabic word “Shurhùq”) the fetch causes a significant increase of waves going north. Moreover, it is bordered to the east by the Croatian chain of Velebit, whose sea channel is considered one of the most dangerous places for navigation because of the extreme NE winds, and to the north by the Alps. This produces drop NE winds (the Bora) that can blow at 50 knots and more (30 knots is a common value). In summer, there are more and more sudden weather phenomena, such as sea tornados or the so-called “Neverin”  – a sudden worsening of the weather announced a quarter of an hour earlier by peculiar clouds on the horizon (Fig. 4.3). Neverin produces winds of variable direction that easily can exceed 60 knots. Sailing means knowing these things and continuously solving the resulting problems. Together with the problem solving related to possible failures and malfunctions, from the engine to the rudder, to the sails. More importantly, not only solving by foreseeing. When we are at risk with the engine, we always keep the anchor ready for an emergency stop and when we come out from a harbor in a windy day we are always ready to hoist an emergency sail to not be pushed on the coast. These are just examples, well known to every sailor. This is also gourmet food for the mind. Thinking in advance about how to manage possible critical issues is a great lesson. Which then guides us throughout our life. Being a sailor is a state of the soul and, in this regard, I like to recall a famous Italian adage that sums up the need to predict the situations we face. On the boat and in our life: “The good sailor is the one who brings the boat back to shore after a storm. The excellent sailor is the one who has remained in port and watches the good sailor coming back.”

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Fig. 4.3  A typical “Neverin” reaching the Croatian harbor of Novigrad in August 2017. Ten minutes later the winds reached 50 knots and raised the water level of about 1 meter

References Aschersleben, G., & Prinz, W. (1995). Synchronizing actions with events: The role of sensory information. Perception & Psychophysics, 57, 305–317. Brown, J. J., & Baloh, R. W. (1987). Persistent mal de debarquement syndrome: A motion-induced subjective disorder of balance. American Journal of Otolaryngology, 8, 219–222. Cao, L., Veniero, D., Thut, G., & Gross, J. (2017). Role of the cerebellum in adaptation to delayed action effects. Current Biology, 27, 2442–2451. Corbetta, M., Akbudak, E., Conturo, T. E., Snyder, A. Z., Ollinger, J. M., Drury, H. A., Linenweber, M. R., Petersen, S. E., Raichle, M. E., Van Essen, D. C., & Shulman, G. L. (1998). A common network of functional areas for attention and eye movements. Neuron, 21, 761–773. Landi, S. M., Baguear, F., & Della-Maggiore, V. (2011). One week of motor adaptation induces structural changes in primary motor cortex that predict long-term memory one year later. The Journal of Neuroscience, 31, 11808–11813. Nijhawan, R. (2008). Visual prediction: Psychophysics and neurophysiology of compensation for time delays. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31, 179–239. Rizzolatti, G., Riggio, L., Dascola, I., & Umiltà, C. (1987). Reorienting attention across the horizontal and vertical meridians: Evidence in favor of a premotor theory of attention. Neuropsychologia, 25, 31–40. Schank, R. (1999). Dynamic memory revisited. Cambridge University Press.

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Luciano Fadiga is a neurophysiologist in the Human Physiology Section at the University of Ferrara and a senior researcher at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia of Genoa. He likes to think that the real life is the one on his 43ft monohull. [email protected]  

Chapter 5

The Multisensory Brain at Sailing Alberto Gallace

Water runs along the hull and rumbles or sings or rustles, depending on the wind, depending on the sky, depending on whether the sun was setting red or grey. Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way

5.1  Introduction It is very often reported that 85–90% of driving clues come from vision (Senders et al., 1967; though see also Sivak, 1996). Despite this claim, and many others suggesting the importance and even ‘dominance’ of vision on our daily activities, research in the field of psychology and neurosciences has clearly shown that the large majority of our interactions with the world are actually ‘multisensory’ in nature (e.g., Calvert et al., 2004; see also Ghazanfar & Schroeder, 2006, for a discussion on the multisensory architecture of our brain cortex). Our brain continuously processes information from several sensory sources and integrates them into neural representations that are used to direct our movements and organize more or less complex forms of behaviors. This should not come to a surprise to the average sailor who often experiences the importance of all the senses in their beloved activity. That does not come as a surprise either to those who tried sailing for the very first time, and certainly not to the many visually disabled people who have, at least once, enjoyed sailing activities. Actually, as a sailor and neuroscientist, I would be in trouble to try and choose what ‘the most important sense’ for sailing is. A. Gallace (*) Mind and Behavior Technological Center, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy Milan Center for Neuroscience, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. Casati (ed.), The Sailing Mind, Studies in Brain and Mind 19, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89639-3_5

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The very first deep and emotional contact with a sailing boat, especially a sailing dinghy, is often very little visual. As soon as you put your feet on a small boat your body immediately confronts with the tactile and vestibular sensations of instability produced by the interaction with a solid surface floating on water. In the blink of an eye, our attention may move away from the beauty of the landscape or from the noise of the flapping sails to the maintenance of a certain degree of body balance (and perhaps dignity!), so as to avoid falling in water. It is not by chance that an often-performed exercise in sailing schools is to try and sail blindfolded or lying with your back on the hull without having a clue (at least not a visual one) about your actual direction. When we sail, we need to pay attention to the direction of the wind, to the heel of the hull, to the visual appearance of the sails and of the water, to the position and vibrations of the tiller in our hands, to the sounds coming from the water ‘rumbling’ or ‘singing’ (as Moitessier put it in the quote at the beginning of this chapter) generated under and around the hull, and so on. As soon as more sailing experience is gathered through practice, we start to identify with better precision such signals. I still remember the wise words of Gianluigi, my first sailing instructor. He told me once that perceiving the correct direction of the wind will one day become natural and automatic to me, not only by looking at the wind indicator at the top of the mast, but also by feeling it on my own arms and face, and that that would hold even for a small breeze in the middle of Piazza del Duomo in Milan. Indeed, he was right! That is, as soon as we learn to sail and practice more, our senses become ‘tuned’ to receiving and interpreting a plethora of sensory signals, that often are filtered away from our conscious brain in everyday life. A few years ago, at a conference on deaf-blindness, I met Miguel, the founder of Sailsense. Not only Miguel is a professional sailor and instructor in Brasil, but he does such activity with visually disabled and deaf-blind participants (see Gomes Marcondes et al., 2020). His activity is a proof of concept that sailing is not predominantly visual. Of even further inspiration is the fact that successful sailing in 5–10 knots of wind has also been done by individuals with high tetraplegia, using their other senses, and employing a sip and puff system to control the tiller (e.g., Solomon et al., 2017). That is, the absence of one (or more) sense or even of our motor control is not sufficient to remove the capability and the psychological benefits of sailing (see also Salvatoni et al., 2003). That certainly supports the vision that sailing is a complex activity, involving the analysis of multiple sources of information and cognitive data, as well as the planning of multiple motor sequences, and that it can be accomplished and appreciated by everyone, no matter of their sensory, motor and cognitive capabilities, thanks to our wonderful and adaptable brains. Following up from the above observations, the question then becomes not one of whether sailing is multisensory, but about how our brain manages to integrate all the sensory signals coming from the boat and from the surrounding environment to perform such a complex task (up to the point of considering it a ‘simple’ one). Moreover, another important topic here hinges on how this information-processing during sailing reshapes our neural networks to deliver proficiency, and why the result of this computation is often perceived as so pleasant and fulfilling for many people around the world (regardless of their culture, gender, or economic

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background). On the other side, the fact that not everybody likes sailing and some people (even experienced sailors) have often to deal with some negative effects of this activity, such as motion sickness, also raises the question of how our brain can adapt to multisensory and sometime confusing flow of information, and of what happens when it does not. We will start our neuroscientific analysis of sailing by addressing the issue of the kind of information that the brain needs to integrate within its neural circuits and then we will proceed by understanding what it gets in return from the multisensory experience of sailing. In our investigation, we will also address the importance of the tactile and proprioceptive aspects of the sailing experience as well as the requirements for introducing modern technologies (such as virtual reality) within such a multifaceted activity. Interestingly, despite the growing body of knowledge on the functioning of our brain, very little investigation has been dedicated so far at understanding and describing the neuroscientific aspects of sailing (see Zafra et al., 2015; for the psychological aspects of training in sailing). This may perhaps be related to the ‘spiritual’ or even ‘transcendental’ aura of the activity among its supporters. Dissecting a rich and fulfilling behavior with scientific ‘sterile’ methods might feel like somehow breaking the magic of it. However, we believe that by understanding the deep and complex basis of sailing behavior, sailing will be seen with even more admiration and respect, just as it happened for many other human activities that become the object of scientific investigation in the past (see Yarrow et al., 2009). We also hope that by analyzing the sailing behavior in term of its multisensory neural mechanisms might help to contribute to the development of safer, sensorially richer and more enjoyable experiences for the sailors of the future (e.g., by reducing motion sickness or improving risk awareness; see Wellens et  al., 2005, for risk awareness regarding collisions at sea among seafarer).

5.2  Multisensory Integration and Sailing The smell of salt water was riding the wind, and seabirds were calling. I sat with closed eyes and listened to the rhythms of the island. Joshua Slocum, Alone at Sea

Despite of what common sense may suggest our behavior is always driven by several complex computations occurring in our brain at any given time. We are not necessarily aware of all of them, and most of this information-processing is performed by the nervous system at an implicit (unaware) level. That guarantees that our cognitive and sensory resources can be directed towards novel and more challenging aspects of the situation we confront, while all the remaining activities can continue without consuming too much processing resources. We rarely think about the way in which we put our feet on the ground while we walk, we do it automatically, and that allows us to sip a coffee or have a phone conversation at the same time. The same silent work underscores the sensory analysis of events in the external world. Our sense organs are literally bombarded with information, and this

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information needs to be filtered and processed by our brain to perform our everyday activities. During sailing such sensory bombardment (together with the high cognitive requirement of many navigation activities going on at the same time; e.g., re-­ planning a route) may be even stronger than in other situations, with the consequence that we may become ‘overloaded’ (e.g., Andersson et al., 2002; Ho et al., 2007). That is, when information exceeds our ability to process it, we become unable to respond adequately to external inputs and we are then prone to making errors or to not noticing even very important elements in the surroundings. When sailing, even if we are not necessarily aware of it, all our senses are fully engaged most of the time, sometimes even to the point that certain forms of thinking are no longer possible. In fact, sailing is one of those human activities where we may be so overwhelmed by the continuous sensory-motor stimulation that drifting away from everyday problems and thoughts is not so infrequent. We have a view (full or partially occluded) of the boat hull and of the sails, of the deck fitting, of the other crew members as well as of the surrounding environment (sea, sky, other vessels, and land). We can also hear the wind against the rigging, the sails flapping, the voice of other people shouting, the sound of the waves. Our vestibular sense, the one that provides information about the main axis of our body with reference to gravity (e.g., Angelaki & Cullen, 2008; Khan & Chang, 2013; Dakin & Rosenberg, 2018) is also under strain on a vessel. In upwind navigation, the boat heels, we feel the unusual and ever-changing position of our body and we struggle (at least when still inexperienced, on small boats) to keep balance. Our feet against the hull allow the sense of touch to provide our brain with valuable information about vibrations, movements, and variations in the main trim of the boat. The receptors under our feet also provide information about how slippery the surface that we are moving on is. Similar information is provided by our hands on the tiller or steering wheel. The force feedback that we experience while holding the tiller conveys a great deal of information about the responses of the boat to maneuvering and can suggest the need of reefing (i.e., reducing the amount of sail exposed to wind). In sailing conditions proprioception, the perception of the effort made by our muscles when they act, comes into play as well. Our hands feel the tension of the ropes and react accordingly. Our entire body experiences the pressure of the wind, and the sprays of water on its exposed surface. Even our sense of smell (see Thomas-Danguin et al., 2014) has a place in sailing experience. Experienced sailors often report that one of the first indicators of land after several days at sea is the distinctive smell that it produces. It is worth noting here that sensations may occur below the level of awareness (e.g., Degel et  al., 2014). This might be the case for the implicit recognition of the smell of our boat or for the feeling of the ropes in our hands. On a boat we know well, the feel and smell of wood or leather are not bloodless sensations. They are recognized by our brain as the distinctive smell of ‘our tiller’ or of ‘our bunk’; and all those sensory qualities contribute to the perception of ‘owning’ our boat. This implicit recognition of the sensory aspects of our boat (or of a boat we know well), and of the way in which it reacts to our behavior, can make us more confident when sailing. This information-­ processing becomes even more important when we sail for the first time on another

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boat. Many of the sensory cues that we are used to process, even implicitly, are now missing, and our brain fails in this recognition of ‘familiarity’ with the boat. Therefore, under these conditions we may feel a bit more stressed than usual. That mechanism can be well summarized in the often-repeated claims by many sailors about the need to feel confident and knowing one’s own boat and is well expressed by the words of ‘Captain Goodlander’ in the following quote regarding to a newly acquired vessel: “we will sail together many ocean miles. We will eventually learn to trust each other”; Goodlander, 1991). All the sensory signals from the boat will finally need to be processed with the aim to produce a coherent motor pattern (e.g., steering the boat or trimming the sails) as a function of certain cognitive goals (i.e., maintaining our bearing or avoiding collision). Note that the flow of neural signals that we use when we sail (just as in many other activities) is not based on a mere one-way input-to-output logic. Neural processing results from a very dynamic interaction, where the incoming sensory information is used to steer a given behavior, and the feedback that we receive from our action through our senses affects the way in which we process the next sensory information we receive. This is, for example, the case of our change in performance following the use of a steering wheel to control the rudder. Our sensitivity towards the rudder and our perception of its actual position (mediated by vision or touch) changes as a function of the resulting effects that we perceive from the boat’s movements (gathered through vision: bow changing position; audition: water sounds against the hull; vestibular: sudden change of acceleration; and touch: variations of wind pressure on the skin). Not only the brain needs to process a lot of signals from the external world while sailing but it does so by means of several separate neural networks and brain areas. Just to have a glimpse at the level of complexity involved, we might notice that even information coming only from the eyes is actually processed by separate brain structures. Some of the relevant neural circuits analyze the ‘spatial’ qualities of the stimuli (e.g., the position of the tiller, of the boom or of the other crew members on the boat) in terms of three-dimensional coordinates, and in relation to some main reference axis. Such axis can be ‘internal’, like the body midline, or ‘external’, such as the main transversal axis of the boat as represented by the mast. While processing the origin of the source of information, some sensory-spatial conflicts may arise (e.g., Gallace et al., 2008), as when we are at the bow working on the spinnaker or genoa and we look back towards the stern. In that case, our body-centered coordinate system (and consequently our definition of left and right) does not correspond to the left/port and right/starboard sides of the boat. Incidentally, we should note here that even the words used to define left and right are different on a boat as compared to everyday situations, perhaps adding some complexity to our neural computations about spatial positions. Our brain will need to figure out how to realign all these spatial coordinate systems and avoid confusion. Even then, disorientation may still occur under stressful circumstances, such as difficult weather conditions or complex mooring conditions, and again when instructions are passed between the bowman and the helmsman (see also Furlanetto et al., 2014, on the conflict between spatial frames of reference during social interactions). Spatial coordinates are

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processed by parietal brain areas, while visual information regarding objects and features (e.g., the visual analysis of the mail sail, the jib, the boom, all the rigging and crew members), are ultimately processed by the occipital cortex at the back of the brain. Many other visual signals are processed by the brain and used for a huge number of computations, and in general, we become aware only of a few of them. For example, different levels of light intensity also activate a brain structure, known as the ‘suprachiasmatic nuclei’. Intriguingly, we do not use the light information that reaches such structure to ‘see’ objects or positions in space, but to synchronize our circadian rhythms – the basis of our internal clock that regulates a number of psychophysiological activities, such as sleep/wakefulness, the release of hormones like melatonin, and many others (e.g., Benarroch, 2008). The suprachiasmatic nuclei are probably one of the neural structures that contribute the most to our stress under long sail passages when night watches need to be mastered (see Koch et al., 2017). Auditory information coming from the boat is processed by the temporal cortex (on both sides of the brain) after being analyzed in terms of its spatial position (left/ port, right/starboard, front, and back) and eventually stereophonically integrated. The well-trained sailor is very attentive to the meaning of every little sound that comes from their boat, both during navigation and at anchor in remote bays (e.g., a sailor may become sensitive to unusual sounds that may indicate problems for the boat, e.g. anchor dragging). As previously seen, our sense of olfaction too concurs to determine the multisensory nature of sailing. Smell is first analyzed by the olfactory bulb and this information is then sent to many other neural structures in the brain (see Price, 1990, for a review). Interestingly, olfaction is evolutionarily one of the most ancient sensory systems and is linked with areas of the brain involved in our emotional responses such as the Hippocampus, the Amigdala and the Insula (e.g., Hosek & Freeman, 2001). Is thus by means of this sense that we can immediately spot the danger of something burning on the boat as well as the pleasantness, freshness, purity and beauty of the sea air when far away from a urban landscape. Olfactory areas in the brain are likely those that contribute the most to the emotional (i.e., gut feelings) components of sailing experiences. Our sense of equilibrium, so precious on a sailboat, is processed by the vestibular system, that uses a complex set of tubing in the inner ear to determine the position of our head with reference to gravity, and acceleration. This information is perceived clearly during rapid changes of boat trims, such as an accidental tack under strong wind condition, as well as on superfast sailing boats such as the new AC75 of the 2021 America’s cup. However, beside those special conditions where rapid acceleration become easily noticeable, such system is continuously active as soon as we put our feet on a floating surface, even when we do not notice its functioning. In fact, we use the relevat information to adjust continuously the posture of our body with the aim of adapting to the constant movement of the boat. As far as the vestibular sense is concerned, we will analyze in Sect. 5.3 the negative consequences of a mismatch between this information and that provided by other senses. Finally, tactile, and proprioceptive information provided by tactile receptors inside our skin and receptors connected to our muscles and tendons is analyzed by

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the somatosensory cortex (a strip of cortex in the parietal lobe), where a complete neural representation of our body is present (e.g., Penfield & Boldrey, 1937; Gallace & Spence, 2008, 2010, 2014). Due to the extreme relevance of the sense of touch to both the control of a sailboat and to the overall pleasure of the sailing experience, an independent section of this chapter will be dedicated to this sense (see Sect. 5.4). We will just mention the sense of taste, even if some live-aboard sailors will probably complain about the importance of that sense in their everyday experiences (not to mention the often suggested practice of tasting any unexpected water found onboard for determining whether it is salty or not, i.e., indicating the possible origin of leakages). Several psychological and neuroscientific studies have reported that our taste experience is affected by the context where food is consumed (e.g., Maggioni et  al., 2015; Spence, 2017). That is, taste may change while aboard a space shift or during an airplane travel (e.g., Spence et al., 2014). Even though this topic has never been scientifically addressed, at least to my knowledge, within the sailboat context, anecdotal evidence suggests that that the same food tastes differently when consumed on a sailboat rather than at home or elsewhere. Based on the current evidence in other scientific domains, I would expect that this might actually be the case (for a neuroscientific explanation of these effects see: Spence, 2017). In the light of what we have discussed so far, it would appear that our brain analyses all of these sensory aspects related to sailing separately and independently; however this is not the case and multiple interactions occur at several levels of information processing. In some instances, one sense can capture our attention or drive the computational process in our brain because it is more relevant for performing a given maneuver or because it suddenly becomes more salient in a given situation (e.g., see the distracting effect of an unexpected cold-water splash on our face). In some of these scenarios we can talk about ‘sensory dominance’ (e.g., Romei et al., 2013), a phenomenon at the basis of the well-known ‘ventriloquist effect’ (e.g., Alais & Burr, 2004; Recanzone, 2009). When two sensory signals are present in our perceptual space at the same time, such as the lips of a puppet moving (visual) and the sound of the words spoken by the master of the puppet (auditory), one may ‘shift’ the perceived location of the other. In the case of the ventriloquist, we perceive the sound coming from the moving lips of the puppet even if produced somewhere else in space. On a sailboat the same happens when multiple senses are stimulated, and this is always the case during navigation (as previously observed by separately analyzing each of the sensory stimulation available on a boat). However, the problem with sailing is that on land our brain is prepared to rely more on some senses than on others. As a consequence, we might be tempted to think that the latter are ‘dominant’ also at sea. This generally occurs to the naïve sailor when they tend to rely mostly on vision for determining the direction of wind (e.g., by only looking at the wind indicator). In this case, non-visual sensations coming from our sensory organs may be somehow filtered away in the computation that leads our brain to define the characteristics of the stimulus we are processing. Why is this a problem? The question is multi-faceted. On the one hand there is a practical issue that visual cues are not necessarily the most reliable ones onboard under certain conditions (think about night navigation as an extreme case). The other reason is related to the

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way in which our brain optimizes information processing in its circuitries. In fact, our brain’s responses to external stimuli are more effective when two or more stimuli from different sensory modalities carry redundant information regarding the same phenomenon rather than when only one type of sensory information is used. This mechanism is known as ‘superadditivity’ and finds its anatomical basis in the presence of neurons that respond to two or three sensory modalities at once (e.g., bimodal or trimodal neurons; see Horn & Hill 1966; Stein & Meredith 1993; Holmes & Spence, 2006; Stein et al., 2009; see also Allman et al., 2009). These neurons may respond with a certain number of ‘spikes’ of activation to a visual stimulus coming from a given position of space; the same neuron may also respond to sounds that come from the very same (or a similar) spatial position (visuo-auditory bimodal neuron; see Stein & Meredith 1993, for a review); and even to touch coming from a body part that is aligned with the same position (visuo-auditory-tactile trimodal neurons; e.g., Meredith & Stein, 1986). When two or three signals (one from each sense) are presented together from the same spatial positions the response of those multisensory neurons is higher than the sum of the responses obtained for each of the sensory stimuli presented alone. In summary, there is a great advantage in processing multisensory sources of information, and this results in faster and more accurate actions and motor patterns. Unfortunately, when sailing the functioning of such apparently straightforward neural mechanism becomes much more complicated. In fact, our brain needs to ‘bind’ together the available sensory information to orient our behavior (e.g., establishing the direction of wind on a sailboat by means of both visual and tactile cues). To do so the brain adopts specific ‘criteria’ to perform the binding and decide how to proceed. In fact, it is not necessarily the case that two signals coming from the same environment require to be bound together. For example, the voice of a radio playing below deck, or the sound of birds singing around the boat has certainly – and hopefully – nothing to do with the visual appearance of the telltales on the main sail, nor with the felt position of our tilted feet; therefore no binding is necessary. As said, our brain uses several criteria, like ‘spatial and temporal congruency’, for binding together signals that belong to the same objects or phenomena (see Recanzone, 2009; Zmigrod & Hommel, 2010). For example, it is likely that two stimuli from the same spatial position are bound together. That may be the case of the anchor making a splash in the water: we can see the anchor and we can hear the splashing sound from the same position. The latter example also applies to the temporal binding criterion because the sound of the splash is not only coming from the same position where we see the anchor, but also appears to be temporally synchronous with the moment when we observe the anchor touching the water. Once again, reality is more complicate than it might appear. Consider another scenario. We can see the anchorage line swinging, but we may not be able to visually localize the exact point of the chain where the noise is coming from. The sound comes from a more ill-defined position as compared to the well-defined visual position of the anchorage line. This is due to the fact that our senses have different levels of spatial and temporal resolution (the ability to detect the position of a stimulus in space with reference to another stimulus located in a nearby position). In this case, the spatial

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resolution of vision is finer than that of audition, or at least fewer confounding factors are present in the computation of the visual, as compared to auditory, available information. Because of these differences in sensitivity among our sense organs, the brain needs to learn and ‘tolerate’ such misalignments. This is what occurs in the ventriloquism situation, where a small misalignment between the visual lip movements of the puppet and the sound coming from the lips of the master does not prevent the brain from binding together the different pieces of information. In the case of the anchor, if the sound of the splash exceed a given time window pre-set in our brain (e.g., if we ear the splash seconds or even minutes after we have seen the chain falling into water), integration does not occur, and we will likely think that the heard sound did not come from the anchor. It must be said that on a sailboat sensory misalignment is the norm rather than the exception and that makes the solution of the binding problem even more complex. For example, the wind indicator can show the direction of the wind, but: a) the wind itself (the stimulus) is not visible to our eyes if not indirectly through the movement of other objects around us. The wind indicator is actually a ‘cue’ of something that we cannot visually perceive, just as the radar or the AIS generated images on a chart plotter indicate the presence of other boats that are out of sight; b) the wind indicator is generally placed on the top of the mast or, in several boats, the information that it provides is shown on an instrument in front of the helmsman/captain; c) the wind acts on our skin (where we can clearly feel it) on a location that is not necessarily spatially aligned with that of the wind indicator or with that of the instrument (think about the helmsman looking at the instrument in front of them and the boat sailing downwind; in this case the two sources of information are strongly misaligned, as the wind is felt from a position behind the helmsman). In this scenario, multisensory binding is unlikely to occur at a perceptual level. The intervention of bimodal neurons (that strongly rely on spatial and temporal congruency) may be unlikely. However, that does not mean that multisensory processing does not help our sailing behavior in this case as well. Our brain can learn to associate the different signals even when outside the binding windows, and to use one as a ‘cue’ for the other. We know well that when a cue is perceptually, spatially or even only semantically (in terms of its language meaning) related to the next stimulus presented in a sequence, it can enhance or hinder the processing of such stimulus (Posner, 1980). The cue may ‘prime’ the analysis of the second stimulus by pre-activating a multisensory neural representation of it (in part because we learn ‘schemas’ of activities where certain facts, words, situations or actions are often associated in a sequence to the many stimuli that correspond to their unfolding). Just as we use a visual change in the color of water as a cue for spotting a forthcoming change in the wind condition, with practice we can learn to use the feeling of the wind on our body as a cue (or even a simple confirmation) for other visual signals provided by the wind indicator or by other stimuli around us. Moreover, spatial and temporal binding windows change as a function of practice, as experiments in laboratory settings have clearly demonstrated that temporal binding windows between visual and auditory stimuli are susceptible of a high degree of

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flexibility as a function of practice (e.g., Powers et al., 2009). That is certainly a topic that deserves investigation in the context of sailing. The observations presented above clearly suggest that by using multiple sensory cues rather than relying on a single sense, we become more proficient in activities such as perceiving the direction of the wind (and thus in regulating our sails). Our brain learns thus to optimize all the available (and sometime even redundant) multisensory information for improving performance. Such considerations take us to the next topic, related to what our brain gets and how it is changed from the rich sensory environment constituted by a sailing boat.

5.3  Multisensory Information and States of Mind It’s not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that’s what a ship needs, but what a ship is… is freedom. Capt. Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean

So far, we have analyzed how the brain processes and integrates multisensory information coming from the boat space; in this section we will examine what happens to that information and what are the consequences of such computations on our performance and mind states (e.g., wellbeing). One first consequence of that processing is rather obvious: we learn! Importantly, the suggestion has been made that every learning protocol should be based on multisensory rather than unisensory environments (e.g., Rains et al., 2008), as this is likely to enrich and consolidate our memory traces within the brain. This clearly applies to sailing too and support the fact that sailing schools do often try to help their students develop the ability to pay attention to the many sensory signals coming from the sea environment. As far as learning is concerned, neuroscientific studies have shown that the brain is continuously changing during our life (see Pascual-Leone et  al., 2005, for a review on the ability of the brain to change its connectivity). The connections that we induce between the neurons representing the sensory signals in our environment, and those that are involved in producing actions (e.g., sailing), are strengthened and, consequently, behavioral procedures become more automatic and even ‘instinctive’. This allows us to focus on other things at the same time. Once again, I often remember the words of Gianluigi, my wise sailing instructor: “soon you will be able to keep your route and control the rudder even while talking with me”. (I eventually managed to). Interestingly, the topic of brain plasticity and long-lasting practice is one of the few domains where neuroscience has explicitly targeted ‘seafarer’ as test-­ participants. In particular, it has been shown that long-term career experience on the sea affects the brain’s functional plasticity (i.e., the reorganization of connectivity between brain areas as a function of practice). Such changes occur at the level of auditory, visual, executive control (action planning), and vestibular function-related networks. It is not by chance that these are the very same networks that we most need during sailing (due to exposure to auditory noise from the sea, maintaining

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balance on the boat, locating one’s position in three-dimensional space, obeying or giving orders, etc.) and that we have briefly described in the previous section. Importantly, current neuroscientific investigation has shown that brain plasticity (the ability of the brain to make changes in its connections) is not limited to certain periods of our development (e.g., until adulthood) but is present during all our life (e.g., Park & Bischof, 2013), even if later changes may need more efforts and motivation. Such evidence is supported by the observation that many people begin to sail and even become very proficient in such activity at any stage of their life, from infancy to the grey-age. The multisensory signals involved in sailing activities do not only affect our behavior, but they also produce important effects in terms of psychophysiological wellbeing. That is, differently from ages past, when sailing was mainly a form of transportation for economic, cultural, and demographic needs (e.g., Hattendorf, 2007), today many people embrace sailing as a leisure activity. Why is sailing then perceived as a pleasant and even relaxing activity and how this is also related to the multisensory environment where it happens? To answer this question, we need first to observe that sailing is not only performed ‘on a boat’ but on a boat within a specific environment (e.g., a lake, large river, or sea). That is, there are at least two distinct sources of stimulation that add to our sense of pleasure, one is coming from the boat activity, and the other from the natural setting where sailing occurs. As far as the first is concerned, there are no specific studies that investigate the neural mechanisms related to eliciting pleasure in the brain during sailing. We might assume that the different sensory and motor components of such activity work together in activating the dopamine circuit within the brain (dopamine is one of the neurochemicals used by the brain to allow communication between neurons). This network of brain areas is involved in our perception of pleasure, as well as in our desire to perform a given activity over again, and even in our ability to learn new information (see Gilbert, 1995, for the role of dopamine in sport performance). As far as the effect of the environment is concerned, it is worth noting that several psychological and neuroscientific research have reported positive effects of natural scenarios, including those where sailing occurs. For example, it has been shown that people asked to evaluate pictures of natural environments on the basis of aesthetic qualities and of the emotional reactions elicited, tend to provide more positive judgments for images containing water than for those that do not contain it (see Wilson, 1984). Similarly, a number of studies have shown that the majority of people feel psychologically regenerated when they have the opportunity to visit a natural environment and that natural environments tend to produce an increase of alpha brain waves (a brain activity associated with relaxation) as compared to urban environments, where the activation of areas such as the amygdala (involved in responses to threat and anxiety) is prevalently found instead (e.g., see White et al., 2010). Importantly, the contact between the body and water, such as in ‘flotation rooms’, is successfully used as a method to reduce the impact of post-traumatic stress disorder in soldiers, as well as a relaxation procedure for professionals exposed to high levels of stress (e.g., Levine, 1984), and even to treat certain physical and mental

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diseases, such as depression, attention deficit disorders and autism (e.g., Mooventhan & Nivethitha, 2014; Kjellgren et al., 2013). It has even been shown that the mere sound of sea waves reduces adrenaline and cortisol levels, two neurotransmitters that are related with human stress responses (e.g., Berk & Bittman, 1997; Hunter et al. 2010). Most if not all of these elements are present during sailing; sea environments act on our brain through multisensory information, just as it has been shown for other relaxing context (e.g., Putrino et al., 2020): the visual, auditory, tactile, proprioceptive, and olfactory signals coming from the water environment can reinforce each other, resulting into an even more relaxing effect (at least under certain weather conditions) as compared to each type of signal in isolation. It is also likely that these relaxation effects get associated in the brain with our sailing experience, so that we start to feel relaxed as soon as we place our feet onboard. Of course, not all of our sailing experiences can be described as ‘relaxing’. Sailing in 30 knots of wind in the middle of a squall may prove very stressful (especially to the less experienced sailor). While pleasant activities such as sailing with 8–10 knots of breeze on a flat sea are likely to elicit the activation of the ‘pleasure areas of the brain’ by means of dopamine neurotrasmitters, the sound of crashing waves, the extreme heel of the boat, the coldness of the air, and perhaps the sight of fear expressions in other crew members in strong winds, can together result into a stress reaction by the brain. This is likely to result from the activation of the amigdala (a structure involved with fear perception) and of the sympathetic nervous system (the one mediating fight or flight responses in animals and humans; e.g., Jansen et al., 1995). In this case, learning, exposure to several multisensory sea conditions and the confidence already built on a given boat (see previous section) can help to mitigate, and even remove completely, such negative consequences. Moreover, in the case of adverse weather conditions, some additional factors can develop during and after the event is concluded. For example, having been able to deal with extreme conditions can add to our feeling of self-confidence and esteem (likely supported by a release of adrenaline and other endorphins – neurochemicals that help us to deal with danger and fatigue). All of this can turn even the worst event experienced at sailing into something worth telling to our fellow sailors in the subsequent years (and note that all sailors love to share – and even amplify – that kind of experiences in “sailors’ taverns” all around the world). Besides challenging weather conditions, other elements of the sailing experience can be considered unpleasant, and even in this case, their very nature and the neural mechanisms dealing with them are likely multisensory. Consider sea sickness, an unpleasant phenomenon that affects several inexperienced, but also some  very experienced and professional, sailors at sea (up to 80% of them; e.g., Petersen, 2012), as suggested by the following statement by Andrea Mura during the Route du Rhum sailing challenge: “Sea sickness hits me without warning. I thought to be immune after one week aboard. Clearly, it isn’t like that” (Mura, 2012). Sea sickness can be considered a specific case of ‘motion sickness’ and its symptoms include nausea, vomiting, headache, sleepiness, loss of appetite, cold sweat, and tiredness; in some more severe cases, they may also include dehydration (e.g., Leung & Hon, 2019). On the basis of current neuroscientific theories, seasickness is

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likely the result of a multisensory conflict between several signals that contribute to our perception of motion and acceleration (i.e., in particular vestibular and visual information; see Sect. 5.2 in this chapter). For example, inside the cabin of a sailboat, the vestibular system detects changes in body position due to boat pitch and roll. At the same time, given that the boat environment (hull and interiors) moves together with the person who is onboard, the visual system registers a rather stable scene. A similar, but somehow diminished conflict can also be found outside the boat, in the cockpit, when observing the boat riggings. Perceptual incongruence between the visual and the vestibular/somatic sensory signals activate warning mechanisms in the brain, also resulting into the release of stress-related hormones. It should be considered that even pain, from a neuroscientific perspective, is likely the output of a mechanism developed to detect that something wrong is occurring to a part of our body (e.g., Gallace & Bellan, 2018). Interestingly, despite its negative consequences, and the large amount of people affected by it, seasickness is not necessarily something that prevents people from sailing. This observation might be taken to suggest that the positive effects of sailing on our brain, in terms of activation of pleasure-related circuits, overcome the negative aspects produced by seasickness. Another condition often associated to sailing activities is the “Mal de Débarquement” syndrome. In this case, the experience is characterized by the persistence of a sense of motion and rocking after the sailing experience has been concluded and people are on land (e.g., Van Ombergen et al., 2016). Interestingly, the length of time one is exposed to a motion experience does not determine the severity or duration of the syndrome, even if the great majority of cases would seem to be triggered by sailing experiences lasting several days. The causes of this syndrome are unknown, even if it is very likely that its effect are due to the same process eliciting seasickness. In fact, it might be that during sea-life our brain tries to adapt (as one of its main function) to the sea conditions, where multisensory signals are often incongruent (see above). These adaptive changes may still be present once on land, showing their effects on our body. Importantly, the Mal de Débarquement experience is not necessarily considered unpleasant by sailors. As a matter of fact, I often miss the presence of such phenomenon when I came home after a day or more out at sailing! In summary, the sailing experience can elicit several changes in our brain due to the multisensory conditions acting during such activity. Some of them may be short lasting, like seasickness, and others may affect our brain for longer periods of time, like the changes in our perceptual sensitivity to detect wind direction due to an increased efficiency in filtering salient stimulation from the sea environment. The results of some of these changes can be more pleasant than others, but certainly all of them contribute to the richness and complexity of the representation of the sailing experience in our brain.

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5.4  Sailing with Touch and Proprioception They [the sailors] are not wearing gloves, to better feel the life of the rigging and of the sail, they walk barefoot and remain in contact with their vessel. Bernard Moitessier, The long way

The importance of tactile sensation is probably not news for the expert sailors, and certainly even more to them than to the average person who has never engaged in sailing. In fact, in our land-based life we often underestimate the importance of touch in our everyday behaviors. This is also caused by the fact that most of the processing carried on by our tactile sensory system is supported by our brain at an implicit level, without the need of conscious access. For example, we may be sitting at our desk at home, or on the cockpit of our boat, reading this chapter, but while doing it, our brain is continually keeping track of our position (through proprioception; see Sect. 5.2) and of the contact between certain body parts and the objects around us. We realize how important these sensations are when they are not present. This can occur due to pathological conditions caused by damage to our neural system (e.g. to the fibers conducting signals from the periphery of our body to the brain) involved in tactile processing (e.g., Cole & Paillard, 1995). For patients affected by this kind of condition even apparently simple daily activities such as sitting, walking, or feeding become a huge challenge. One way to experience what is like sailing without touch is to try a touch-free sailing simulator. As already described earlier in this chapter, the corresponding experience is something very different and very far from the richness that we perceive in a real ‘tactile’ sailing situations. Touch, together with proprioception, is everywhere aboard, we find it in the contact with the heeling hull, on our face when we fill a gentle breeze, in the coldness of our feet, in our muscles while working on a winch, in our hands when trying to haul the mainsail. Interestingly, on a sailboat we can get quite a lot of information by touch alone. Like a spider feeling its web, the sailor’s brain analyses every little vibration from a sheet to get a picture of what happens to the sails. It is not by chance that in medieval time the icon for the sense of touch was actually a spider; it could as well have been a sailor! Touch provides information about potentially dangerous or pleasant stimuli that get in contact with our skin, and at the same time contributes to differentiate what is ‘us’ from the outside world. Our skin is one of the most effective interfaces between our internal and external world, from both the physical and the social point of view (e.g., Gallace, 2012, 2015). If far less attention has been given by researchers to the study of how our brain analyses tactile sensation as compared to the study of information processing in other sensory modalities, the last few decades have seen a renewed interest in the study of tactile processing (see Gallace, 2012; Gallace & Spence, 2014; Hertenstein & Weiss, 2011). Neuroscientists, psychologists, anthropologists, engineers, designers and clinicians are now more than ever interested in understanding the mechanisms of tactile information processing, for both theoretical and applied reasons. Hopefully, this renewed interest will also affect our knowledge regarding sailing experiences.

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The neurosciences tell us that several receptors and neural networks are used by our brain to process bodyly sensations. We have in fact specific classes of tactile receptors specialized in perceiving pressure of an object against our skin (e.g. when we press our feet against some points of the cockpit to avoid sliding while sailing upwind), or even something subtler like the texture of a surface that we are barely touching (e.g., the roughness of a sheet in our hand). Not all body areas are equally effective in conveying such sensations. For example, the fingertips, face, and lips have far greater sensitivities than the back or the calf or the arms (e.g., Weinstein, 1968). This is why we often turn our face or the open hand around to get information about the wind direction. Other receptors respond to thermal rather than mechanical information. Thermoreceptors code absolute and relative changes in temperature, within a non-painful range (e.g., Darian-Smith et al., 1979; Schepers & Ringkamp, 2010). Certain receptors, such as the ‘hair root plexuses’, are wrapped around our hair roots and can detect tiny movements on the skin surface that disturb the hairs (e.g., Kandel et al., 2000; Purves et al., 2004). These are likely the receptors that are more involved in feeling the direction of the wind on the sailor’s skin. The information that they provide is also the one that requires more effective filters by our brain to elicit specific sensations and responses. That is, we need to ‘tune’ our brain to feel lighter and lighter sensations coming from our skin, otherwise, as it occurs in everyday life, we do not pay attention to such information. Interestingly, our somatic sense is a sort of multisensory system. That is, in order to perceive certain bodily sensations, we need to integrate information coming from different receptors and subsystems. The feeling that we are holding strong on the tiller is built both upon receptors responding to pressure (above a certain level) and upon proprioceptors responding to changes in the effort made by our muscles. Similarly, by analyzing a common experience occurring when sailing, being hit by water splashes, we might ask ourselves why we do not feel a similar wetness when we are lying still in our warm bathtub. The important factor is ‘multisensory somatic integration’ occurring among different signals originating from our body. In fact, we know that our perception of ‘wetness’ requires the neural integration of information coming from low-threshold mechanoceptors (receptors that respond to lower levels of pressure), as well as from thermoreceptors that are sensitive to colder temperatures. Both types of receptors are activated by water splashes but not from the static and warm water in a bathtub. Note that, in the case of a big wave breaking on us, higher-threshold mechnoceptors (receptors that responds to higher level of pressure) can be activated by the force of the event, and in this case the experience is more likely a ‘punch in the face’, with perhaps even the activation of some nociceptors (i.e., receptors that respond to potentially dangerous levels of pressure on the skin and generate pain; Dubin & Patapoutian, 2010; Tracey, 2017). It is worth mentioning here that we do not talk in this chapter about ‘nociception’ (the activation of pain-related receptors) at sailing, but whoever has been hit once by the boom on a sailing dinghy knows too well that it is an instructive, if dangerous, part of sailing experiences. Touch is not only a priceless source of information about the external environment, but also an important component of social interactions (see Gallace & Spence,

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2016, for a review on social touch). The information that it provides is used to improve social relationships on a sailboat just as it does in our everyday life. The studies that have addressed the role of tactile processing within this domain have shown that tactile social interactions, even if unnoticed or irrelevant to the context where they occur, play a very powerful effect in a person’s evaluation of a given situation or in eliciting certain kinds of behavior. For example, people become more compliant to a request when they are touched by another person as compared to when they are not touched (a phenomenon known as the ‘Midas touch effect’; e.g., Crusco & Wetzel, 1984). Research has further shown that the rate of interpersonal touch following sporting success is much higher than that reported in other public settings (e.g., Smith et al., 1980). That likely applies to sailors too. That is, a pat on the back or a high-five works its magic in everyday life, as well as in the middle of a regatta. Many positive effects of social touch are likely related to the power of this sensory modality in establishing bonds and trust between people. In fact, we know that tactile social contact results into the release of oxytocin, a human hormone related to the establishment of bonds between people (e.g., Bartels & Zeki, 2004; Insel & Young, 2001; Walum et al., 2012). Such mechanism would seem to be more associated then to the ‘working as a team’ experience of sailing (and perhaps even offering some foundation to the claim that people who sail together often become friends for life), rather than to the personal connection with a boat. However, it is worth mentioning here that many sailors tend to treat their boat as a person, by talking to it, and even giving it some expression of affective touch! I confess being among those. I also feel very relieved from knowing that the personal pronoun ‘she’, rather than a neuter ‘it’ is used in English language, since very old time, to refer to a boat. . Note in fact that, in some ways, a boat ‘communicates’ in a multisensory way with its crew, just as it happens among people. The relationship between a sailor and his/her boat is likely one aspect where neuroscientific research might offer some insight in the future. Beside the social aspects discussed above, touch also conveys important information from a hedonic point of view (e.g., Gallace & Spence, 2011). That is, touch is very effective in eliciting pleasant sensations. We know that the contact with certain surfaces can elicit activation in some of the pleasure areas of the brain, such as the orbitofrontal cortex (e.g., Francis et al., 1999). This evidence supports the claim that when tactile stimulation is lacking, like in an audio-visual sailing simulattors, the experience is not only less engaging but also less pleasurable. The latter aspect will be one of the main issues analyzed in the following section related to development of effective technologies for sailing.

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5.5  Multisensory Technologies and Sailing From the point of view of the brain reality consists of the expectation of how the next instant will be, but this expectation needs to be constantly adapted. Jaron Lanier, Dawn of the New Everything

Since the development of the first tools, technologies have been part of human history by affecting our ability to perform, act and modify our environment (and even our neural circuits; see Vincent Virga, 2007, for a discussion on the impact of cartography in human history; see also Carr, 2020, for the impact of internet-based technologies on the brain). Sailing technologies are just one step in this process. Some of them were meant to improve boat performance (the design of riggings, keel, hull shape, foils and so on), as well as human performance and safety (sextant, compass, GPS, radar, AIS, Epirb, VHF radio, etc.). We will not talk here about improving boat performance, something that has less to do with neuroscience, but about human performance and about what is called human-machine interaction, the core of the relationship between humans and technological devices (e.g., Card et al., 1983; Dourish, 2001). If a boat was fully robotic and AI driven, there will not be need for the study of such relationships, but until flesh and blood captains and crews will be the heart of a sailing vessel human-machine interaction should be considered at the very core of the technological design process. As we have observed, the sailing experience is truly multisensory, and on-board technologies should comply with this piece of evidence as well as with both the physical and cognitive limitations of the sailor (see Norman, 1988, for a discussion on the basic rules of designing for humans). In particular, technologies developed to provide information to sailors (about wind direction, angle of heel, speed over ground, etc.) should avoid sensory overload and be compatible with the binding and multisensory mechanisms analyzed earlier in this chapter. Only devices that comply with the natural organization of our brain circuits will likely be perceived as intuitive, be used, accepted and contribute to improve performance and safety of all crewmembers. Given the quick development of interactive technologies, it is worth mentioning here one of the tools that will likely revolutionize many of our activities in the future: virtual reality (VR). According to the definition of one of the creators of VR, Jaron Lanier (Lanier, 2017), “virtual reality represents a scientific, philosophical and technological frontier of our age and allows not only to create the illusion of being in other places, times and bodies but also to better understand the functioning and nature of the human being”. More generally, the term ‘virtual reality’ stands for the attempt to reproduce bodies and environments through digital systems. An important aspect of VR is that it does not just reproduce real situations but can go far beyond them by exploring the limits of our creativity and adaptability (see Slater and Sanchez-Vivez, 2016). This technology offers enormous potentials in several different fields of human knowledge and performance, like education (e.g., Belloli et  al., 2020; Gardoni et al., 2020), surgery (Fida et al., 2018), psychological therapy (Freeman et al., 2017), sports (Neumann et al., 2018) and rehabilitation (Palma et al., 2017; Tieri et al., 2018).

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Sailing has not been immune from the VR growing trend and sailing simulations have started to become available for several purposes. Once again, in the light of the claims we made, such simulations can expected to be useful only if they take into account the multisensory aspect of the sailing experience. As far as this point is concerned, due to lockdown and the impossibility of “real” sailing in 2020–2021, in despair I tried myself one of these 3D sailing experiences using a head mounted display. I must say that I could only spend something like 10 min playing with it; simply, it was not for me! Although the sound of the sea was rather realistic, just as the visual reproduction of the boat, all the other important aspects were missing. As observed at the beginning of this chapter, our brain process much more signals than we are aware of and uses these signals to generate our perception, behavior, and emotions (see also Sects. 5.2 and 5.3 in this chapter). Given that some of this information is not available to explicit investigation (the fact that our brain uses some information does not mean that we know about it), it is very often missing from the current attempts to reproduce it. This means that designers often use only an explicit ‘knowledge acquisition’ methodology to understand the problem behind the development of their software and ignore the core ‘implicit’ neural mechanisms. The result of this flawed design stance is that during the simulated experience the brain doesn’t get the same feeling, engagement, mood or even perception of ‘presence’ (being and acting in the simulated environment such as in its real counterpart; e.g., Diemer et al., 2015). Furthermore, even if the internal processes are well-known, technological limitations affect what can or cannot be reproduced. In my personal case, one of the feelings that was missing was that from tactile and vestibular sensations, something that we have seen to be of great importance for both the perceptual and emotional aspects of sailing (see Gallace et al., 2011). That does not necessarily mean that a sailing simulator should reproduce every single physical signal present on board and in the water environment, rather that it has to prioritize only those that elicit certain sensations. Neuroscience can be of help here, given that scientific evidence clearly suggests that specific perceptions can be elicited by stimuli that are not necessarily the same as those that result into that perception in the real world (this is for example the case of visual, auditory, tactile and multisensory illusions). By knowing the mechanisms used by the brain to reproduce the ‘feeling of sailing’, we can then hack such processes and use this knowledge to improve simulations and human-machine interactive technologies for sailing (see Casati & Pasquinelli, 2005). From the technological point of view many visual and auditory interactive devices are now available to the sailor, but much less is available that takes into account the sense of touch (e.g., Gallace et  al., 2007; Gallace & Spence, 2014). Considering that vision and audition may be overloaded at sailing, technologies that are based on a good balance among the available information channels (once more, comprising the sense of touch) are certainly welcome. Moreover, although vibrating wearable devices, and force feedback instruments are already available, their capability to convey the variety of sensations experienced during sailing is still far from being fully functional. A fair amount of work is needed in order to study which forms of tactile and haptic (active touch) stimulation are the more effective to convey important onboard information.

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Neuroscientific knowledge about the sailing experience will allow to design new simulators and interactive devices able to improve sailing abilities as well as sailing safety, for example by analyzing the most frequent situations that lead to serious accidents at sea (see Wellens et al., 2005; Wagenaar & Groeneweg, 1987; Carcassi et al., 2004; Ćorović & Djurovic, 2013; Chauvin et al., 2013; for evidence suggesting that a large number of sea accidents are related to human factors). Finally, even if this will perhaps be seen as unwelcome to some ‘traditional and romantic’ sailors like me, a better knowledge of the mechanisms at the basis of our multisensory sailing experience will likely results in the creation of ‘hypersailing’ virtual experiences in the future (see Tiffin & Terashima, 2005, for the concept of hyper-reality), where sailing will be brought to a completely different and perhaps still inconceivable level. The most important aspect to be considered here is that new technologies in sailing, like in every other domains of human activity, should go into the direction of enriching us, making our experiences more fulfilling, and improving our safety without limiting our choices, freedom, sensorial capabilities and decision-making processes for the only sake of improving ‘efficiency’ (see Eby et al., 2016; for a review on how technology had contributed to increasing safety in the automotive field). Otherwise, technological improvement might end up making us ‘dumber’ (see for example Ward, 2013 for a discussion on the detrimental effects of using some internet-based digital technologies on our learning capabilities) and provide a fake feeling of safety (see Lin et al., 2017, for the role played by navigation technologies in everyday scenarios accidents). Humans, with the richness of their experiences and the complexity of their brain circuits, must come before machines.

5.6  Conclusions In this chapter, we have analyzed the sailing experience from the point of view of the multisensory processing of information occurring in the brain. We have seen that our nervous system processes a great deal of information coming from different sources. Most of this processing is done implicitly, without access or contribution of awareness, but sailing practice can make some of this process more explicit, by requiring the focusing of attention on certain relevant sensory signals about the environment (e.g., the wind direction). As soon as we start this training, we become more proficient and we learn to use important information more effectively. Our brain not only must process information coming from different senses during sailing but must also integrate different pieces of information and resolve several conflicts (both temporal and spatial) arising from them. The endpoint may be an improvement of performance, the reshaping of brain neural networks, and also the development of some rich and valuable hedonic emotional experiences (the pleasure of sailing!). Multisensory integration is also at the core of some negative experiences of sailing, such as motion sickness; a better appraisal of the relevant underlying neural mechanisms may bring about effective ways to treat such

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condition and to thereby improve safety at sea and to allow for more people enjoying sailing. We have also seen that the sense of touch plays a major role in different aspects of our sailing activity and that its artificial removal in sailing simulations may lead to unsatisfactory experiences. We analyzed the important role played by multisensory information for designing more intuitive and more friendly human-machine interfaces, that once again may improve safety and enrich our experience from a hedonic point of view. In conclusion, we claim that a better understanding of the mechanisms of multisensory integration at sailing will allow in the future the development of more effective teaching strategies for sailing schools, as well as the advancement of technological aids for both sensory disabled and healthy professional and amateur sailors. We also believe that knowledge of the neural efforts required by our brain to make sailing possible should add to the beauty, complexity and ‘magic’ of this wonderful human activity.

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Chapter 6

The Language(s) of Sailing Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini

6.1  Introduction Having sailed for many years along the coasts of Italy, Southern France, Eastern United States and the Caribbean, I had to learn the essential sailing terminology in several languages. I am interested in a number of commonalities and differences between these technical languages. Different histories and different styles are, I think, embodied in these words. Noam Chomsky has persuaded me that words do not, as such (let me insist: as such) refer to the outside world. We refer to the outside world, by means of words, together with several cognitive processes that we master. The meaning of each word in the language, in all languages, always contains a point of view, a way of looking at the world. In the sciences, by contract (sort of) we do our best to give objective references to the terms we use. Our aim is to “carve nature at its joints” (an expression due to Quine) and construct categories that ideally correspond to mind-independent objects, relations and abstractions. Physicists believe that really there are electrons and quarks “out there”, biologists believe that really there are cells and DNA “out there”. And so on. In the domain of technology the semantics is a bit more complicated. Human actions contribute to meaning and reference. And so is, I think, for the core concepts in sailing. Something external (out there), something we do, and a “point of view” on all this. Moreover, there is also a historical heritage from the tall sailing ships. Once the terminology is learned and tested in practice, all proceeds as it should. It is a history of success. But let me

M. Piattelli-Palmarini (*) University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. Casati (ed.), The Sailing Mind, Studies in Brain and Mind 19, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89639-3_6

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here pause a moment and try to elucidate (a term I am borrowing from my dear late friend Jim Higginbotham) the meaning and reference of the languages of sailing.1

6.2  On Tack The most intriguing of all concepts of sailing is, in my opinion, the meaning and referent of ‘tack’. It is a part of the main-sail: the corner between the mast and the front of the boom. It is the first part of the sail that receives the wind. Ok. But ‘tack’ also applies to the allure of the boat and the direction of the wind. Let’s consider, as an example, a port tack. Complicated, because the boom is displaced to starboard, not to port, and the bulge of the sail is also to starboard. The boom is displaced to starboard. Why, then, is it said to be a port tack? In French and Italian we have a plural: respectively amures and mure. Port tack is Babord amures in French and mure a sinistra (or, more traditionally, mure a babordo) in Italian. Why a plural? How is all this compatible with the name of that corner of the sail? Why is it said to be to port, when the tack bulges to starboard? Well, the explanation is that, in the square sails of once, the tacks (indeed a plural also in English) were the two corners of the sail positioned upwind. The two corners positioned downwind were called ‘clews’. Fine. Now, in your imagination, slowly morph a square sail into a triangular Marconi sail. The two tacks merge into one corner only, the tack, indeed. Ditto for the clews: now the posterior corner of the sail, the clew, is the last to get the wind (in Italian bugna, in French point d’écoute). After we have made this geometric mental transformation, we better understand why a port tack is what it is, and a starboard tack is what it is. No other way to make sense of this curious terminology, unless you learn by brute definition that port tack is when the wind comes from port, starboard tack when the wind comes from starboard. Tacking is, now understandably, the operation of changing the direction of the boat with respect to the wind. It also makes sense that, when beating upwind, one often makes tacks, alternating port tack and starboard tack. In Italian fare bordi, in French louvuoyer.2 The reason why starboard tack has right of way over port tack also goes back to the square-rigged tall boats and the mandatory maneuvering. Switching from a starboard tack was more elaborate than switching from a port tack, due to the rigging and the standing structures of a tall sail-ship.

1  A fine list of nautical terms in French and English, alphabetically ordered in French, is to be found here: https://www.ovniclub.com/navigation/lexique-nautique.html For three languages (Italian, English and French), see http://www.xenialab.it/meo/web/doc/dizvela.htm 2  It is common, in French, to use this verb (louvouyer) as a metaphor for a tortuous way of proceeding in an enterprise. I doubt that many non-sailing French speakers realize it is borrowed from maritime terminology.

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6.3  The Boat For a long time, the boat has been conceptualized as having two sides: port and starboard in English, allegedly deriving from the side of the boat most used to load and unload goods when in a port, versus the side open to the sea and the stars. We have babord and tribord in French (babordo and tribordo in Italian). This eliminates possible confusion between commands, if they were given using right and left, the referent would be different when looking at the stern versus looking at the bow. Fixing the terms for that side of the boat creates no confusion. The tradition suggests that the French terms derive from “Batterie” (Ba-tri), the large inscription, clearly visible to the pilot, on top of the entrance to the underneath locals stocking cannon balls and gunpowder. In recent years, babordo and tribordo have been abandoned in Italy, because believed to engender confusion, and replaced by the flatfooted terms dritta and sinistra. French sailors have a nice mnemo-technique: un tricot noir et deux bas si rouges. Literally meaning a black sweater and two very red stockings. The nautical keys are: un meaning odd numbers, tri meaning tribord, noir meaning black, co meaning cone. Leave to starboard odd-numbered black conic buoys (in US waters called nuns). Deux means even numbers, ba means babord, si means cylinder (in US waters called cans), rouge, of course, means red. All in all: leave to starboard odd-­ numbered conic black buoys, leave to port even-numbered cylindric red buoys. Nice (This would not apply to buoys and beacons in US waters, which follow different conventions).

6.4  Mnemo-techniques Mnemo-techniques like this one are cognitively interesting. It’s easy to remember a whole line, especially if it rhymes, not so easy to remember a list of terms, especially when they have to be in a specific association or order. I bet many English-­ speaking readers remember this one: Camels ordinarily sit down carefully, perhaps their joints creak. The geologic eras, in the order, in a somewhat older terminology: Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carbonian, Permian, Cretacean, Jurassic, Criogenian. In Italian, we have the following mnemo-technique for the name of the successive chains of the Alps (West to East): ma con gran pena le recan giu’. Literally “but with great sorrow they bring them down”. Key: Marittime, Cozie, Graie, Pennine, Lepontine, Retiche, Giulie. Concerning the moon, we have gobba a ponente luna crescente, gobba a levante luna calante. Hump towards sundown: the moon is growing, hump towards sunup, the moon is decreasing. I spare the reader more of these. But, but, some relate to sailing. In US waters it’s crucial to remember “Red, right, return” (RRR): when returning to harbor, leave to your right (to starboard) red

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buoys, red flashing lights and red beacons. In the Mediterranean, however, entering into a harbor by night, red faces red, green faces green. For the weather, red by night, sailor’s delight. Red in the morning, sailor keep warning. In Italian, the equivalent is Rosso di sera, bel tempo si spera. Rosso di mattina fatti una pensatina. Rhyme is a powerful aid to memory.

6.5  Fore and Aft Then we have the fore and aft parts of the boat. Bow and stern in English, presumably due to the analogy with a bow (the arrow shooting device) of the profile of the front in the tall ships and the fact that the back of the boat is the sturdiest part. In Italian we have prua (bow) and poppa (stern). There is another meaning to “poppa”: one of the female breasts. In fact, a breast- fed infant is called a “poppante”. God knows why this is the word for the stern of the boat. Similar in French (poupe), but no breast double-meaning in French. The hull is chiglia in Italian, quille in French. For small sailboats with a daggerboard, the latter is called deriva, (derive in French), a term also applying to the (usually unwanted) lateral drift of the boat. An ungoverned boat left to itself is said to go “alla deriva” (drifting). For all small sailboats with an extractable centerboard, there is a term in French: deriveur. No equivalent in Italian or English. I can think of no Italian or French equivalent of the beautiful English term “sheer” for the overall design of a boat, when looked at from one side. It has, in naval architecture, a rather precise meaning,3 but I have heard it used generically, in admiration, for the elegant profile of a boat. Gunwale, once a technical term for gunboats (gun wale), now simply refers to the low parapet delimiting the deck on both sides.

6.6  S  tructures on Deck (French acastillage de pont, Italian armature) Mast, in French mât, in Italian albero, meaning tree. In fact, tradition wants that, once upon a time, when the boat needed a new mast, the captains went into tall forests and did choose the ideal tree, out of which the new mast was to be built. The deep receptacle into which the base of the mast is inserted is called, in Italian, scassa d’albero. The spreaders are called crocette (small crosses) in Italian and 3  Wikipedia tells us: “The sheer is a measure of longitudinal main deck curvature, in naval architecture. The sheer forward is usually twice that of sheer aft. Increases in the rise of the sheer forward and aft build volume into the hull, and in turn increase its buoyancy forward and aft, thereby keeping the ends from diving into an oncoming wave and slowing the ship. In the early days of sail, one discussed a hull’s sheer in terms of how much “Hang” it had.”

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barres de flèche in French. The taller the mast, the more there are, ranging from one to four. English stresses the spreading function, Italian the shape, French the derivation from the bar for a top sail (flèche). The shrouds are in French haubans, in Italian sartie, but the one at the stern, the backstay, is in French pataras, in Italian patarazzo. Its tension is easily adjustable in some sailboats. The one at the bow, the stay (onto which the jib is fastened) is strallo in Italian, étai in French. The boom vang is in French hale-bas, in Italian caricabasso (charge low). The English term vang is of Scandinavian origin. The Italian and French terms stress the forced-lowering action of the device. The topping lift is in French balancine, in Italian amantiglio, a rather curious term, allegedly derived from amante, once used to designate the free end of a rope (see also below). The English term is self-­ explanatory. The French term stresses the balancing role of the device, keeping the boom suitably high.

6.7  No Ropes on a Boat! The novice is fast reprimanded by the consummate sailor for using the word rope (corda in Italian, corde in French). There are no ropes on a boat, but rather lines (cime in Italian, bouts in French – pronounced boot). It is a sort of snobbery, unjustified technically or lexically, but vibrantly recommended. In the tall ships, long before radars, there was a bell in the aft and it was sounded regularly in case of fog (near the bow there was a gong). The only “rope” on a boat, at the time, was the short stretch of rope used to ring the bell. I will now continue to select nautical terms that show a difference in the “point of view” adopted in the three languages.

6.8  The Sails The head of a sail is in Italian “penna” (feather, also pen-to-write-with, as historically derived). Impennarsi, impennata is what a horse does when raising the front legs, or a motorcyclist raising the front wheel. In French tetière, like in English, because tète means head. The leech is in Italian balùmina, in French chute. Different points of view in these names. The bloodsucking worm in English (for some reason, maybe because it is the part of the sail that sucks the wind out). This is explicit in French, because “chute” means a fall. The Italian “balùmina” seem to be derived from latin volumen-­ inis, roll of tissue. The foot of the sail is bordure in French, base in Italian. Reducing sail is reefing in English, ariser in French and prendere una mano di terzaroli or terzarolare in Italian. The origin of the Italian expression is to be found in ancient multi-sail vessels, where the main mast supported three sails, the topmost

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one being the terzarolo, the smallest, which, in case of strong winds, could replace a larger lower sail. The word appears in Dante Chi terzeruolo e artimon rintoppa (Dante, Inferno, xxi, 7–15). The short reefing lines inserted into the mainsail in rows parallel to the boom in order to keep the folded part of the sail snug are called matafiòni, origin unspecified. The spinnaker (and Genoa) pole is in Italian tangone, from the French tangon, probably derived from the older term tange (modern tenaille) meaning pliers. Stressing the action of catching.

6.9  Maneuvering We have seen tacking already. Gybing (also spelled jibing) is in French empanner (also virer lof-pour-lof), in Italian strambare. The English word conveys the meaning of being in accord, but also of deriding or teasing with taunting words. In strong winds, it is a delicate maneuver, which, unlike tacking, requires precision and perfect timing, lest serious damage might be caused to the mainsail, the boom and even the mast. Decidedly a teasing operation. The French term, derived from panne, conveys the meaning of lining (as for garments) including extra fat in pigs. A different way to point out the character of the operation. Lof is the upwind side of the boat. Something that should never happen is the derogatory empannade chinoise (the Chinese jibe), whereby the mainsail and the boom slam suddenly, violently and uncontrollably to the opposite side wreaking havoc. No equivalent that I know of in French or Italian. The Italian word strambare derives from the adjective strambo, meaning bizarre, pointing to the exceptionality of the maneuver. One only dares imagine what jibing must have been in many-masted vessels, with dozens of sails that had to be operated together. I suppose it was only done when there was no other solution and the crew was well trained. The way to avoid “real” jibing is the “chicken jibe”, that is, turning all the way upwind, tacking and then falling off. It is verbally deprecated as a cowardly operation (chicken), but in strong winds, if several sails are up and there is enough space, it is prudent, not cowardly. I do not know any translation of this expression into French or Italian. Close-hauled is in Italian bolina stretta, in French près serrè. The Italian word derives from the English bowline, lines at the bow, the ones which, in vessels with square sails, helped to keep the boat close to the wind. The French stresses strict closeness to the wind. Beam reach is in Italian traverso and in French travers. The English term stresses that the wind is coming at the beam. French and Italian stress that it is coming across. Broad reach is in Italian lasco, in French largue. Very similar meaning, though there are associated meanings in ordinary discourse. Lasco is said of a relaxed morality, the French larguer is said for abandoning something (or someone) or for tossing money to someone.

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Running is in French vent arrière, in Italian andatura di poppa. English stresses the speed and the going away, French the coming from behind, Italian the coming from the stern. Coming upwind, luffing up is in Italian orzare, in French lofer, probably derived from English. Bearing away is in Italian puggiare denoting the action of leaning over (appoggiare, appoggiarsi) Tightening a line is in Italian cazzare, in French border. The etymology of the Italian is a bit embarrassing, because cazzo is the vulgar term for the male sex organ, extending to the colloquial reflexive verb incazzarsi (becoming very angry, even furious) and the adjective incazzato. Application to the effort of tightening a line is straightforward. French stresses the resultant closing of the line to the body of the boat. The loosening of a line is in Italian filare, in French larger. English stresses the reverse of a force, Italian the slipping through the fist (but filare is also the weaving of wool or silk), French the widening of the movement, producing greater largesse. Lowering a sail is in French affaler, in Italian ammainare. English is straightforward. French and Italian use the same word as for lowering a flag. Arguably the most famous knot is the bowline, in Italian gassa d’amante, in French noeud de chaise. The English word comes from the age of square sails, when a line was set to keep the foremost square sail as much into the wind as possible, by tying a line from the lower clew to the front spar. The Italian word comes from the obsolete word amante for the free end of a rope. No one uses the whole expression, one only says gassa, origin uncertain, referring to a loop formed by a line. The French word literally means chair knot. Applied to the elementary “chair” used to hoist a member of the crew up a mast for some repair. The so-called bosun’s chair has morphed into Italian as banzigo (accent on the i). Sounding rather peculiar, because its derivation from English is lost. The bowline is also called the King’s knot, because it is the most elegant and the most important of all knots, to be used whenever possible. It does not choke (si strozza in Italian, se souque in French) and can, therefore, be easily undone. The only limitation is that it cannot be tied if the line is under tension. In that case, a clove hitch will do (Italian nodo parlato -spoken knot - French demi-clè – half key). Properly coiling a line is in Italian adugliare, a nice word derived from the Genovese dialect dugia, itself from the Latin duplus (double), stressing the doubling of the loops, one next to the other. The French lover appears to stress the pleasure of a well coiled line, something we “love”. The luffing or flapping of a sail is in Italian sbattere, in French fasseyer. The French verb is derived from the Dutch faselen (stir, flap). The Italian is a current, not especially maritime word, for slamming. It applies to the slamming of a door or a window. Figuratively, the expression sbattere in faccia, (slamming to the face) is used when an unpleasant situation, an insult, an unwelcome fact is bluntly hurled at someone. Heaving to is in Italian mettersi alla cappa, French prendre la cape. The English expression stresses the effort and the direction, since this boat-stopping maneuver is usually done in a storm, keeping the boat into the wind. Italian and French stress the

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protective nature of the maneuver, since cappa and cape refer to a wide protective garment. In Italian, nineteenth century adventurous fiction narratives, such as The Three Musketeers, are labeled cappa e spada, cape and sword. The unfortunate event of capsizing is in French chavirer, in Italian far scuffia. French synonims of chavirer are bousculer, boulverser, indeed denoting loss of equilibrium, going upside-down. The Italian expression is derived from cuffia (bonnet), suggesting the idea that the capsizing yanks your bonnet off your head. Scuffia is also used to mean bad luck.

6.10  When in the Harbor Mooring is in French mouillage, also amarrage, in Italian ancoraggio. The English word conveys the meaning of lassoing, tethering, tying. The French literally means wetting, plunging the anchor into the water and making it wet. The alternative word refers to the marres (in Italian marre), the flukes of the anchor. In Italian, the focus is on the anchor. When securing the boat with a line to another anchored boat, the Italian expression is alla ruota (at the wheel), stressing that the boat is free to rotate 360 degrees.

6.11  Conclusion (Sort of) I hope to have shown that the lexical mini-world of the language of sailing exemplifies the more general issue of the meaning and reference of words and simple expressions. We manage to refer to external objects and actions by means of all sorts of cognitive capacities we possess. But, as Chomsky has rightly stressed, words as such (let me again insist: as such) do not refer. The meaning, the intension, always depends on a “point of view” (Chomsky’s expression) with an amalgam of historical derivations and hints to actions. Etymology (historical sources) is forgotten by the overwhelming majority of contemporary users, but the different points of view manifested in the three languages are sufficiently clear. This, of course, applies to the translations of almost any lexical item across languages. Even the best, the perfect translation, is compatible with the presence of differences in points of view. A last example in the present sailing context. In a small sailing boat the rudder is removable, one puts it back by inserting the spigots, the pintles, into the gudgeons, the small sockets. In French, the first are called aiguillots (big needles), from which the Italian agugliotti (where the needle meaning is lost). The second are called femminelle (small females) with the similar French fémelots. Different points of view. Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini is Professor of Linguistics and Cognitive Science at the University of Arizona. [email protected]  

Chapter 7

Communicating the Space of Sailing Thora Tenbrink

7.1  Introduction Sailing is a highly exceptional spatial activity. Like all other motion types it takes place in a spatial environment, but the space it occupies departs fundamentally from most people’s everyday life: only few people spend their daily life on the water. In normal life, we walk or drive to work and to the shop, we know where home is and where we are now, we orient ourselves in spatial settings that under normal circumstances remain relatively stable. We know where objects are and how to describe their locations relative to each other, as well as how to describe the way to a destination, indoors or outdoors. A vast amount of research over the past few decades has addressed just how we do these things (Denis, 2018), identifying the ways in which we think about our habitual spatial surroundings on the basis of how we deal with them and talk about them. By now, the academic literature has widely acknowledged that understanding space is essential for our lives (Freksa et al., 2018). We have a fundamental need to know where we are, how to get to places, and where the things are that matter for us; and we solve many problems by relying on spatial relations and experience. Sailing is different (Tenbrink & Dylla, 2017). Anyone who learns to sail will notice very quickly that most of the everyday mechanisms of moving in spatial surroundings simply do not work. Sailors cannot simply make more effort or push some levers to accelerate or slow down. Sailors rarely talk about left, right, or moving forward. Sailors don’t move straight on towards a goal. Sailors  – especially dinghy sailors – don’t sit facing in the direction they’re moving. The boat itself may be tilted at an angle, distorting perception and balance. Landmarks and objects are non-existent on open water and elusive elsewhere; distances and angles are often T. Tenbrink (*) College of Arts, Humanities, and Business, Bangor University, Bangor, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. Casati (ed.), The Sailing Mind, Studies in Brain and Mind 19, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89639-3_7

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misjudged on water (Araújo et al., 2010). Normally irrelevant features of the environment become essential: the wind, the water’s current, the height of waves, the depth underneath, even the distribution of weight within one’s boat. Everything affects movement and navigation; new concepts need to be learned and experienced. Learning does not just concern terminology, knowledge about actions and technical terms; rather, new sailors have to learn to think about space, and how to move in it, in a fundamentally different way. Like spatial cognition in other circumstances, this new way of thinking is reflected and represented in communication, in the way sailors talk and represent their spatial concepts (Tenbrink & Dylla, 2017). Based on the results of an explorative online questionnaire, this chapter addresses how sailors and non-sailors describe the space of sailing. The participants’ written responses were analysed systematically, and various crucial aspects were identified that highlight the essential differences in spatial communication between those who are experienced in sailing and those who aren’t. This reflects, as I will argue, essential differences not just in talking about space but, crucially, in thinking about and conceptualising space. Altogether, the data suggest that sailing changes the way we think about space, and that this may, to some extent, affect the sailor’s everyday life even outside sailing.

7.2  The Questionnaire In December 2019, a highly capable and experienced member of my local dinghy sailing club (Port Dinorwic Sailing Club, Y Felinheli, Wales) published a video recording1 of himself while racing his RS 100 in the local Christmas regatta. Amazed and inspired by this achievement, I obtained his permission and launched an online questionnaire that invited participants to describe sailing situations shown in the first minute of the video plus specific snapshots, as well as answer some further questions. Following demographic background here is the main body of this questionnaire, with references to Figures and numbering added for the purposes of representation in this chapter: 1. To get started, please click on this 2-min video (Fig. 7.1) and answer the question below. Can you describe the boat’s movements in the video’s first minute? Where is it going? (Just the boat’s movements, not the sailor’s movements and sailing skills, please.) 2. Start of the video (snapshot) (Fig. 7.2):

2.a) At the start of the video (shown in the picture), where is the coast in relation to him?

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YslwyJ-vuXA&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR36tE26IXvR-­ nMxmUtnvc3YT8Rp_8852kL9jXi9r5FQsdtzfgGuvXgewLQ

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Fig. 7.1  Video preview picture shown to participants. Clicking on the picture led to a 2-minute section of the sailor’s video footage (adapted for the study’s purposes by removing any textual information from the original video)

Fig. 7.2  Snapshot of the situation at the start



2.b) What is in front of him (in the same situation)? 2.c) What is ahead of him (in the same situation)? 2.d) In which direction is he going (in the same situation)?

3. After about half a minute (snapshot) (Fig. 7.3):

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Fig. 7.3  Snapshot of the situation after about half a minute



3.a) After about half a minute (shown in the picture), where is he in relation to the coast? 3.b) Where does the wind come from (in the same situation)? 3.c) In which direction is he going (in the same situation)?

4. When you’re outdoors, how often do you have a good idea of where North is (and other compass directions)? [Participants saw a Likert scale ranging from Never to Always, with the option of adding their own response.] 5. How often are you aware of the wind and its direction when you’re outdoors? [Participants were again given the same options as in the previous question.] 6. How much is your awareness of the wind connected to your awareness of compass directions? [Participants saw a Likert scale ranging from Not at all to Very much.] 7. Optional question: To what extent and in what ways does sailing affect how you think about space? 8. Optional question: When you’re sailing, what do you orient towards in order to keep going in the right direction? Try to describe how it works for you – how do you make sure to go in the right direction? What makes it difficult, and what helps? 9. Optional question: What do you orient to when you’re out walking in open space? In what ways is this different to sailing? 10. Optional question: After a direction change (tacking or gybing), how do you re-orient yourself? What makes it difficult, and what helps? In the following, rather than examining the contents of the responses one by one, I will present the results using the principles of Cognitive Discourse Analysis (Tenbrink, 2020), a method that focuses primarily on the linguistic features of

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discourse rather than content. Since the aim of this research was to discover spatial concepts in the responses, I concentrated for current purposes on patterns of spatial language as well as relevant content based insights. Since not all of the questions asked yielded language data of a kind that would be of interest here, I will focus on those that did. In particular, after presenting some demographic facts about the participants and their sailing expertise, I will address three ways in which sailors differed from non-sailors in the data: sailing expertise, spatial concepts during sailing, and spatial concepts outside sailing.

7.3  Participants 42 participants took part in this study. Their age ranged between 17 and 71 years (average: 40 years), and 18 were female, 22 were male, and 2 were gender diverse. Since neither age nor gender were focused on in this study, this information merely serves to show that the sample may be regarded as relatively representative of society at large in these respects. However, there would have been a bias towards those who are likely to have seen the invitation (which was primarily sent to the sailing club and university networks) and were happy to take part in an online study of this sort (which would have been particularly interesting to sailors or those who take an even marginal interest in this kind of activity). Thus, while the overall range of reported professional backgrounds was wide and diverse, 17 participants were students, none of whom reported much sailing experience. Concerning dinghy sailing experience, 12 of the participants claimed that they sailed often, 9 sometimes, 2 rarely, 17 never, one said they had done in the past but not now, and one reported two days of sailing ten years ago. For those who sailed, time of experience varied between ‘a few months’ and 53 years. As the study targets dinghy sailing it seems ideal to divide the participants into two equally sized groups called ‘dinghy sailors  – DS’ (the 21 participants who sailed a dinghy ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’) and ‘non-dinghy sailors – NDS’ (all others). However, this neglects relevant experience coming from yacht sailing, and so I will occasionally report findings in a somewhat more differentiated fashion. 4 DS and no NDS reported also being regular yacht sailors, 7 DS and 2 NDS reported having sailed yachts many times, 6 DS and 5 NDS reported limited experience with yacht sailing, and the remaining 18 participants (4 DS and 14 NDS) had no yacht sailing experience at all. All responses considered, 12 participants had no sailing experience whatsoever (neither dinghy nor yacht sailing); this means that the 9 other participants in the NDS group had some limited sailing experience in diverse ways. Where this experience appears to influence responses I will point this out in the following representation.

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7.4  Sailing Expertise Expertise shapes language. The more we know about a subject area, the more we will be able to use technical terminology and represent decisive facts and insights accurately. Much corpus and discourse analysis deals with the different genres or registers created by expert language (Bhatia, 1993; Schleppegrell, 2004), reflecting the fact that the way we talk reflects the extent of knowledge in a subject area. Also, a strand of teaching focuses on English for specific purposes (ESP; Hutchinson & Waters, 1987), although there are indications that technical jargon can actually seem unprofessional in some contexts (Thon & Jucks, 2017). The domain of sailing is characterised by technical jargon that is, to some extent, recognisable by non-­ experts; most people will be familiar with basic terminology such as ‘port’ and ‘starboard’, even if they may not be using it actively themselves. Beyond this, some concepts only become available through actual knowledge of the activity itself, such as the difference between ‘tacking’ and ‘gybing’ – i.e., direction changes affecting sail positions relative to the wind. In our data, unsurprisingly, sailors’ responses contained much more sailing terminology than those of nonsailors. Here are some exemplary relevant patterns. • Changing orientation is a common experience during movement, and features in this scenario just as well as it might in other motion contexts. It would be strange if any group of participants failed to notice this fact, when asked to describe the boat’s movements in the first minute (Q1). And indeed, numbers are very similar: when counting references to orientation change, there were 16 of them by DS and 13 by NDS in Q1, but none in the static picture descriptions of Q2d and Q3c. However, there were major differences in the terminology used to describe orientation changes. 8 DS (but no NDS) used a variant of the standard term ‘tack’ to refer to a change of direction, whereas 9 NDS (and 1 DS) used ‘turn’. Further options were used occasionally, such as ‘rounding’ and ‘veering’ which did not seem to be associated with any particular group, and sailing terminology such as ‘harden up’ and ‘bear away’, used by DS only. • In answer to question 1 (Q1), 7 DS used the terms ‘port’ and ‘starboard’. 4 of them and 2 other DS also used these terms later in the questionnaire (Q2d and Q3c). Altogether these terms were mentioned 23 times across these three relevant questions that pertained to movement directions. Although most non-sailors can be assumed to be familiar with this terminology, it did not occur to them to use the terms to describe direction of movement. Only one NDS did this in Q1, and they had sailed yachts many times. Another person with limited yacht sailing experience used ‘starboard’ in Q2d. • No DS referred to ‘left’ or ‘right’ in Q1, Q2d, or Q3c. In contrast, 11 NDS produced 18 such references in Q1, and adding in the answers to Q2d and 3c, 29 references to ‘left’ and ‘right’ were counted.

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• In Q1, 4 DS but no NDS referred to points of sail, using altogether 8 expressions such as ‘close hauled’ and ‘beam reach’. These terms refer to the boat’s travel direction relative to the wind, where ‘close hauled’ means sailing at fairly close angle against the wind, and ‘beam reach’ means that the wind comes from the side. Two different DS but no NDS referred to points of sail twice later, in Q2d and 3c. These patterns may arguably be regarded as relatively clear cases of using relevant jargon to describe concepts that emerge during sailing, based on expertise. However, although intuitively straightforward, and certainly true for ‘tacking’ vs. ‘turning’, in some cases this interpretation may be called into question. In the case of points of sail, it would be possible for non-sailors to refer to wind directions instead – the next section will show to what extent they do that. In the case of ‘port’ and ‘starboard’, one might argue that these terms simply replace the references to ‘left’ and ‘right’ – but are they really equivalent? ‘Left’ and ‘right’ are notoriously ambiguous, as they depend on perspectives and other objects or people in a scenario (Levinson, 2003). ‘Port’ and ‘starboard’, in contrast, strictly refer to the sides of the boat, unambiguously assigned in relation to the boat’s bow (which might translate to ‘front’) and stern (‘back’). I have met many a sailor who reported preferring ‘port’ and ‘starboard’ even outside sailing contexts, to avoid ambiguity. And in fact, one of the DS participants of this questionnaire actually mentioned this preference explicitly in Q7: “I often use the term ‘leave the ?? to starboard (or port)’ when giving directions to other sailors even on land because it feels much more precise and unambiguous”. This quote calls into question the idea that these terms are simply examples of expert jargon, used to express similar concepts as in everyday life. Even though primarily looking for signs of expertise in the responses at this step, we find that indications of different ways of thinking about space emerge. The next section will shed more light on this notion, considering spatial concepts that are not represented through expert jargon. Before we go into descriptive detail, Fig. 7.4 shows a quick overview of the main differences found in the counts of references in Q1, summarising key elements discussed in this and the next section.

7.5  Spatial Concepts During Sailing Four spatial concepts in particular appeared to be affected systematically by expertise: References to the wind, concepts of moving forward, landmark references, and spatial relation descriptions. None of these are unique to sailing, but sailing experience clearly affected the patterns of how they were referred to in this sailing description scenario.

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30 25

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Fig. 7.4  Count of key concept references in responses to Question 1, contrasting dinghy sailors (DS) and non-dinghy sailors (NDS). Further details are described in Sects. 7.4 and 7.5

7.5.1  The Role of the Wind Unquestionably, sailing means relying on the wind to a much greater extent than people normally would in everyday life. However, the video does not ‘show’ the wind in any direct way; it cannot be felt on one’s skin while watching, and it is not directly visible. Also, apart from the points of sail already discussed in the previous section, there is not a lot of jargon concerning the wind itself that would be exclusively accessible to sailors. There are some expressions such as ‘luffing’ or ‘hardening’ that refer to the relation between the boat’s direction and the wind, but this could be – and in fact, often is – equally described in more everyday terms such as ‘into the wind’ and ‘away from the wind’. In theory, perception and reference to the wind, as such, are therefore just as accessible to sailors as they are to non-sailors; the concepts themselves aren’t dependent on expertise, and the degree of perception in the video and snapshots in this questionnaire is the same for all participants. If they referred to the wind in different ways in this questionnaire, it would reflect a different way of perceiving a situation that they know relates to the wind. So did they? I counted both explicit and implicit references to the wind such as ‘wind’, ‘windward’, ‘luff/harden’, ‘head up/flatten off’ etc. in the responses to Q1, Q2d and Q3c. The count yielded 41 such references for DS (28 of which were in Q1) and 2 for NDS. The two NDS references to the wind came from a participant with limited yacht sailing experience, and read as follows (Q1): “The boat is guided by the wind, first heading towards land and then making a sharp turn and remaining the same

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distance between two parts of land. The boat is bobbing on the water, and the sail is controlling where the boat goes, using the wind to do so.” To compare, here’s a typical sailor’s answer in Q1 that contains three wind references: “Sailing slowly on starboard, headed up and accelerated, (Probably started the race) tacked, flattened off then continued upwind on Port.” Clearly, the wind plays a central role in the way the scenario is perceived, in spite of its factual absence in the video. The sailors are acutely aware of this and use this awareness to interpret and represent the situation, while the non-sailors do not take account of it at all. In question 3.b) participants were explicitly asked where the wind comes from, despite the fact that the picture itself does not show or represent the wind in any way. Here, the answers of 6 NDS but no DS reflected uncertainty, as in ‘unsure’ or ‘it seems to be coming from the left’. In contrast, DS confidently volunteered suggestions such as ‘over port bow 45 deg to boat’ or, using no sailing jargon, ‘From in front & towards the mainland (about South)’. Later in the questionnaire, participants were asked what they orient towards when sailing (Q8) and when out walking (Q9). Orientation on the basis of the wind was mentioned 29x by DS (and 2x by NDS with limited sailing experience) when sailing, but not when walking. Although the wind was mentioned 4 times for when out walking, all of them were negative, to make the point that wind did not serve for orientation. Finally, when asked in Q10 how they re-oriented themselves after a direction change (tacking or gybing), again the wind was mentioned 14 times, by DS only.

7.5.2  Concepts of Moving Forward Another concept that has very little to do with expertise is the notion of moving forward or straight on. Generally, this notion is available to everybody in all sorts of motion concepts; it is the most natural and ubiquitous direction of movement, and the most simple way of reaching a target. However, Tenbrink and Dylla (2017) pointed out that the notion of ‘forward’ is problematic in sailing contexts for a variety of reasons, including the fact that sailboats don’t always move in the direction of the bow due to the varying forces of wind and current, and the fact that there are numerous forces and perspectives that impose contradicting interpretations of a forward direction. It may be speculated, then, that sailors avoid this terminology in favour of other concepts. How did this play out in the current scenario? I counted references to forward directions including the standard terms ‘forward’, ‘ahead’, ‘straight’ and some less standard related terms that conveyed similar notions. In Q1 there were 4 such references from DS as opposed to 22 NDS. Notably, of those 4 DS references, only one contained the standard term ‘straight’ but with an element of doubt: “Difficult to tell, it looks like its going straight but the water is moving so its probably twisting about”. This came from a DS with very limited experience (having sailed ‘sometimes’ and only ‘for a few months’). The other three references were less conventional: “Upwind prep for start and off” and “first it heads

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in towards the shore. It then turns and heads down the strait” where I decided (somewhat conservatively) that the notions of ‘off’ and ‘heading in/down’ might arguably be interpreted as variants of moving forwards in a specific direction. In contrast, NDS freely made use of conventional forward concepts, as in “the boat goes forward, turns on the right and goes forward again” and “straight, right, straight”. In Q2d and Q3c, taken together, there were 9 such forward direction references by DS as opposed to 22 by NDS. The fact that there are somewhat more relevant DS references in Q2d and Q3c as compared to Q1 relates to the nature of the questions, as Q2d and Q3c directly ask about the direction in which the sailor is going, thus prompting towards forward concepts more than Q1 does. Here, we actually do get direct references to ‘forward’ by DS, though still far less frequently than by NDS.  Instead of referring to forward, DS preferred to use compass directions in Q2d and Q3c (though not in Q1), such as ‘south’ or ‘southwest’: there were 15 such references by DS but only 2 by NDS in Q2d and Q3c, plus 2 by NDS and none by DS in Q1. It is interesting to see that compass directions play such different roles for sailors and non-sailors; they are clearly accessible to both groups, but feature in different ways in the answers.

7.5.3  References to Landmarks Landmark reference is ubiquitous in human navigation contexts (Denis, 2018). We orient ourselves towards landmarks and describe routes by reference to them, and reassure ourselves that we’re on the right track by keeping an eye on distant landmarks if they’re visible from afar. Humans are quite flexible in identifying suitable landmarks for these purposes in different contexts – e.g., landmarks inside buildings differ in nature from the ones used in outdoor navigation (Mast & Wolter, 2013), and mountaineering contexts call for different landmark types than street networks (Egorova et al., 2015). We can expect, therefore, that landmarks of some kind will also be identifiable in the current sailing scenario – in spite of the fact that the scenario played out on open water, with few outstanding entities available. And in fact there were references to entities that could be counted as landmarks, but again we find a clear difference based on sailing experience, with only 7 landmark references by DS in Q1 and 5 additional ones in Q2d and Q3c, as opposed to 20 by NDS in Q1 and 9 additional ones in Q2d and Q3c. The DS ones in Q1 were ‘a marker’, 2x ‘the start’, ‘(up) the first leg’, ‘the boatyard’, ‘the shore’ and ‘the strait’. NDS referred to the coast, shore, or land 7 times, to the ocean, sea, or strait 7 times, and to a few other entities such as the buoy or mooring and the other boats. While there were some overlaps, therefore, most of the sailors who used such references at all would invoke the context or ‘schema’ of a dinghy sailing race to describe the scenario, referring to entities such as ‘the start’ (which is a buoy), or the abstract entity of a ‘leg’ of the race. In contrast, non-sailors simply used whatever concepts and entities were available to establish orientation, without referring to any schema or meaningful context.

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7.5.4  Spatial Relations: Focus on the Sailor – Or on the Boat In question 2.a) we asked about the location of ‘the coast in relation to him’. Although this formulation suggests a focus on the sailor rather than his boat, only 2 DS answered the question in this way: ‘over his right shoulder’ and ‘in front of him as he is facing’. 8 NDS answers were similar to this, e.g., ‘behind him as he is sitting’ or ‘to the man’s right’. In contrast, 15 DS but only 5 NDS formulated their answer with respect to the boat rather than the man: ‘off his port bow’ or ‘to the front left, approx. 45 degrees’. This last example is typical in that it implicitly rather explicitly refers to the boat. Looking at the picture, there is no way in which the coast could be described as being ‘to the front left’ of the man; therefore, the fact that the coast is related to the boat rather than the man can be inferred. This is the case with many answers in this category. Some (both DS and NDS) used sailing terminology such as ‘port side’, which also implicitly refers to the boat. Furthermore, 13 DS and 9 NDS responses contained uses of ‘ahead’ or ‘in front’ without a clue as to whether this was meant in relation to the sailor or to the boat.

7.6  Spatial Concepts Outside Sailing Following the direct questions about the sailing scenario shown in the short video clip and in pictures, we asked a range of more general questions pertaining to spatial concepts, motivated by the speculation that sailing experience may affect these even outside sailing. Here are some answers. When asked (in Q4) about how often they had a good idea of where North is (and other compass directions), NDS replied as follows: 5 ‘often’ plus one said ‘When I’m home in Ireland, confidently 95% of the time – clueless outside of Ireland’, 5 ‘sometimes’, 7 ‘rarely’, 2 ‘never’ and one did not answer. The answers thus average around ‘sometimes’. In contrast, DS replied much more confidently, with a tendency towards ‘often’: 4 ‘always’, 13 ‘often’, 2 ‘sometimes’, 1 ‘rarely’, 1 ‘never’. Complementing this, NDS were typically often or sometimes aware of the wind direction (Q5): 3 (of which 2 had yacht sailing experience) ‘always’, 6 ‘often’, 9 ‘sometimes’, 2 ‘rarely’, 1 ‘never’, whereas DS tended to be often or even always aware of it: 4 ‘always’, 13 ‘often’, 2 ‘sometimes’, 1 ‘rarely’, 1 ‘never’. On the whole, sailors were thus clearly more aware both of compass directions and of wind direction outside sailing context. These two types of awareness tended to be unconnected for most NDS (Q6): 1 ‘very much’, 3 ‘quite a lot’, 3 ‘it depends’, 7 ‘not a lot’, 7 ‘not at all’, but connected for DS: 4 ‘very much’, 5 ‘quite a lot’, 6 ‘it depends’, 5 ‘not a lot’, 1 ‘not at all’. Finally, in Q7 participants were asked to what extent and in what ways does sailing affect how they think about space. This question was optional and only made sense for those with sailing experience; I was interested to see whether sailors could explicitly report the effects sailing might have on their everyday experience. While

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most participants seemed baffled by this question or unsure how to answer, here are some pertinent answers that shed some further light on individual perception of such effects: • DS: ‘It has a massive impact on perspective’ • DS: ‘I think it gives me more awareness of how other people and things move in space’ • DS: ‘It affects the way I think about time and space’ • NDS (yacht sailor): ‘I think about the prevailing wind when I look at the placement of windows/doors and their hinges. I think of Ireland as being two days’ sail from Felinheli and of the Isle of Man as a very long day’s sail.’ • NDS (with very limited dinghy & yacht sailing experience): ‘the few times I have experienced sailing, I have been aware of the limited space in which I can travel- it being either in a lake or a cove. Therefore being aware of how far you can take the boat, how close to the water’s edge, how far considering depth etc.’ Thus, while the majority struggled to express the effects of sailing on their spatial thinking, there are indications that such effects do reach awareness in some people, to a limited extent.

7.7  Discussion and Conclusion Analysis of a questionnaire on sailing, sent out to sailors with varying degrees of sailing experience and those without any, highlighted a range of interesting differences in how a sailing scenario was perceived and described, as well as insights on the effects of sailing experience on spatial perception outside sailing. Spatial relationships featured in many different ways throughout the questionnaire, sometimes primarily concerning terminology (Sect. 7.4) and sometimes primarily affecting the underlying concepts such as forward motion and landmarks (Sect. 7.5). In the following, I will discuss the main areas in which differences were found: direct effects of expertise on expert concepts, spatial concepts during sailing, and spatial concepts outside sailing. It is almost a tautology that expertise will affect the use of expert concepts and terminology in an expertise related context such as a sailing scenario description – this is what expertise is all about, leading to a need to develop expert language programmes (Strevens & Johnson, 1983). Experts know far better how to assess a relevant situation and use the appropriate terminology to describe it. This unsurprising fact can often lead to miscommunication and lack of clarity for non-experts; for instance, in the context of climate change, expert terminology may hamper transfer of scientific insights to the general public (Harcourt et  al., 2019). In the present context of sailing, the most obvious effect of expertise concerned the use of terminology such as ‘port’ and ‘starboard’ to describe a sailing scenario. Although these terms are not unknown to non-sailors they were not aware of their relevance in this situation. A non-expert would probably assume that these terms simply pertain to

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the sides of the boat, which as such were not relevant at all in this questionnaire. Experts, in contrast, used the terms as often as 23 times across three questions, namely in the context of movement descriptions. The insight that terms describing boat sides are relevant to represent movement therefore constitutes expertise in a sailing context. Non-sailors used the everyday terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ in these contexts – terms that were entirely avoided by sailors. Paralleling this to some extent, differences in terminology were also found in the descriptions of orientation change. While orientation change, as such, was similarly represented across descriptions, sailors primarily used ‘tack’ and non-sailors ‘turn’ to describe these. Like ‘port’ and ‘starboard’, these are not simple replacements of terminology but again refer to somewhat different concepts, where ‘tacking’ is a specific process of changing direction relative to the wind while re-adjusting the sails, as opposed to ‘turning’ that does not involve any readjustment other than the body or vehicle, and is independent of the wind. Expertise thus permeates descriptions, and will certainly hamper communication between experts and non-experts. Even though most people know the meaning of ‘port’ they would have a hard time understanding ‘ahead on a port tack’. Expertise also makes for more efficient communication: the experts’ descriptions certainly appear more concise, to the point, and efficient; they are also shorter on the whole (in Q1, the word count for DS was 247 as opposed to 433 by non-sailors). Compare ‘Tacking going upwind’ with ‘The boat goes forwards and then it takes a wicked right turn. It continues moving forwards thereafter.’ Both are accurate (and fairly typical) descriptions of the first minute of sailing in the video shown, but they seem to be representing a completely different understanding of the same situation. Clearly, experts require less effort to assess a situation in the area of their expertise, and recognise the significance of certain details better than non-experts (Chi et al., 1982). Consequently, non-sailors have been found to perform more actions than sailors due to inexperience (Araújo et al., 2005). Related to these effects, the analysis of language data furthermore showed that even everyday concepts like references to the wind, forward motion, landmarks, and spatial relations differed considerably between experts and non-experts in this scenario. None of these concepts are exclusively accessible or comprehensible to experts, but the experts used everyday language very differently than non-experts to express them. For instance, forward notions such as ‘forward’, ‘ahead’ and ‘straight’ were frequent in non-sailors’ responses but almost completely absent from sailors’ responses in the sailing scenario description. Sailors did make use of these terms more when asked directly about motion direction, but preferred to use compass directions then. With landmark references, differences were mostly seen in the ways in which sailors represented the scenario in a dinghy race context, whereas non-­ sailors referred to more random elements visible in the scenario. When asked about the location of the coast, sailors tended to formulate their answer in relation to the boat, whereas non-sailors referred to the person in the boat; this, as well, reflects a conceptual focus on the functionality of the situation, where the individual appears to matter less than an understanding of the configuration as a whole. This is also reflected in the way the sailors referred to ‘port’ and ‘starboard’,

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which can only refer to the boat, contrasting with the non-sailors’ use of ‘left’ and ‘right’, which are much more likely to refer to the man in the boat. Both findings together strongly suggest that for sailors the attention focus is strictly on the boat and its progress in relation to the wind and purpose of sailing (here: a dinghy sailing race), whereas the non-sailors paid much more attention to the person in the boat – in line with a human tendency to focus on people rather than objects, and be more affected by them almost from birth (Legerstee, 1997). Most strikingly, only experts recognised the true significance of the wind, in line with previous findings showing that non-sailors were unable to make use of wind information during a simulated regatta (Araújo et al., 2005). Sailors referred to the wind frequently across the three movement related questions; also, they were confident in describing wind direction when asked. Non-experts, in contrast, did not take the wind into account in representing the situation, and showed uncertainty concerning its direction. The importance of the wind to sailors was furthermore underscored by its frequent mention in the context of orientation; they stated that the wind helps orienting oneself on the water, but not in other contexts. According to Verlinden et al. (2013) wind furthermore contributes to a ‘sense of presence’ during sailing; in a virtual training scenario, wind enhanced engagement and the sense of ‘being there’. It appears, thus, that a deep connection with the wind is fundamental to sailing. Consequently, sailors claimed to be much more aware of the wind direction than non-sailors even when not sailing. Even though sailors explicitly stated that wind played no role for orientation while walking, they did report better knowledge of compass directions, and acknowledged that this was connected to awareness of wind direction. In this sense, the intense experience of wind during sailing appears to affect spatial direction awareness even in everyday life, without sailors necessarily being aware of it. The lack of conscious awareness concerning the influence of sailing on everyday spatial cognition is also reflected in the fact that most sailors were unable to either respond at all, or respond in any detail to the question as to how sailing affected their thoughts about space. Several dinghy sailors acknowledged that sailing does have an impact but they did not elaborate much. Others focused on the different ways their thinking was changed during rather than outside sailing. Altogether, the possible effects of sailing on spatial cognition are worth exploring further using more controlled experimentation that tests specific skills (such as knowledge of wind or compass direction) and strategies (such as orienting oneself or representing spatial relationships), rather than questionnaires that elicit explicit knowledge and awareness. That specific types of spatial experience can affect other areas of life has been shown previously, for example, by showing effects of video gaming experience on mental rotation abilities (Terlecki et al., 2008), and effects of spatial training interventions on children’s mathematical skills in areas such as visuo-spatial reasoning and symbolic number comparison (Hawes et al., 2017). More generally, spatial ability has been found to correlate with success in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) domains (Wai et  al., 2009), indicating potentially substantial benefits of spatial training for future abilities. From my personal

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experience and the findings reported here, it seems to me that supporting children in learning to sail from an early age – as well as giving in to our own desire for exercising this beautiful and rewarding skill  – can have an abundance of benefits, well beyond the experience itself. It should be observed that the data presented in this study do not lend themselves to statistical analysis, and neither was this a goal in the present study. Instead, the results paint a systematic and suggestive picture of the different ways in which language is used, both lexically (using technical jargon) and conceptually (referring to different kinds of concepts), by people with sailing experience as opposed to those without. I hope this will inspire further research targeting effects of spatial expertise in a specialist area on concepts and representations of space, both within and outside the area itself. With respect to sailing, informal and anecdotal evidence including various responses in the present questionnaire strongly suggests that sailing affects spatial thinking. The linguistic analysis presented in this paper highlights various ways in which this happens, and ways in which language reflects these effects systematically.

References Araújo, D., Davids, K., & Serpa, S. (2005). An ecological approach to expertise effects in decision-­ making in a simulated sailing regatta. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 6(6), 671–692. Araújo, D., Rocha, L., & Davids, K. (2010). The ecological dynamics of decision-making in sailing. In I. Renshaw, K. Davids, & G. J. P. Savelsbergh (Eds.), Motor learning in practice: A constraints-led approach (pp. 131–143). Routledge. Bhatia, V. K. (1993). Analysing genre: Language use in professional settings. Burnt Mill/Longman. Chi, M. T. H., Glaser, R., & Rees, E. (1982). Expertise in problem solving. In R. Sternberg (Ed.), Advances in the psychology of human intelligence (pp. 7–75). Erlbaum. Denis, M. (2018). Space and spatial cognition: A multidisciplinary perspective. Routledge. Egorova, E., Tenbrink, T., & Purves, R. (2015). Where snow is a landmark: Route direction elements in alpine contexts. In S. I. Fabrikant, M. Raubal, M. Bertolotto, C. Davies, S. Freundschuh, & S. Bell (Eds.), Spatial information theory (pp. 175–195). Springer. Freksa, C., Barkowsky, T., Dylla, F., Falomir, Z., Olteteanu, A.-M., & van de Ven, J. (2018). Spatial problem solving and cognition. In Representations in mind and world (pp. 156–183). Routledge. Harcourt, R., de Bruin, W. B., Dessai, S., & Taylor, A. (2019). Investing in a good pair of wellies: How do non-experts interpret the expert terminology of climate change impacts and adaptation? Climatic Change, 155(2), 257–272. Hawes, Z., Moss, J., Caswell, B., Naqvi, S., & MacKinnon, S. (2017). Enhancing children’s spatial and numerical skills through a dynamic spatial approach to early geometry instruction: Effects of a 32-week intervention. Cognition and Instruction, 35(3), 236–264. Hutchinson, T., & Waters, A. (1987). English for specific purposes. Cambridge University Press. Legerstee, M. (1997). Contingency effects of people and objects on subsequent cognitive functioning in three-month-old infants. Social Development, 6(3), 307–321. Levinson, S. C. (2003). Space in language and cognition. Cambridge University Press. Mast, V., & Wolter, D. (2013). A probabilistic framework for object descriptions in indoor route instructions. In International conference on spatial information theory (pp. 185–204). Springer.

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Schleppegrell, M.  J. (2004). The language of schooling: A functional linguistics perspective. Routledge. Strevens, P., & Johnson, E. (1983). SEASPEAK: A project in applied linguistics, language engineering, and eventually ESP for sailors. The ESP Journal, 2(2), 123–129. Tenbrink, T. (2020). Cognitive discourse analysis: An introduction. Cambridge University Press. Tenbrink, T., & Dylla, F. (2017). Sailing: Cognition, action, communication. Journal of Spatial Information Science, 2017(15), 3–33. Terlecki, M. S., Newcombe, N. S., & Little, M. (2008). Durable and generalized effects of spatial experience on mental rotation: Gender differences in growth patterns. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 22(7), 996–1013. Thon, F. M., & Jucks, R. (2017). Believing in expertise: How authors’ credentials and language use influence the credibility of online health information. Health Communication, 32(7), 828–836. Verlinden, J. C., Mulder, F. A., Vergeest, J. S., de Jonge, A., Krutiy, D., Nagy, Z., Logeman, B., & Schouten, P. (2013). Enhancement of presence in a virtual sailing environment through localized wind simulation. Procedia Engineering, 60, 435–441. Wai, J., Lubinski, D., & Benbow, C. P. (2009). Spatial ability for STEM domains: Aligning over 50 years of cumulative psychological knowledge solidifies its importance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 101(4), 817–835. Thora Tenbrink is Professor of Linguistics and Director of Research for the College of Arts, Humanities, and Business at Bangor University, Wales (UK). She sails a Miracle dinghy and has crewed various yachts around local shores. [email protected]  

Chapter 8

Messing About in Small Boats David Papineau

I’m not sure if I’m a real sailor. I love the sea above all things, and am not happy to be away from it. But I want to be embraced by the water, not suspended above it, and so big boats aren’t my thing. Small dinghies suit me better. Ocean yachts, especially when skippered by someone else, don’t offer the same attraction. They make me feel as if I am combatting the sea, not at one with it. I grew up on the Caribbean Sea and the Indian Ocean, and as a young man spent some years on the east coast of Australia. All places with plenty of sun, clear water, sandy beaches, rock pools and rollicking surf. Now I live in London and whenever I can I decamp to our weekend house fifty miles north-east on the Essex coast. The Blackwater estuary, as its name suggests, offers a different kind of sea. Mudbanks, lugworms, curlews, big skies and fast-flowing tides. In my youth, I would have scorned the bleak estuaries of East Anglia. Now I have learned to see beyond the easy pleasures of sunny beaches, and have come to enjoy the Essex coast just as much. I have been able to swim ever since I can remember. When I was four my family moved to Port of Spain in Trinidad. What I recall best are the beaches. Nearest to the city was Macquaripe beach, a sheltered bay deemed appropriate for young children. But I far preferred Maracas beach, a bit further away through the mountains. This faced out to the Atlantic and enjoyed lively surf. Much more fun. Many years later I returned to Trinidad and made a point of revisiting Maracas. It was just as I remembered it, with waves, crowds, and Bake-and-Shark stands selling hot fried marinated shark in flatbread. We would also go to the American naval base at Chaguaramas on the north west corner of the island. This had been leased to the USA during the war under the “destroyers for bases agreement” and by 1951 it featured a full-scale American D. Papineau (*) Philosophy, King’s College London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. Casati (ed.), The Sailing Mind, Studies in Brain and Mind 19, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89639-3_8

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country club. We were honorary members, courtesy of my father’s status as a colonial civil servant. I still have the scar on my foot from when I dropped a coke bottle next to the pool and stood on the broken glass. On a good day you could see Venezuela across the Bocas del Dragón. There was a bathing raft moored some 30 or so yards off the beach. I can remember the first time I swam out and joined my mother on it. After 3  years we returned to London, but following tropical Trinidad I don’t think my parents were inclined to stay in England long. In 1956 we moved to Durban, South Africa, and remained there for 12 years. At first we lived in a village south of the city, with a house fronting on to the beach. Later we moved into Durban itself, on the Berea, with views over the harbour and the city beaches. It was a pity not to be right on the beach any more, but I could hitch a ride down the hill and be there in 10 min. Sailing didn’t feature in my life then. Surfing was the thing. Not board surfing, but body surfing. In the 1950s and early 60s surf boards were still unwieldy constructions made of balsa wood and fibre glass. They weren’t unknown, but they were few and far between. So we managed without. The trick was to start swimming with a wave as it was breaking and let the release of its energy sweep your rigid body forward like a board. There was a knack to it, but once you had the wave you could stay with it, and in good conditions could manoeuvre around the wave’s face while riding it. We called it “catching slides”. The focus of the Durban seafront was North Beach, confined between two rubble groynes extending out to sea. We’d jump into “the wash” next to the southern groyne and be swept 100 yards out, to the point where the Indian Ocean waves were breaking. The aim was to catch one all the way back on to the beach. You needed the right conditions. Six-foot waves were good for me, but some of the burlier body-surfers wouldn’t bother to get in the water until they were twice that size. Sadly, body-surfing is now largely a lost art. Pop-out surf and boogie boards have made it obsolete, and it is preserved only by beach lifesavers who compete in surf swimming races. It’s a pity. There’s something uniquely satisfying about harnessing a wave’s power with no aids beyond your body itself. I still try to do it whenever I can. So sailing played little part in my youth. A friend belonged to one of the yacht clubs in Durban’s expansive harbour, and he took me out in his dinghy once. But there was no wind and we ended up paddling. Another friend’s rich dentist father was proud of his forty-foot sloop and took some of us for a jaunt up and down the coast. I found it tiresome and wanted to get back to the beach. The first seeds weren’t really sown until some 20 years later, when I was married and back in England. My wife Rose was working on a women’s magazine and a flotilla firm offered a free week’s sailing cruise round the Saronic Gulf near Athens in return for a possible write-up. We invited a couple of friends to join us. While Rose had sailed when younger, the rest of us had no real background, but we were all ready to have a go. Luckily the boats in the flotilla were at the more pedestrian end of the spectrum from motor cruisers to sailing yachts. This became apparent the first time we tried

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to take the boat through the wind. It simply lost speed and missed stays. We were determined to sail rather than motor, so we kept trying, but with no success. We couldn’t work out what we were doing wrong. Dilly, the least experienced of us, watched our failed efforts for a while, and then asked why we didn’t just turn away from the wind and gybe round to the other tack. That worked, of course, not that it had occurred to the rest of us, and henceforth was known as “Dilly’s manoeuvre”. It was only some years later that I learned that “wearing ship” was historically a standard technique for unwieldy square-riggers. The cruise was great fun, but sailing opportunities as such were limited. Probably just as well given how little prepared we were. When we asked the others in our little fleet what they did about tacking they explained they just turned the engine on for a bit. They couldn’t see the point of our sailing purism. In time I learned to sail properly. It happened in fits and starts. I had become open to the idea, but in London opportunities were rare. A first stage was learning to windsurf. It looked like fun, and I used to borrow or hire boards when I was on holiday. My initial plan was to acquire the technique by trial and error. This didn’t prove entirely straightforward. I found out what happens if you keep falling off in an offshore wind. Perhaps I’d still be experimenting if I hadn’t overheard a windsurfing teacher explaining to his class that you can steer by moving the sail forward or back. I can still remember the feeling when I finally got the hang of it. I was on a short package holiday on a not particularly pleasant Greek island. A few tavernas around a small working port. Suddenly I wasn’t stuck any more. I could spread my wings and fly—to the other side of the bay, in and about the moored boats, around the island beyond them. It was a blessed release. The sea became a highway, not a barrier. This remains a large part of the joy of sailing for me. There are no boundaries on the open water. A boat with a sail will take you wherever you want to go. The next stage of my sailing career took place in West Cork. Rose has a family of Irish cousins, and ever since she was ten they had adopted her every summer and taken her on holiday to Schull, a small fishing town on the south-west corner of Ireland. She and they have continued the tradition ever since, and when I married Rose more than two decades later, I was generously included in the regular summer holiday. I can’t say I liked it at first. Not at all. It couldn’t have been more different from the beaches of my youth. Grey skies, scudding clouds, frequent rain. The area was traditional and avoided by tourists. This was long before the Irish economic tiger. No restaurants, no delicatessens, no chi-chi shops. No avocadoes. There were plenty of pubs, over a dozen in the small town, but they too were old-school. Murphy’s Stout or Smithwick’s Ale. The cousins did have a thirty-foot sloop, but outings were complicated. First everybody—and the numbers were growing with the generations—had to wake up. Eventually all would gather for a long lunch. When that was done it depended on the weather. On the odd occasions that it wasn’t raining, a party might finally set off in the boat in the late afternoon. Even then I didn’t specially enjoy it. It was good to be

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on the water, but it had taken hours to get there, and my only job once we were finally afloat was to keep out of the way and not get tangled up in anything. For some years I suffered. Rose was tolerant, and said she wouldn’t mind if I didn’t come. But I didn’t want to go on holiday on my own. So instead I sulked. I’m not proud of it. Luckily a London friend who grew up near Schull was able to help me. When I explained I couldn’t find anything to like about the place, he explained, “You’re doing it all wrong. You have to ignore the weather. It changes every half hour. It might start raining, but it will stop soon enough. Don’t let it keep you inside.” His advice altered everything. I started exploring and didn’t let the weather deflect me. The area couldn’t be more beautiful. Wild scenery, ruined castles, ragged coastlines. My feelings for the place quickly turned around. And then there was the sea. Schull had a small sailing hire centre. I started with their windsurfers but I was soon taking out a classic Laser. It was straightforward enough, now that I could windsurf, and it let me range further. Schull is on the edge of Roaringwater Bay, the great expanse of islands facing the Atlantic at Ireland’s south-west tip. Schull harbour itself is a mile square. Outside the harbour the mainland faces across a sound to the once-farmed but now-abandoned Goat Island, Long Island, Castle Island, and Horse Island. Beyond that, and past the Carthy Islands, is another line of three islands—West, Middle and East Calf—and then finally, five miles out to sea, the still-inhabited Cape Clear Island. (I have an old admiralty chart framed on my living room wall in London.) Within a couple of years I knew those waters backwards. I can’t believe there’s a better place for sailing anywhere. Past one island and on to the next, through huge flocks of bobbing guillemots, with dolphins, seals, diving gannets and even the occasional whale. In my little Laser I felt close to the marine creatures. In line with my new policy, I’d go out in all weathers, storms aside, and sometimes returned to shore with chattering teeth and blue with cold. But mostly the weather changed for the better soon enough, and in any case it was worth it to be out on the water. The sailing centre also had a Skipper for hire. These are 14-foot moulded plastic dinghies, with a gaff-rigged main and a small jib and plenty of comfortable seating. I’ve never met a sailor who viewed them with anything but scorn. But they are a clever design, and once we had children they were a boon for us. From pretty much the time our two children could walk, we would pack up a lunch and set off on a family voyage to some Roaringwater island in our Skipper. The children loved it. An element of adventure and they learned the basics of sailing. The Skipper would bump along perfectly well across the wind, even if it couldn’t point up very high. Not perhaps the raciest of vessels, but perfect for our purposes. Holiday sailing was all very well, but it was only for a couple of weeks a year. This changed once I came to know about the Blackwater estuary. We live in Kentish Town in north London. One summer, about 25 years ago, I asked a friend if he was going away at all. “We’ve rented a place on an island in Essex for a couple of weeks” he said. “Don’t be silly”, I said, “How can Essex have an island in it? Essex is made of land.” He didn’t bother to argue with me. “Just come and spend a day with us. Simply follow the directions I give you, and don’t be late for lunch.”

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So I did what I was told. It was an easy enough drive from home, through the outskirts of London and some pleasant countryside. We’d been told 90 min or so, but when that was up there was still no sign of any water, let alone an island. And then the little road we were on went onto the top of a dyke—and I immediately knew I’d found somewhere that was going to be important to me. What we could see was a large expanse of exposed sea bottom, across which a rock-paved causeway snaked for a mile to an island. This was Osea Island and, as we soon discovered, the causeway dates from Roman times and is only uncovered for 4 h each low tide. (Thus the insistence, “Don’t be late for lunch”.) The island itself is about two miles long and half a mile wide. It was once farmed, but by then was owned by a man who lived in the big “manor house” and rented out the other dozen-odd properties scattered around the island. There were dirt roads, no shops, and any number of places for children to get lost in. I didn’t hesitate. My first thought was that I wanted to buy something on the island. It turned out that nothing was for sale, but we soon arranged to take a cottage on a long-term lease. Nearly all the other tenants were people like us with young children, renting their cottages on an indefinite basis. (Our original friends had borrowed their holiday place from one of the permanent tenants.) We started spending every weekend and most holidays there. Our diaries came to be ruled by the tides. We arranged our lives around the availability of the causeway. When we arrived for the weekend, the children would jump out of the car and disappear. We would only see them again when a marauding posse of dirt-streaked youngsters appeared in search of food. Osea Island is in the middle of the “Blackwater River”. This is the next big inlet twenty miles north of the Thames estuary on the east coast of England. It is about ten miles long, running from the coast to the historic port town of Maldon at its neck, and on average two miles wide. In fact the Blackwater River is not a river at all, despite its name. Technically it is a “ria”, an expanse of water created by global sea levels rising and flooding a historic river valley. Some smaller rivers do empty into the Blackwater, but none of them bear that name. (To be honest, “rias” puzzle me. Won’t rising sea levels bring some extra sea into every river mouth? I once thought I had a good analysis of the difference between rias and rivers, but, when I explained it to my departmental colleague David Owens, he pointed out that my theory implied that there are no rivers.) When we first arrived on Osea Island, there were a few small boats about. It was a very communal set-up, and we were free to borrow each other’s vessels (subject only to the rule that if something broke you had to get it fixed, however ready to break it was). But soon enough we acquired a small fleet of our own. We started with a small inflatable “rubber duck” plus outboard, followed by a Topper dinghy for the children, then a couple of classic Lasers, two more Toppers, a rowing boat, and finally a Skipper like the one from Ireland for family outings. As with most rias, the Blackwater is rich with inlets off the main body of water. Many lead to villages or small towns. There are other islands, some inhabited, some not. We would often set off in motley flotillas, aiming to rendezvous at some agreed

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destination. Ice creams for the children and beers for the grown-ups. The children soon became confident sailors in their own right. The Blackwater has a lot of tide. The range is often over 5 metres. I became very interested in tidal rhythms. I was particularly struck by the way that the spring high tides at any given location always fall at about the same time of day. In Osea that was around 1430. This was something to be grateful for, because tides advance much more slowly around springs than neaps (maybe by 30 mins a day rather than 90 mins), and so our highs tended to stick around at midday and our lows around dawn and dusk. Since a lot of the estuary’s inlets turned into sandbanks at low tide, that suited us very well. (In Burnham Overy Staithe, a hundred miles north, where some friends have a place in Norfolk, it’s the other way around, with spring lows at midday—so they suffer with lows as the dominant daytime tide.) (If you’re wondering why spring highs are always at the same time at any given place, there’s an elegant explanation. Springs occur when the crest of the tidal wave pulled by the moon coincides with the crest of the sun’s wave. And the latter arrives as regularly as clockwork each day—as it happens, at 1430 at Osea. So spring highs there have to be around that time. As to the tides advancing more at springs than neaps, that’s simply due to the mathematical fact that the period of the resultant of two waves is less when they reinforce than when they counterbalance.) Sailors in the Blackwater need to watch out for the tide. At springs it can race at up to three knots. The children soon found out that “tide and wind in the same direction” was a danger sign. If you got downwind and downsteam of where you wanted to go, you could be in trouble. But we all learned fast from experience. We made mistakes, but dry land was never too far away, and there were normally plenty of friendly boats to hand. After we’d been on Osea for about 5 years, the owner sold the island and we all had to leave. It was a wrench, but a lot of the tenants bought houses on the Blackwater mainland instead. We ourselves, along with our boats, found a house in Bradwell Waterside, a hamlet near the mouth of the estuary on the south side. Twenty years later, it still suits us perfectly. Our fleet’s been augmented by a twenty-foot motor boat in the nearby marina, and the tubby old Skipper has been replaced by a Wayfarer. But we still have all our small dinghies and can launch them from the village slipway 100 yards away. I sail as much as ever. The children are now grown up, and only join me occasionally, but from April to October I go out pretty much every day. Sometimes it is just a short outing across to the north side of the estuary to explore the wetlands in Tollesbury Sound or West Mersey Quarters. But on other days, depending on the winds and tides, I will sail the ten miles up the estuary to Maldon and back, or go as far in the other direction to Brightlingsea and the mouth of the River Colne. Many of my friends, even those who are sailors themselves, ask me what I get out of it. I never know how to answer them. I’m reminded of William Paley, the great theological advocate of the argument from design, who said, about the not dissimilar pastime of fishing:

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I never yet met with a sportsman, who could tell me in what the sport consisted: who could resolve it into its principle, and state that principle. I have been a great follower of fishing myself, and in its cheerful solitude have passed some of the happiest hours of a sufficiently happy life; but, to this moment, I could never trace out the source of the pleasure which it afforded me (Natural Theology chapter 26).

That’s just how I feel about sailing. It’s a big part of my life. I’d be far poorer without it. Yet the pleasure is somehow ineffable. If someone asks me what’s so good about it, I don’t know what to say. It’s certainly not to do with the boats themselves. I have sailing friends for whom the actual sailing is little more than an excuse to work on their boats. They are far happier in the workshop than on the water, and even when they do go out often seem to be counting the minutes till they can get back to fixing the new faults that have been exposed. That’s not me at all. I want my boats to be seaworthy, of course, and in the interests of efficiency have learned how to fibreglass and rivet and so on. But I take no special pleasure in it. The sooner the faults are fixed, the sooner I can be back on the water. For other sailing friends, there’s no point in sailing if you aren’t racing. Again, that’s not what gets me going. I’ve done my share of racing, both in dinghies and in keelboats, and have liked it well enough. But somehow it is all too rushed, too urgent. I want my sailing to be restful, not exciting. In truth I am glad that I didn’t start my sailing with competitive racing, nor did my children. I’ve met quite a few people who associate sailing with memories of childhood stress and being forced to go out in miserable weather. Now they are grown up they’d sooner eat glass than sail for fun. It’s sad how their initial experience of sailing has soured them to its pleasures. And then there are those sailors who only want to be in big keelboats. They think of dinghies as something children learn to sail in, before they graduate to proper ocean-going vessels. In my view, they are missing out too. As I said at the beginning of this essay, bigger keelboats leave me feeling separated from the sea, rather than part of it. We’ve on occasion hired proper cruising yachts, once I was able to sail properly, for family holidays in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. They have been great times, and I can see the attraction of covering substantial amounts of ocean. But, even if we put to one side the discomforts of cramped quarters for days on end, the sailing itself has never really grabbed me. Perhaps the difference lies in the way big boats are more cumbrous and forgiving. By comparison, my dinghies are skittish, light, and all too easy to capsize. They demand complete attention. Sailing them might not be stressful, but it does require total absorption. You cannot turn your mind for a moment from balancing the gusts and keeping an even keel through the waves. Any slip and you’re likely to be upside-­ down in the water. But at the same time this focus unites you with the sea. When I’m out in my Wayfarer or Laser, the demands of sailing my boat bring with them an intense awareness of my environment. The race of the tide. The patch of seaweed in my path. A shift in the wind. The cormorant or grebe that dives as I approach. The occasional seal or dolphin whose curiosity I attract. My mind discards all extraneous

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thoughts and engages entirely with my immediate watery surroundings. I become part of an older world that existed before humans came to the Blackwater. And this, I think, might give us an answer to Paley’s question, if not for fishing, at least for my sailing. Paley himself, as you might expect, thought the pleasures of fishing were intimations of immortality, a sign that providence has created a natural world to console and delight us. I don’t embrace Paley’s metaphysics of divinity, but the underlying sentiment rings true to me. When I am sailing, I’m united with a natural environment that owes nothing to the advance of humanity. I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say that when I am on the water I transcend the chains of civilization and revert to a more noble state. But it does sometimes feel like that. David Papineau is Professor of Philosophy of Science at King’s College London and the City University of New York Graduate Center. [email protected]  

Chapter 9

Situation Awareness in Racing Sailors Robert J. Matthews

The history of working sail, from its beginning in the far distant past until its general demise in twentieth-century, is fundamentally the history of sail-driven speed: building competitively fast sailing vessels for specific purposes and then, when the need arose, wringing from these vessels every last bit of speed, often at the risk of both boat and crew. Naval warfare was from its very beginning a matter of attempting to bring overpowering destructive force to bear on an enemy, but this often required speed, speed to gain a tactical advantage or to close with an outmatched enemy who is doing everything possible to escape, or sometimes speed to escape certain defeat. Clipper ships (the word ‘clip’ meaning speed) were developed in the late eighteenth century to speed the delivery of goods, notably tea from China, but they quickly became used for other purposes that demanded exceptional speed, such as blockade running during wartime. The extremely over-canvassed ‘sandbagger’ sloops that plied the waters of New York harbor during the nineteenth century would meet much slower, deeper draft ocean-going fishing vessels off the mouth of New York harbor, load these vessels’ catches aboard, at the same time casting overboard their sandbag ballast, all the while being careful not to turtle the boat in the process, and then run full-speed to the Fulton Fish Market in lower Manhattan, where the first arrivals fetched the highest prices for their cargo. Sailboat racing emerged out of this obsession for speed, first in the form of wagering on competitions between working vessels, but eventually in the form of vessels designed, built, and crewed solely for racing. The allure of sailboat racing has much in common with all sports: it is competitive, and it is necessarily practiced at the very limits of human perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and physical abilities. But the fact that sailboat racing is practiced on sailboats, against other sailboats, adds greatly to the challenges, which gives sailboat racing its allure. There are all the challenges associated with designing, building, and equipping a R. J. Matthews (*) Philosophy, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. Casati (ed.), The Sailing Mind, Studies in Brain and Mind 19, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89639-3_9

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racing boat that is faster than one’s competitors, these three elements themselves invariably constrained by cost, safety considerations, and by agreed-upon rules of racing. And to this must be added what is arguably most unique from a sporting perspective, namely, that sailing competition takes place in a very challenging environment where wind and sea test both boat and competitors – the design, construction, equipping, and maintenance of the boat, and the perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and physical skills and limitations of the competitors. And if this were not enough, most sailboat racing is conducted on crewed boats, where in addition to all the other challenges, there is the complex challenge of assembling, and for skippers, leading a crew that must act in concert to move the boat across a designated race course faster than one’s competitors. In this essay I focus on a crucial cognitive component of sailboat racing that in human factors engineering has come to be called ‘situation awareness’. In the present context, situation awareness is an awareness of the opportunities afforded by the situation in which one finds oneself for actions that are likely to result either in gains over one’s competitors or to avoid or minimize threats to one’s race performance, sometimes even to the safety of both boat and crew. I discuss not only the perceptual/cognitive skills and capacities that underpin and make possible situation awareness, but also the role of training and experience in the acquisition of situation awareness. I draw most of my examples from small-boat, one-design around-the-­ buoys racing, both because that is the sort of racing with which I am most familiar, but also because it in this sort of racing in which most offshore ocean racers invariably first develop and hone their situation awareness skills. My discussion of situation awareness is from the perspective of the skipper, focusing on the opportunities and threats afforded to the racing boat as a whole, though clearly situation awareness is no less essential to crew members in the conduct of their specific jobs on the boat. I will not have much to say about non-racing sailing, though situation awareness is important there, too, especially as regards safety of boat and crew. I begin my discussion of situation awareness by explaining just how I understand this notion. From there I move on to the two cognitive aspects that I take to underpin situation awareness: (i) recognition of the possibilities for action afforded by a situation, and (ii) recognition of the attendant risks and rewards of these possible actions. My talk of the actions afforded by a situation is intended to harken back to the work of James J. Gibson (1966, 1977, 1986), who coined the term ‘affordance’, because, in my view, this is exactly the right way to conceive of situation awareness, viz., as an awareness of the action affordances of a situation. But in taking on Gibson’s notion of affordances, specifically, the perception of affordances, I am not endorsing Gibson’s (1986) ecological approach to perception. I especially want to remain neutral on the issue of whether, as Gibson claims, the perception of affordances is direct, viz., that requisite information for perception of affordances is fully present in the stimulus array, or whether, as Fodor and Pylyshyn (1981) claim, it is indirect. This issue is not relevant here, though I am inclined to believe that affordance perception is not direct in the manner Gibson claims, but includes what most philosophers and psychologists would consider cognitive elements. I should add that I do not presume here any particular way of drawing the distinction between perception and cognition, as this will not be pertinent to anything I have to say here.

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9.1  Situation Awareness Situation awareness can be defined simply as knowing what is going on around you, knowing well enough, that is, to be able to complete satisfactorily whatever task faces you. Situation awareness became a hot research topic in the 1980–90s when human factors engineering became focused on the problem faced by individuals operating, controlling, or directing complex dynamic systems in domains where failure to take into count multiple situational inputs, including previous operator actions, can lead to disastrous outcomes. Of particular interest has been such domains as commercial and military aircraft piloting, aircraft traffic control (ATC), military battlespace command and control, law enforcement, and the operation and control of large-scale manufacturing facilities, utilities and refineries, all domains of high-stress for operators, where operators are routinely required to make rapid, often split-second decisions, where failure to consider relevant situational factors can have disastrous consequences. The basic aim of such research has been to understand the determinants of, and obstacles to, operator situation awareness and then to propose general guidelines for both the design of the complex dynamic systems with which operators are interacting and the training of operators themselves so as to enhance requisite situation awareness. The classic example of situation awareness-driven equipment design is the instrumentation and layout of the modern commercial aircraft cockpit, along with the checklists and flight manuals that pilots carry and consult. The knobs, for example, on manual controls such as throttles, flaps, and landing gear are all of standardized, but different shapes, so pilots can know without looking down that they have gotten hold of the intended control. On the training side, besides the training and experience required for certification, there are the many hours in flight simulators for specific aircraft, where pilots can practice specific critical piloting skills. Focused as they typically are on the determinants of situation awareness, researchers disagree to a surprising extent on just how precisely to understand situation awareness,1 even on the seemingly crucial question as whether to count as constitutive of situation awareness the decisions or actions that flow from it.2 There is even less agreement as to whether situation awareness is primarily or exclusively perceptual, or whether it is also cognitive, a question the answer to which would seem important in deciding how to think about the determinants of situation awareness as well as how to design complex systems and train operators so as to enhance their situation awareness. For our purposes here, I shall take situation awareness to be primarily perceptual and not to include the decisions and actions that flow from 1  For an enumeration of the different definitions of situation awareness, see the unattributed online report of the Human Factors Group of the Royal Aeronautical Society at https://www.raes-hfg. com/crm/reports/sa-defns.pdf 2  Endsley (1995: 36) defines situation awareness as ‘the perception of the elements in the environment within a volume of time and space, the comprehension of their meaning and the projection of their status in the near future’, but she notes that the U.S. Air Force construes situation awareness as including the decisions and actions that flow immediately from it.

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it, regardless of how automatic or unconscious these may be. I shall take situation awareness to be the perception of the possible actions afforded by the situation an individual finds himself in, something that effectively closes the conceptual distance between perception and action, but without collapsing one into the other. As we will see, the actions that an individual perceives as afforded by a situation will depend both on the perceiver’s knowledge of the sorts of situations in which these affordances present themselves, the perceiver’s skills in exploiting these affordances, and any limitations that inhibit the perceiver’s performance of the particular actions afforded. Situation awareness in sailing demands keeping one’s head out of the boat, but that is not enough. Any normally sighted person who is looking can see the approach of a dark squall line, often when it is still several miles away, but it is another matter whether this person sees this squall line as requiring certain actions, perhaps certain immediate actions, e.g., shortening sail, or perhaps even going to bare poles. It takes knowing what one is seeing in order to appreciate the situation one faces, one that depends on the speed with which the squall line is approaching, the presence of dark fingers tumbling off its front, etc. Similarly, in around-the-buoys racing, one may see that the boat immediately ahead is rounding a leeward mark wide, but it is quite another matter to see this as affording an opportunity to achieve an inside overlap and gain a competitive advantage, because whether the wide rounding affords such an opportunity depends on the inherent maneuverability of both boats as well as on the sailing skills of the boats’ respective helmspersons and crews. Or to take yet a third example from offshore racing, a navigator may be aware from daily weather models of an approaching front, or perhaps a developing meander or eddy in the Gulf Stream, but to be truly aware of the possible actions afforded by the situation, this navigator must know a lot both about the sailing characteristics of their boat and the disposition of the fleet. Finally, situation awareness is not only visual, especially when it comes to boat performance, where the indicators are as much kinesthetic or auditory as they are visual. Sailors, for example, often speak of having ‘a feel for the boat’, and they mean this literally: to have a feel for a boat is to be able to sense kinesthetically whether the boat is being driven and trimmed in a way that maximizes VMG (velocity made good)3; and when it’s not, the perception typically presents itself as affording certain possibilities for spontaneous remedial action, such as bearing off slightly to gain speed and point, making small changes to sail trim, or redistributing crew weight: one simply senses the situation as affording, indeed demanding, some particular action. Sometimes the affordance perception is auditory, as for example while sleeping off watch one is jerked awake by the groan of the rigging and winches and realizes that the on-watch crew needs to reduce sail. The point of all these examples is that situation awareness is not simply looking and seeing (or attending and sensing), but it is also, crucially, a matter of recognizing what one is seeing 3  VMG is the actual speed towards some intended destination. Because sailboats are rarely able to sail directly towards their intended destination, a boat’s VMG is only rarely identical to its speed along its heading.

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(sensing). Of course, there are also times when the boat simply isn’t moving, it feels sluggish, it isn’t pointing well, it labors through the tacks, and yet one can’t figure out why or what to do. The actions one takes in these situations are nothing like the ones that flow spontaneously and unreflectively from affordance perception: here one invariably falls back on conscious analytic deliberation about the possible cause of the problem, such deliberation only occasionally it seems, leading to action that resolves the problem. Situation awareness presents itself phenomenologically to its possessors not as a passive, disinterested awareness of the situation in which these individuals find themselves, that is, as an awareness with no attached action potential, but as the perception of certain possible actions that the situation affords, specifically possible actions that promise to advance the perceiver’s goals (e.g., ‘The boat ahead is rounding wide; I can squeeze in there and gain an inside overlap’; ‘there’s a big puff coming down the left side of the course; I can tack, get into it, and “make trees” on boats on the right side’). To think of situation awareness as an awareness of the possible goal-advancing actions afforded by a situation is, I think, exactly the right way to think of it. For thinking of situation awareness in these terms captures three important features: (i) it is primarily perceptual in nature; (ii) it tightly couples perception to action, though without collapsing the one into the other, by taking the perception to be a perception of the possible actions afforded by the situation; and (iii) it identifies the relevant possible actions as likely or promising to advance the goals of the perceiver. This construal effectively treats situation awareness as the exercise of a perceiver’s capacity, however developed or undeveloped it may be, for what James Gibson called ‘affordance perception’, where the affordances of a situation are the goal-advancing possible actions afforded by the situation.4 That situation awareness is such an exercise of affordance perception entails, we will see, that (iv) situation awareness is perceiver-relative, not simply to the perceiver’s goals, but also his or her perceptual, emotional, cognitive, and physical abilities and limitations; moreover, (v) situation awareness is something that can be developed through training and experience.

9.2  Recognition of Affordances for Action In the late 1990s, we were racing in the J/24 Midwinters Championships in Biscayne Bay, Miami. My tactician was Eric Leitner, a terrific small-boat sailor who had been slated to represent the U.S. in 470s at the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics, until 4  Donald Norman (1988) first emphasized in a way that Gibson had not that affordances are affordances for possible actions, using ‘affordances’ in the context of human-machine interaction to refer to just those possible actions that are readily perceivable in a situation by an actor, effectively linking perception and action in precisely the way that I am suggesting perception and action are linked in situation awareness. Michaels (2003) identifies affordances with possible actions. For a general discussion of the ontology of affordances, see Vetter (2020).

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the U.S. boycotted the games in protest of Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. About half-way up the first leg of an early afternoon race, we were sailing up the middle of the course on port tack in a strengthening sea-breeze, when the usually taciturn Eric turned to me and said firmly, ‘we’ve got to get to the left side of the course immediately; there’s a big left shift off the tip of Key Biscayne’. We tacked and sailed almost to the port lay line, where we tacked back onto port and reached into the windward mark well ahead of the fleet. I was of course happy with the leg, but I was astounded by Eric’s call: the tip of key Biscayne was some 3 miles off when we tacked off to the left, and when I had looked to where Eric was seeing the shift, I had seen only the collection of wooden shacks built on stilts on the sand shelf south of the tip called ‘Stiltsville’ by locals. As the regatta wore on, I came to realize that Eric had vision for wind shifts that I simply didn’t have: it was as if the shifts on the course, indeed shifts far upwind of the course, announced themselves to him on a big flashing billboard floating above the shift. I couldn’t help but wonder just how the entire course on which we were racing appeared visually to Eric. Maybe he saw shifts in somewhat the way better baseball batters claim to see pitched balls, as unusually big (Witt & Proffitt, 2005). Maybe the telltale signs on the water looked to him bolder and better delineated; maybe the changed sailing angle of boats already in the shift look more dramatic. However the course appeared to Eric, I also wondered how he came to have such vision. Over the years, I have come to realize that Eric’s visual skills are fairly widespread among top racing sailors: many have what I have come to think of as ‘affordance perception’, by which I mean that when racing they spontaneously and without reflection perceive possibilities for action afforded by the situation they find themselves in, actions that are likely to result in gains over their competitors, or at least to avoid or minimize losses. In describing such perception as ‘affordance perception’, I want to call attention to what I take to be a very salient feature of these sailors’ perception of the situation in which they find themselves, one that Gibson’s ecological theory of perception emphasized, namely, that these sailors’ perception of the situation is not some value-neutral registration of the possible actions afforded by the situation, but is an inherently value-rich registration: it is not only a perception of what the situation affords to the sailor by way of possible actions, but it is also a perception that captures the beneficial/injurious aspects of what the situation affords for that sailor. Affordance perception, then, is not simply action-oriented in that it is perception of the possible actions afforded by the situation, but it is also a perception of possible actions that are positively valenced relative to the goals and needs of the perceiver, whether it be an action that promises to secure a material advantage of some sort (say an advantage over a competitor) or an action that promises to avoid calamity or danger. Numerous experimental studies have shown that the affordances of a situation are relativized in yet another way, in particular, to the perceiver’s ability to perform the actions afforded. Thus whether a subject perceives a particular set of stairs as climb-able, a particular chair to be sit-on-able, a particular aperture, say a doorway, to be pass-through-able, depends, as the experimenters put it, on subject’s ‘body-­ scale’, which is indirectly a measure of the ease or difficulty that the subject would

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have performing the actions in question – thus, e.g., a short person will not perceive as (easily) climb-able the set of stairs that a tall person will.5 As suggestive as these body-scale affordance studies are, establishing as they do that affordances are perceiver-relative, body-scale affordances are generally static, not at all characteristic of the affordances that racing sailors perceive on the race course, which are often very transient, quickly appearing and just as quickly disappearing. Somewhat more relevant are studies of affordances such as for the catch-­ ability of tossed balls, where subjects are asked to judge visually whether they could catch tennis balls thrown in their vicinity (Oudejans et al., 1996). Their judgments turned out to accurately predict their actual catching skills. Such studies do not come close to modeling dynamic activities such as baseball hitting and fielding, where the affordances for players are constantly changing as they run to get under and catch a fly ball or to move bat and body so as to hit a pitched ball, but they do establish a sort of perceiver-relativity different from body-scale, namely a relativity to the perceiver’s perceptual and motor skills and abilities.6 The general point is that anything that affects a subject’s abilities to perform the action, including not just skills, but physical disabilities7 or even lack of confidence, can affect a subject’s affordance perception. Moreover, and importantly, it turns out that subjects can perceive the affordances of a situation not only for themselves, but also for others, as is evidenced of course by everyday unsolicited helping behavior, though not surprisingly, subjects’ perception of affordances for others is less precise than for themselves (Stoffregen et al., 1999). The takeaway from these studies for situation awareness in sailing, one that is abundantly confirmed by observation, is that the affordances of a situation, as perceived by a skipper/helmsperson, are specific to boat and crew. What is an affordance for one boat and crew may not be for another, if the latter lacks the maneuverability or skills to execute the afforded action. A skilled sailor may perceive the gap left between a leeward mark and the boat ahead as affording the opportunity to gain an inside overlap, where a less skilled sailor would perceive no such affordance, inasmuch as the required boat-handling is beyond the abilities of a less skilled sailor. I recall just such a situation in a local J/24 race. Approaching a leeward mark I was forced by heavy traffic very close to the front side of the mark, causing me unavoidably to leave a wide gap on the backside. The boat immediately behind was helmed by a relatively inexperienced skipper who had onboard two paid, professional crew. Seeing the backside gap that I was going to leave, a gap through which these two professionals could themselves have comfortably sailed in the prevailing fresh breeze, they directed this skipper to shoot the gap, which he did, … but poorly. Failing to release the mainsheet and call for easing the jib, he was 5  See, e.g., Warren, 1984, on climb-ability; Mark, 1987, on sit-on-ability; Warren & Whang, 1987 on pass-through-ability; Ishak et al., 2008. on for whether a subject’s hand can pass through an aperture. 6  See, e.g., Cesari et al., 2003, for the dependence of stair climb-ability not simply on body-scale but also on limb strength and flexibility. 7  See Randerath & Frey, 2016, for discussion of affordance perception in stroke victims.

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unable to turn the boat sufficiently and struck me hard on the port quarter. The force of the collision bounced him back a good boat length or so, and at the same time spun my bow to port, closing the backside gap. The wind quickly refilled his sails, driving him forward into the now closed gap, causing him to hit me hard yet a second time, this time just ahead of the port chainplates. I came out of the rounding holed both fore and aft, and he disqualified from the race. One of the two professionals on the boat, a friend, apologized, saying, ‘I should have realized that what I saw as doable was not doable for my skipper’. An obvious corollary to the conclusion that better sailors perceive affordances that less skilled sailors do not is that the more skilled the crew, the more affordances of a given situation, and also the more opportunities to make gains or avoid loses. Thinking about cases where what is an affordance for one sailor is not for another raises an interesting question, namely, whether there might be something akin to affordance mis perception, where what appears to a particular individual to be an affordance does not in fact exist, at least not for that individual. Certainly there are racing sailors, typically in the bottom of the fleet, that are forever getting themselves into situations, most often at starts, mark roundings, or crowded finishes, from which they cannot extricate themselves without fouling, sometimes damaging, other boats. These skippers, in my experience, are not unusually aggressive; rather they appear to see affordances where there are none, at least none for someone with their skills. Thus, along the lines of the previous example, they may see as an opportunity to gain an inside overlap at a leeward mark rounding a situation that is such only for a more skilled sailor. Maybe they lack a clear understanding of their limited sailing skills, thinking that they are better than they are. Or maybe they don’t recognize the perceiver-relativity of affordances, much like the rotund man in a Hollywood slapstick comedy, maybe a Laurel & Hardy skit, who sees the skinny man he is chasing run through a very narrow doorway and tries to follow, only to become stuck in the doorway, arms and legs flailing. More interesting, though, are cases where there is a gap sufficiently wide to fit in on the front side of a leeward mark, but where a more experienced racing sailor would see what the less experienced sailor might not, namely, that the boat ahead will be able to close this gap on the backside of the mark, forcing a boat that attempts to shoot the gap to foul either the mark or the boat ahead. In effect, the less experienced sailor fails to grasp the presented situation in its entirety, focusing exclusively on the clearly visible gap on the front side of the mark but neglecting likely developments on the backside of the mark, developments to which the more experienced sailor will be sensitive, inasmuch as the presented situation affords an opportunity to gain an advantage over the boat ahead only if the contemplated action will carry one safely past the mark without fouling mark or boat ahead. I am not sure how common affordance perception is in human perception. Gibson thought that it was predominant, maybe exhaustively so, but that seems dubious. Perhaps it is predominant with respect to the perception of basic human needs,

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perhaps innately so.8 It is clearly common in those domains where by long experience or by training, individuals come to respond spontaneously in specific ways to the circumstances of the situation they find themselves in. The typical sort of case are emergency situations for which someone is trained, e.g., in law enforcement, where police officers are taught to respond immediately in specific ways to someone pointing a gun at them. Affordance perception is considerably more common, maybe even dominant, in other species, where their perceptual world seems to be almost exclusively a world of affordances for specific actions. Virtually all nonhuman animals spend some amount of time exploring their environment, especially when they are first thrown into it, and arguably the perception associated with such exploratory behavior cannot easily be subsumed under affordance perception. But such exploratory behavior aside, much of these animals’ perception fits comfortably under affordance perception: their perception seems exquisitely tuned to environmental affordances that address their basic needs, and the causal link between perception and action is immediate. Of course, a situation may sometimes afford incompatible possible actions, forcing the animal to pursue one action at the expense of another (e.g., when the presence of a predator at a waterhole forces a potential prey to choose between water and safety), sometimes only after some hesitation, at other times with no delay whatsoever. The same is true with affordance perception in sailing, where incompatible affordances of a situation are generally resolved spontaneously, at least by experienced racing sailors, in favor of the higher valued option given the competitive goal of sailboat racing. The fact that the possible actions afforded by a situation can be incompatible, such that acting on one precludes acting on another, with perceivers choosing the higher-valued option calls attention to an important feature of perceived affordances: they come to an individual, a sailor in our case, with an attached positive valence for action, even in situations fraught with danger. That is to say, the actions delivered by affordance perception are ones that offer, or promise to offer, some material advantage or good to the perceiver. Actions that don’t, like ramming a nearby competitor, are simple non-starters. This, of course, is compatible with a situation affording incompatible possible actions, these actions usually differing in their attendant risks and rewards, a matter to which I now turn.

9.3  Recognition of Attendant Risks and Rewards Read or hear any first-hand accounts of sailboat races, whether grand round-the-­ world ocean races like the Vendée Globe or Volvo Ocean Race, or local around-the-­ buoys races, and you can’t help but be struck by the significant risks and rewards invariably attendant to decisions about possible courses of action. In a recent digital

8  Anderson et al. (2002) found that merely looking at an object primes the human brain to perform the action the object affords.

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interview for the Storm Trysail Club, fellow member and famed navigator Stan Honey described a call he made in the 2005–2006 Volvo Ocean Race aboard ABN AMRO I, a call that secured their overall victory. The call involved splitting from the entire fleet and giving up considerable ground, all in order to catch a distant, strong cold front that might, and in fact did, allow the boat to ride out well ahead of the fleet. Asked in Q & A, how did you make the decision, Honey said, ‘I looked at the weather models and calculated that the rewards of catching the front well before our competitors outweighed the risk of sailing off to catch the front, missing it, and falling behind the entire fleet. My only concern was preparing the crew for the fact we’d lose ground to the fleet as we reached away towards the front; I didn’t want them to become despondent over what might seem like a flier’. Honey had the time to deliberate consciously about the risks and rewards of splitting with the fleet to catch the front before making his decision. But in many situations that face racing sailors, there isn’t time to deliberate: the window for taking an afforded action is so fleeting, one simply acts or doesn’t. But even when not consciously attended to, attendant risks and rewards nevertheless always shape the better sailor’s response to perceived affordances. They don’t take high risk/low reward actions, and they take low risk/ high reward actions without hesitation. They have learned through experience, often painful experience, the risks and rewards attendant to specific sorts of actions, maybe specific to this boat and crew (e.g., that a gybe-set spinnaker hoist at a windward mark is high risk for this particular boat and crew), and this acquired knowledge of attendant risks and rewards shapes their behavior, regardless of whether consciously or not. The risks and rewards attendant to certain actions can also be taught, at least sailors can be taught the risks and rewards that generally attend certain actions (e.g., that coming into a windward mark on port, right at the mark, in a big fleet, is a very risky proposition, unless you are in the very top of the fleet). Of course, there are cases where a situation affords a number of possible actions, where anticipated risks and rewards don’t dictate the action. In these cases, you choose one of the afforded actions, feel good if the chosen action pays off, feel bad if it doesn’t, and try not to take much credit or blame for the outcome. But the important point that I would like to emphasize here is that in many situations the attendant risks and rewards are so obvious that low risk/high reward affordances are taken without a second thought, while high risk/low reward affordances never present themselves as live possibilities.

9.4  Learning Through Doing Situation awareness, including a recognition of both the possible actions afforded by a situation and the risks and rewards attendant to each of these possible actions, can be acquired through experience, through the repeated experience of finding oneself in a given situation, performing one or another specific action afforded by that situation, and observing the consequences, good or bad. But it’s not just a matter of doing a lot of racing, because the stress and tensions attendant to racing are not

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conducive to unsupervised learning, unless the consequences of an action are especially dramatic, like costing you the race. Rather situation awareness, as well as the proper execution of the afforded actions, is something that is learned mostly through instruction. By instruction here I include both formal instruction, where sailors are taught by coaches, first in a classroom setting and then on the water, what to look for in certain situations and how to react to what they see, but also informal instruction where sailors learn from other sailors what to watch for and how to react. Most amateur racing sailors do not receive any formal instruction or coaching beyond a junior sailing program or college sailing, but there is a surprising level of informal instruction conducted on the boat during racing or practice sessions, in after-racing debriefs, or over drinks at the bar. On-the-boat instruction is by far the most prevalent informal instruction, ranging from quite explicit instruction from the more experienced sailors on the boat as to what to look for and how to respond (e.g., ‘if you see the luff of the spinnaker breaking first high, lower the pole until the luff breaks uniformly from top to bottom’) to general discussion about proper sail trim and helming technique, these discussions invariably focused on what to look for and how to react. In after-sailing debriefs and over drinks at the bar, sailors invariably discuss either what they saw going on across the course and how they reacted to what they saw, or what they did at critical junctures in the race, why they did it, and whether it worked. Frankie Egan, my spouse and long-time sailing companion, has a charming photo of a bunch of Viper 640 sportboat sailors from our yacht club standing around in a circle after a day’s racing talking about what had worked and hadn’t worked; one of the Viper sailors is down on hands and knees moving borrowed sailing shoes and flip-flops around to show the tactics he had employed to gain an advantage at a mark. These after-racing debriefs often take the form of an explicit discussion of three important elements of situation awareness: what was the situation, what actions did it afford, and what were the risks and rewards attendant to each action.

9.5  Memory for Situations and Afforded Actions Besides their capacities for affordance perception and recognition of attendant risks/ rewards, good racing sailors invariably have a detailed memory of races they have just sailed (where on the starting line they and their principle competitors started, what were the prevailing conditions across the course, what side of the course paid on different legs and why, what they and their nearby competitors did at crucial points in the race, etc.), something I have noticed less skilled sailors generally don’t have. It’s hardly surprising that at after-racing debriefs, sailors want to hear from the day’s winners, not simply because they were the winners, but because they invariably have the clearest understanding of what happened on the course. Differences in the memories are also very evident in protest hearings, where less skilled sailors very often have only the fuzziest memory of the situation that led to the protest, even

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to the extent of not having a clear idea of the disposition and movement of the boats involved, including their own. Better sailors, by contrast, also have a surprisingly detailed memory of many of their past races, particularly of crucial situations they found themselves in, the actions they took, and whether those actions paid. It may be an open question what role if any memory plays in affordance perception acquisition, but at very least these better sailors’ memories do suggest that they pay selective attention to those elements of situations that are relevant to the perception of the actions afforded by a situation and the risk and rewards attendant to these actions. At very least these sailors’ selective memory for relevant elements of the situations in which they have found themselves tells us something about what elements they have learned to attend to, which tells us something about the end point of acquisition, if not the acquisition process itself. And if, as Eleanor Gibson (1969) argues, much of our ability to react spontaneously to perceived affordances is the result of experience and training that has taught us how to react in response to such affordances, then the experiences to which these memories testify, if not the memories themselves, provide a storehouse of data for learning, both about strategies and tactics that work and don’t work in particular conditions, and about the particular conditions that are characteristic of different racing venues. Most sailors who have raced on the Foxtrot Course of Kingston, Ontario’s Portsmouth Olympic venue know, for example, that the left side of that course is favored in a building sea-breeze, as the building southerly sweeps around the southwestern tip of Simcoe Island before eventually settling in the southwest. It is instructive to read the many books on sailboat racing and racing venues by well-known sailors/writers such as Stuart Walker or Paul Elvstrom: they invariably illustrate the conclusions that they wish to draw using specific examples from their own long racing experience. Some like Walker tend to focus on the mistakes they made, so much so in Walker’s case that a sailing wag summarized the recurring theme in all Walker’s books as ‘how I managed to lose that race’, a focus that calls attention to the importance of learning from mistakes.

9.6  Acquiring the Relevant Perceptual and Cognitive Skills Most good racing sailors begin sailing at a very early age, and they invariably come out of sailing programs at their local yacht or sailing clubs where they received formal classroom instruction and extensive on-the-water coaching. In this respect sailboat racing is no different from ski racing, golf, or tennis, indeed no different from any sports that are practiced at a very high level. The crucial aspect of these sailing programs is not the classroom instruction, which serves primarily to acquaint the learner with the racing skills that the on-the-water sessions aim to develop, but the on-the-water sessions, where racing skills are practiced ad nauseam under the eye of a coach until such point as the learner knows how and when to deploy these skills. The on-the-water training sessions largely implement the Navy adage ‘Fight the ship the way you train, and train the ship the way you fight’, which in the present

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context means race using the particular skills you have learned in training, and focus in training on the critical skills you need in racing. In around-the-buoys small-boat racing, this means practicing such things as helming, sail trim, roll-tacks, roll-gybes, starts, mark-roundings, boat-on-boat tactics, and recognizing shifts and puffs, while for offshore racing this means practicing some of these same small-boat skills, but also such big-boat skills as safety procedures, navigation, weather prediction and analysis, sail changes and reefing, and emergency boat repair, with the important difference that not everyone on a big-boat crew will be practicing each of these skills, inasmuch as there is a significant division of labor and hence of requisite skills, with the consequence that crew members generally practice only those skills that they will exercise while racing, unless for safety, as in offshore racing, one wants to build in redundancy. The question in this section is whether the training described above, viz., classroom instruction followed by coached on-the-water practice, does in fact develop situation awareness, specifically, does it develop affordance perception along with a grasp of the risks/rewards generally associated with particular actions? I address this question in the context of a necessarily brief discussion of experimental studies of affordance perceptual learning and the role that practice and experience has been shown to play in such learning. There is, of course, a significant gulf between these experimental studies and real-world coached sailboat racing instruction, but these studies can nonetheless lend credence to the presumption within sailing that coached sailing instruction facilitates the affordance perception learning that situation awareness requires (though, of course, few sailors, if any, would put the presumption in these terms). For present purposes, following Eleanor Gibson’s (1963: 29) general definition of perception learning, I shall understand affordance perception learning as any relevantly permanent and consistent change in the perception of affordances brought about by perceptual exposure to the affordances in question, the change in question improving the learner’s response to those affordances.9 I shall presume here without further argument that there are affordances (for possible actions), some of which can be readily perceived, and focus then on affordance perception learning. Affordance perception learning does not necessarily give you the skills necessary to take advantage of what is afforded by one’s environment. One has to learn the skills, and this is typically done in sports through coaching. But it is equally true that the point of most coaching in sports is to develop as a package both the perceptual ability to recognize the relevant affordances and the skills needed to take advantage of them. And there is, as we have noted, reason to think that in the normal case affordance perception and action are so closely intertwined, one perceives only those affordances for which one has the requisite skills or abilities to execute. There are, of course, examples of unsupervised affordance perception learning (in the learning-theoretic sense of ‘unsupervised’) without attendant skill learning, e.g., learning that hot stoves afford pain, but maybe these are all cases where the response 9  I have added to Gibson’s definition Goldstone’s (1998: 587) insistence both that the changes in perception have to be caused by the environment and that these changes improve the learner’s response to that affordance.

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does not involve a learned skill or the learned skill is pre-existing. But the cases of interest here are invariably cases of supervised learning, where learners are taught (in sailing, through on-the-water coaching) a single perception-action routine that incorporates both the affordance perception and the afforded action (‘Jones, the boat ahead has left you more than enough room to gain an inside overlap; take it’; ‘Jones, here comes a left shift, sail well into it, then tack’). A number of experimental studies have looked at the role of practice and experience in affordance perception learning. Franchak et al. (2010: 2758) investigated the effect of permitting subjects to pass through doorways of various widths before asking them to judge perceptually whether for a particular doorway they could pass through that doorway. They found that subjects who had been permitted to practice passing through doorways of different widths were more accurate in their judgments than those who were not. Fanchak et al. attribute this to action feedback that facilitated scaling of doorway widths to their bodies, finding that judgments in this ‘action-first group’ were strongly related to height, weight, and torso-size, whereas judgments in the other group were not. A number of other studies have looked at subjects’ ability to determine visually whether an object they were carrying would fit through a doorway. Again, practice carrying large objects of different dimensions through doorways of various widths improved the accuracy of subjects’ judgments. There is, of course, nothing surprising in all this: experienced movers are very good at recognizing visually whether the furniture they are carrying has to be maneuvered to fit through a doorway. And more pertinent to our interests here, truck drivers, as those of us who live in crowded cities can attest, are quite skilled at being able to judge visually, and without slowing significantly, whether they can squeeze by a double-parked car on a narrow city street, a skill that experienced racing sailors sailing a familiar boat exhibit at starts and roundings, where the distance between boats is often quite minimal, yet typically without contact.10 The foregoing studies establish both that subjects can perceive affordances (for themselves and others) and that these affordances are relative to the perceiver’s ability to execute the actions afforded. These studies, specifically Franchak et al. (2010), also establish the crucial point here, namely, that through experience and practice subjects become more adept at recognizing affordances.11 Sailing coaches might be forgiven for thinking that there is little in these studies of perceptual learning that they don’t already know. This is clearly right, but that in itself provides some reason for thinking that theories of perceptual learning are onto something. But more

 Perceptual learning is not only visual: numerous tactile acuity studies show that the just noticeable distance (JND) at which subjects can discriminate being touched by two pointed objects (say, on their backs) decreases dramatically with practice, up to a neurologically imposed limit (Wong et al., 2013). 11  Perceptual learning theories distinguish two sorts of effects from experience and practice: discovery effects, which are enhancements to perceivers’ ability to discriminate relevant from irrelevant perceptual information, and fluency effects, which are enhancements to the ease with which perceivers can extract relevant information, sometimes to the point of automaticity. For a review of relevant findings, see Kellman & Garrigan, 2009. 10

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importantly in the present context, these studies provide some experimental support for conceptualizing situation awareness in terms of affordances. They also provide something of a rationale and explanation for why sailboat racing instruction and coaching has evolved in the way that it has. If we ask what gets learned in affordance perception learning, we can begin by looking at perception learning more generally, where theorists generally distinguish four varieties of such learning: differentiation, unitization, attention weighting, and stimulus imprinting (see Goldstone, 1998), all of which would seem to be instanced in affordance perception learning. Differentiation, where a learner learns to distinguish two properties, or two environmental states. Differentiation is especially salient in racing instruction, as coaches are forever trying to teach their charges to distinguish true affordances for actions that will provide an advantage over competition, from perceptually similar stimuli that won’t, e.g., a puff that brings a left shift rather than one that brings a right shift, both of which are visible on the water as an area of darker, ruffled water, but subtlety different both in the shape of the puff and in the way that they move across the water. Unitization, the converse of differentiation, where one learns that what appears to be two different properties or environmental states are in fact one. In the simplest case, one learns that what are first perceived to be instances of different kinds are in fact instances of a single kind. In other cases, one learns that what one took to be separate things are in fact parts of a single thing. Both sorts of unitization have an important role in racing sail training. The first is obvious; it is perceptual generalization over instances. The second is less obvious, but something that sailing coaches emphasize, namely, that what is afforded by a situation is generally not a simple action, but a complex action, and they teach sailors to recognize and exploit the complex action by having them practice first the skills required to execute the component actions and once the components are mastered, coaches have them execute the entire complex action. In their training coaches emphasize the entire complex action, so that the learners come to see the affordance, if in fact there is one, as an affordance for the complex act, thereby preventing sailor from seeing a hole, sailing into it, and then finding that there is no escape. Thus, for example, once sailors have mastered the component skills of both making a tight rounding close to the mark and coming out of the rounding at the proper angle to the wind so as not to stall, they then practice the entire complex action of establishing the overlap, making the rounding, and coming out with speed on the backside, all in the presence of competing boats. Attentional weighting, where one learns to direct one’s perceptual attention to certain things in one’s environment and to neglect others. Racing sailors are forever being told to ‘keep their head out of the boat’, to focus on what is going on around them and not be distracted by what is going on in the boat. Learning to direct one’s attention outward towards the relevant features of one’s situation is essential to perceiving the affordances that enable gains over one’s competition, but it is a difficult attentional skill to acquire, and especially difficult to deploy if something is going wrong in the boat. And even when a sailor keeps his head out of the boat, it is doubly hard not to be preoccupied with one’s immediate environment, neglecting to take into account often obvious changes taking place further up the course.  Stimulus imprinting,  where through repeated exposure the

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learner builds specialized detectors for the stimulus in question, allowing the leaner to quickly recognize its presence in a scene.12 A basic feature of all four varieties of perceptual learning is that they are acquired through learning, through exposure to the right sort of stimuli, often supervised exposure, and a fundamental effect of such learning is the automaticity of perceptual response – with training and practice one sees what the situation affords immediately and without deliberation. As useful as it may be to think of affordance perception learning in terms of these four varieties of perceptual learning, it is perhaps more illuminating to think of affordance perception learning as consisting of two analytically distinct components,  perception tuning  and action linking,  i.e., tuning the learner’s perceptual apparatus to the environmental stimuli that signal the affordance, and linking these stimuli to the appropriate motor action. These analytically distinct components are in fact inseparable, both in the learning process and in the acquired capacity for affordance perception. In talking of ‘perception tuning’ I don’t mean to imply that there is a single perceptual stimulus, even a narrow set of such stimuli, that triggers the affordance perception; rather the point is to emphasize that in the course of affordance perception learning learners get progressively better at discriminating the affordance from its embedding environment. In his discussion of what I am calling perception tuning, Fajen et al. (2009: 85) put the point this way: Differences between experts and novices reflect, in part, differences in the informational variables upon which experts and novices rely. Indeed, recent evidence from a range of perceptual … and perceptual-motor … tasks suggests that novices rely on variables that do not specify the relevant properties but with practice converge toward specifying variables.

Assuming that the relevant information is present in the stimulus array, and reporting studies by Smith et al. (2001) on hitting pitched balls and Jacobs and Michaels (2006) on catching, Fajen et al. take the progress from novice to expert to be a matter of fixing on the variables that are invariant across different presentations of the stimuli that present the affordance. Regardless of the plausibility of this Gibsonian assumption, the basic point seems right: with training and expertise, learners become much better at discriminating the affordance in question under different performance conditions. The second analytical component of affordance perception learning, what I am calling ‘action linking’, is crucial to achieving the fundamental goal of affordance perception, namely, perceptual control of action: perception must be tied to action, not in the sense that the relevant perceptual stimuli gives rise to the action, but in the sense that what is perceived is the possibility of action. Nevertheless, action linking is achieved by practice where perception is followed by the afforded action, thereby

 There is neurophysiological evidence that such imprinting involves rewiring of visual cortices. In particular, studies found that learning-induced plasticity occurs in the adult primary sensory cortices much more than researchers had previously thought (Fahle, 2002: xii). Neurological evidence of such plasticity provides some evidence that changes in perceptual discrimination can be due to perceptual learning.

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setting up the required perception-action link that leads the learner to view specific perceived situations as affording the action(s) linked to those situations. Construing affordance perception learning as a process of perception tuning and action linking captures a crucial goal of coached instruction, namely, training the learner’s perceptual apparatus to detect the distinctive features that signal the presence of the affordance and then, having detected the affordance, to act appropriately in response to that affordance. While some individuals can no doubt acquire through unsupervised learning the ability to perceive the relevant affordances and then act appropriately in response, supervised learning is generally more efficacious, as evidenced by the fact both that young sailors (actually, their parents) are willing to pay for coaching and that good coaching demonstrably improves racing abilities. Proper training welds affordance perception and motor action into a single perceptual/ motor skill, where perception of the affordance eventuates in the very action that the affordance is an affordance of. This way of conceptualizing affordance perception learning addresses an obvious problem with any attempt to construe affordance perception learning in terms of just the four varieties of perceptual learning set out above: they don’t link perception to action except in an accidental way. Construing affordance perception learning in terms of perception tuning and action linking also predicts the perceiver-relativity of affordances, specifically in the case of sailing the dependence of affordances on the perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and physical capabilities and limitations of both boat and crew. It predicts that changes in boat and/or crew may require both perception re-tuning and action re-linking, because what the environment affords a changed boat and/or crew may be quite different, entailing a relearning of the possible actions afforded by the environment.

9.7  Some Concluding Remarks Sailboat racing, I have argued, shares with other domains that demand situation awareness the distinctive feature of presenting racing sailors, indeed all sailors, with the challenging task of operating and controlling a dynamic system, in this case a sailboat, in an environment where there are multiple inputs that need to be factored into any decision. It is this challenge that gives sailboat racing its cognitive allure. Crucial to situation awareness, I have argued, is a developed capacity for affordance perception, which links perception to possible action in a way that enables immediate action in response to perceived situation variables. The crucial role of situation awareness in racing sailors, an awareness made possible by a developed capacity for affordance perception, also explains the observed importance of training and experience.

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References Anderson, S. J., Yamagishi, N., & Karavia, V. (2002). Attentional processes link perception and action. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 269(1497), 1225–1223. Cesari, P., Formenti, F., & Olivato, P. (2003). A common perceptual parameter for stair climbing for children, young and old adults. Human Movement Science, 22(1), 111–124. Endsley, M.  R. (1995). Toward a theory of situation awareness in dynamic systems. Human Factors Journal, 37(1), 32–64. Fahle, M. (2002). Perceptual learning: Gain without pain? News and views. Nature Neuroscience, 5(10), 923–924. Fajen, B. R., Riley, M. A., & Turvey, M. T. (2009). Information, affordances, and the control of action in sport. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 40, 79–107. Fodor, J.  A., & Pylyshyn, Z.  W. (1981). How direct is visual perception? Some reflections on Gibson’s ‘ecological approach’. Cognition, 9(2), 138–196. Franchak, J. M., van der Zalm, D. J., & Adolph, K. E. (2010). Learning by doing: Action performance facilitates affordance perception. Vision Research, 50, 2758–2765. Gibson, E. J. (1963). Perceptual learning. Annual Review of Psychology, 14, 29–56. Gibson, E. J. (1969). Principles of perceptual learning and development. Appleton- Century-Crofts. Gibson, J. J. (1966). The senses considered as perceptual systems. Houghton-Mifflin. Gibson, J. J. (1977). The theory of affordances. In R. E. Shaw & J. Bransford (Eds.), Percepting, acting, and knowing: Toward an ecological psychology (pp. 67–82). Erlbaum. Gibson, J. J. (1986). An ecological approach to visual perception. Erlbaum. Goldstone, R. L. (1998). Perceptual learning. Annual Review of Psychology, 49, 585–612. Ishak, S., Adolph, K., & Lin, G. C. (2008). Perceiving affordances for fitting through apertures. Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception & Performance, 34(6), 1501–1514. Jacobs, D.  M., & Michael, C.  E. (2006). Lateral interception I: Operative optical variables, attunement, and calibration. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 32, 443–458. Kellman, P. J., & Garrigan, P. (2009). Perceptual learning and human expertise. Physics of Life Review, 6(2), 53–84. Mark, L. S. (1987). Eye-height scaled information about affordances: A study of sitting and stair climbing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 13, 360–370. Michaels, C. F. (2003). Affordances: Four points of debate. Ecological Psychology, 18, 1–38. Norman, D. A. (1988). The psychology of everyday things. Basic Books. Oudejans, R. R., Michaels, C. F., Bakker, F. C., & Dolne, M. A. (1996). The relevance of action in perceiving affordances: Perception of catchableness of fly balls. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 20, 115–140. Randerath, J., & Frey, J.  H. (2016). Diagnostics and Training of Affordance Perception in healthy young adults: Implications for post-stroke neurorehabilitation. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 9, 674. eISSN 1662-5161. Smith, M. R., Flach, J. M., Dittman, S. M., & Stanard, T. (2001). Monocular optical constraints on collision control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 14, 395–410. Stoffregen, T.  A., Gorday, K.  M., Sheng, Y.-Y., & Flynn, S.  B. (1999). Perceiving affordances for another person’s actions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 25, 120–136. Vetter, B. (2020). Perceiving potentiality: A metaphysics for affordances. Topoi, 39, 1177–1191. Warren, W.  H. (1984). Perceiving affordances: Visual guidance of stair climbing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 10, 683–703. Warren, W. H., & Whang, S. (1987). Visual guidance of walking through apertures: Body-scaled information for affordances. Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 13, 371–383.

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Witt, J. K., & Proffitt, D. R. (2005). See the ball, hit the ball: Apparent ball size is correlated with batting average. Psychological Science, 16(12), 937–938. Wong, M., Peters, R.  M., & Goldreich, D. (2013). A physical constraint on perceptual learning: Tactile spatial acuity improves with training to a limit set by finger size. Journal of Neuroscience, 33, 9345–9352. Robert J. Matthews is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. He is primarily a one-design racing sailor with both around-the-buoys and offshore racing experience, who currently races a Viper 640 sportboat. [email protected]  

Chapter 10

Wild, Uncomfortable and Reckless: A Darwinian Debate About Sailing Ophelia Deroy

On the 29th of August 1831, the young Charles Darwin, freshly graduated from Cambridge and about to start a career as a clergyman, received a letter from Professor George Peacock. The letter contained an improbable offer. Peacock informed Darwin that a naval captain, Robert FitzRoy, was seeking an intellectual companion for a voyage to the south seas. Peacock wondered whether Darwin could be interested.1 The subsequent Voyage of the Beagle would become one of the most famous of the century and, though not uncontroversially, remains so until today. It was the voyage that shaped Darwin’s mind, ending with the publication of his On the Origin of Species three decades later. But Darwin very nearly didn’t go. When he shared Professor Peacock’s letter in August 1831 with his father, Robert Darwin came up with a list of eight objections, which Charles reported as follows: 1. Disreputable to my character as a Clergyman hereafter. 2. A wild scheme. 3. That they must have offered to many others before me, the place of Naturalist. 4. And from its not being accepted there must be some serious objection to the vessel or expedition. 5. That I should never settle down to a steady life hereafter. 1  Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 106,” https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-­ LETT-­106.xml

O. Deroy (*) Faculty of Philosophy and Philosophy of Science, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany Munich Center for Neuroscience, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study, University of London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. Casati (ed.), The Sailing Mind, Studies in Brain and Mind 19, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89639-3_10

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6. That my accommodations would be most uncomfortable. 7. That I should consider it again as changing my profession. 8. That it would be a useless undertaking.2 Robert Darwin’s disapproval against distant sailing still resonates today. Obviously reputations as Clergymen matter less, but family, friends or the public will more often than not raise eyebrows towards leaving the shore for the remote sea: Why embark for an uncomfortable trip? What is the point of crossing an ocean for the sake of crossing it? Many sailors, myself included, have internalised these questions. The young Darwin, fortunately for his plans, had an uncle  to externalise his.3 Uncle Joe was consulted, and crafted point by point responses to each objection provided by Charles’ father. Robert Darwin softened and Charles boarded the Beagle a few months after. And so the story goes. What the story omits is that Robert Darwin had quite a few points: Charles changed his profession; the Beagle’s voyage went totally off-schedule, taking 5 years instead of the two initially planned. The young Charles was also terribly sea-sick, and times at sea were excruciating. Yet despite all this, we envy his travel. Sailing stories, be they real like Darwin’s voyage, or fictional, form a strange cultural attractor: Unlike epic stories which show how human characters manage to overcome challenges, sailing stories show how powerless humans are against them. The great heroes who sacked Troy perish at sea on their return. Odysseus’ cleverness does little against the tempest that kills all his companions. The prophet Jonas get thrown overboard, while trying to escape his call. Men may be the captains of their ships, and display courage or fortitude, but it is the whale and the sharks who call the shots in Melville’s Moby Dick or Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea. Sailors can only engage with the sea on its terms, with no choice of where, when and how to pick up a fight. Most sailing stories are also unlike tragedies where disasters come because of bad fate or bad decisions: Storms and wrecks are stupid accidents, and strike the good and the bad alike, from Sinbad the Sailor, Candide, Gulliver or Robinson Crusoe. La Perouse survived terrible dangers, but vanished out of what seems a navigation mistake. Shipwrecks stories and depictions became an incredibly popular genre in the 18th and 19th century Europe, displaying hopeless sailors and passengers in inhospitable spaces. When they manage to survive the wreck or as they simply get lost, unfortunate crew find themselves dying of thirst and hunger with ‘water, water

2  Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 110,” accessed on 24 January 2021, https://www. darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-110.xml 3  Josiah Wedgwood was Robert Darwin’s brother in law. His letter can be found in Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 109,” accessed on 24 January 2021, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-109.xml

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everywhere, nor any drop to drink’,4 eating their shoes, their dogs or each other.5 Darwin’s HMS Beagle may have made history, but so did the HMS Association, which crushed on the shores of the Scilly Islands along with 3 other royal ships, and saw 2000 men perish in a single night. So did also the HMS Erebus and Terror, which disappeared in the Artic, leaving their crew die of scurvy, hypothermia and starvation. Even those who made it  through their first voyages, like Cook or Shackleton, finally all plan “a last expedition” from which they won’t return: Cook is killed as he returns in the Pacific, Shackleton dies in South Georgia on his way back to Antartica. Navy captains and large crews leave room to smaller ships and solo navigators in the second half of the twentieth century, but the modern sailing enterprises follow suit with their own unexplained disappearances, and stupid accidents: Slocum disappears in 1909 on his way to the West Indies, 12 years after successfully completing the first solo sailing around the world; Daniel Crowhurst disappears at sea during the first solo race around the globe, in 1968, and so will Nigel Burgess and Gerry Roufs in the later Vendee Globe races. Accidents also happen outside races, and Eric Tabarly, France’s best-known yachtsman and winner of many competitions, also disappeared at sea, passing overboard while heading with his crew to Scotland. The list falls short of many stories, including those circulating outside the Western world, amongst Asian, Middle-Eastern, Polynesian and Nordic cultures where sailing has also been prominent. What remains remarkable is how non-story like sailing stories are. Sure, some see courageous adventurers get wiser or stronger in the process, but many stories have no lessons and no heroes: The main character dies, triumphs by waiting or barely makes it. Survivors, like Lord Jim or Ishmael, seem there to warn against the sea rather than provide inspirational models. Like many, I would not identify with most of the figures idealised in such stories, and yet I keep them in mind when embark, time after time, for a long-distance sailing. What still strikes me is how such sailing stories continue to echo Charles Darwin’s fathers point, or Horace’s warning before: Vain are those who think they can wrestle against the sea. And so the questions resurface: Why, with so much skills to learn and yet not much to win, do we feel attracted to sailing? Why these repeated stories without real lesson? Why does remote sailing6 endure, despite the advent of much easier and

 Coleridge, S.T. (1798) The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.  Shackelton and his crew ate their dogs during their Antarctic expedition, where their ship, the Endurance, was stuck and then crushed by the ice. As for cannibalism, the most recent documented case came in 1884, when four men were shipwrecked near the Cape of Good Hope, and killed the weakest of them for food. Hanson, Neil (1999), The Custom of the Sea: The Story that Changed British Law, Doubleday. 6  Remote sailing is not just a question of distance in miles: it is also determined by a lack of infrastructure (harbours, naval shops for repair) and difficulty of rescue. Remoteness means being far from external aid rather than far from the coast, though the two often come together. 4 5

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faster ways of travelling? Aren’t those who crave for remote sailing still embarking for wild, uncomfortable schemes, and repetitive pointless travels? Here is what my inner Uncle Joe often offers in defence.

10.1  A Wild Scheme? Four times every day, on radios all across the United Kingdom, a BBC announcer begins reading from a seemingly indecipherable script. “Viking, North Utsire; southwesterly five to seven; occasionally gale eight; rain or showers; moderate or good, occasionally poor”, intones the voice over the wire. Cryptic and mesmerising, this is the Shipping Forecast issued by the Met Office on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. The story of this radio program starts well before the BBC itself, and bears a strange connection with the ship that brought Charles Darwin to South America. Some time after he came back from their trip, in 1859, Robert Fitzroy, the captain of the Beagle, was sitting at home in London. A royal Charter was sailing from Australia to Liverpool with 450 men returning home from the gold mines. Fitzroy saw on his barometer that the pressure had dropped, but had no way to warn anyone that a tempest was imminent. A huge storm blew in. The boat sunk, and all people on board drowned. The disaster helped FitzRoy to convince politicians that a scientific method of “forecasting” the weather was possible: using the telegraph to gather data across stations located in the UK and on the continent, it became possible to issue storm warnings, and share weather bulletins with the press. Darwin’s scientific insights may have transformed our views of the distant past, but Fitzroy’s innovation changed our dealings with short-term future. “Prophecies and predictions they are not,” he wrote, “the term forecast is strictly applicable to such an opinion as is the result of scientific combination and calculation.”7 Navigation, as Fitzroy anticipated, is no longer a matter of guesses and heuristics: It has fully harnessed the power of scientific calculation. These days, many sailors have radar on board and satellite internet access, where dynamic grib maps of local wind and sea conditions can be uploaded and refreshed. Besides higher weather predictability, nautical charts have also become much more precise and available. When Darwin embarked on the Beagle, the exact longitude of Rio de Janeiro was not exactly known. Older maps may not all have promised “here lie dragons” but until the early twentieth century, they all showed large unchartered territories. New charts give something close to a global panoptic, capable of zooming to the closest details. Having better representations of the outer environment – through weather forecast and maps – means little unless one can also know more precisely where they are on the sea. The absence of remarkable landmarks has always made localisation

 Quoted in the New Scientist, 16.01.1958, p. 26

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on sea the most challenging of all exercises: It is – indeed – water, water everywhere. The invention of the Sextant in the middle of the 18th century, only solved part of the problem. Only with the slow progress of reliable chronometers  could sailors expect to know, with a fairly good accuracy, where they were, and not just where they were heading. In Darwin’s time, timing instruments were still weak and of the 22 chronometers embarked on the Beagle, only 4 worked at the end. Today sailors also get their localisation from the stars, but in a much more metaphorical manner: Satellites, GPS and AIS give precise geographical positions to those on board, as well as to people who wish to track vessels from the shore. For those, like myself, who sailed before GPS became standard and had to rely on sextant, printed charts, and weather forecasts caught on radio, the recent technological transformations seem even more radical than the popularisation of mobile phones and internet: Of course, localisation technologies can also track our movements on land and invade our privacy, but neighbours and spies were already tracking us before. On the sea, it was humanly impossible for others to know where we were. On the one hand, the fate of Robinson Crusoe, who spent 28 years on an island after his ship sunk, has now become entirely implausible: a third party would probably know where Robinson’s ship  was last seen, and rescue him within a few days. On the other, being at sea is now less of a social rupture than it used to be. Combine these changes with the fact that ships also got safer – with hulls being no longer made of wood, and inflatable life rafts on board – and that food and water provisions are also easier – with fridges and desalinisation being part of most serially produced sailing boats – and remote sailing may no longer susceptible to be frowned upon as “wild”. In the 1820s, about three thousands of Britons would loose their lives each year at sea, well beyond the current road casualties. In December 1830, a few months before Darwin received the invitation to board the Beagle, more than 200 ships were wrecked. This would mean an average of 7 per day, if it was not for the unequal distribution generated by the weather (46 vessels were wrecked during a single storm that stroke on the 6th of December 1830).8 For those who need to be reminded that each number hides terrible personal misfortunes and pains, it may be enough to go through, one by one, the long list of wrecks on Wikipedia. For myself, little reaches the same emotional levels as going through the Lloyd’s9 original “casualties records”10 where sailing boats’ names  – Bravor, Daring, Hope, Perseverance, Prudence, Vigilant – are sorted in seven categories, each its own circle of watery hell – “abandoned at sea”, “broken up/condemned”, “burnt”, “foundered”, “lost”, “missing” or “wrecked”.

8  Wikipedia pages on shipwrecks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists_of_shipwrecks_ by_year) 9  Which was and remains one of the biggest ship insurer in the world. 10  https://hec.lrfoundation.org.uk/archive-library/casualty-returns

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So at least if wilderness means risk and danger,11 sailing12 today is less wild than in the times of the Beagle: The prospect of returning alive is high, and remote sailing is less deadly than many activities, and especially other remote activities like high-altitude alpinism. True, injuries and drowning still happen in the order of several hundreds in coastal waters,13 making sailing as dangerous as skiing, but, as one gets away from the coast, experience partly defeats such statistics. Paradoxical as it may sound though, it strikes me that sailing in Darwin’s time nonetheless required less risk-taking than today. With no weather forecast, no accurate maps and poor localisation tools, the crews were faced with tremendous ambiguity, more than risk: Risk presupposes known probabilities for outcomes, whereas ambiguity means that probabilities of outcomes, or even kinds of outcomes are unknown. Odysseus, Cook, Fitzroy, Shackelton and the myriads of people who sailed before the advent of modern technologies were sailing not in risky waters, but in radical uncertainty14: They simply could not know what they were getting into,  A large literature has challenged the use of the concept of wilderness for open spaces – see for instance Callicott, J.  B., & Nelson, M.  P. (Eds.). (1998). The great new wilderness debate. University of Georgia Press. The term here is used as defined scientifically in current ecological sciences, as areas which are >70% intact and have human densities of less than or equal to five people per km2 (Mittermeier, R. A., Mittermeier, C. G., Brooks, T. M., Pilgrim, J. D., Konstant, W.  R., Da Fonseca, G.  A., & Kormos, C. (2003). Wilderness and biodiversity conservation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 100(18), 10,309–10,313). 12  This is not true for seafaring and sea trafficking, which continue to claim numerous lives. This reminds us also that, besides natural conditions, human brutality and exploitation is responsible for many of the casualties happening at sea all through history, notably with the slave trade of the eighteenth–nineteenth century. 13  Ryan, K.  M., Nathanson, A.  T., Baird, J., & Wheelhouse, J. (2016). Injuries and fatalities on sailboats in the United States 2000–2011: An analysis of US coast guard data. Wilderness & environmental medicine, 27(1), 10–18. 14  This capacity to accept radical uncertainty, and not mask it under probabilities, may be a lost virtue. See Kay, J. & King M. (2020). Radical Uncertainty, Decision-Making for an Unknowable 11

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nor, in some cases, did they know what they were heading to. There was no known goal, nor means to know. Sailing was a venture into unknown unknowns. So should today’s sailors still see themselves as heading for wilderness and uncertainty, or would this be a partly misguided sense of thrill? With about 3000 sailing boats crossing the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean every year, are sailors attracted by the risks that are left, and the opportunity to face them alone? My personal experience and observation (for the lack of psychological literature on the topic) rule out the later: The minds of todays’ long-distance sailors are not characterised by a high level of thrill and risk-seeking, which psychologists characterise as “T-types” (Laney, 1986; Brymer, & Mackenzie, 201715). Some are, for sure. Rogue characters like Jarle Andhoy who travelled several times illegally to Antartica, in ill-prepared conditions, exist to prove the generalisation wrong. Yet most remote sailors need not be as ready to embrace ambiguity as those who sailed before under Cook or Fitzroy. What they need is a high tolerance to ambiguity – or, if I wanted to be more precise – a high acceptance that what was a calculated risks can quickly degenerate into ambiguity. For one thing, being able to rely on calculated risks is a fragile privilege on board: Equipment is fragile, and maps remain, sometimes, pointless. GPS and satellite phones, even designed for marine purposes, break down or get damaged by salt. Finding someone to repair electronic equipment when sailing close to European or US harbours may be easy: In the middle of the Atlantic or around the Tuamotu Islands, it is impossible. Outside commercial routes or popular sailing waters, risks also are hard to calculate. Some places remain uncharted or poorly charted: Whether one will be able to find their ways through the North East or West passage for instance, or what ice conditions one will find in the Artic and Antarctic, remain unknowns. While it is challenging to predict local weather conditions accurately, predicting them at all above and below the 50’s degrees of latitude is still out of reach – as data are scarce and conditions are extreme and volatile.16 No forecast will be reliable over the 2 or 3 weeks time that one will take to cross the Atlantic, and crews can never know what will wait for them once they decide to leave, beyond the 5–6 days of forecast they can have. Sailing through the Beagle or the Drake Channel, even today, is subject to a lot of weather and mapping ambiguities. When deciding for a long sailing travel, calculated risks come with a higher-order, non negligible risk that one will have to renounce calculations. On the other hand, most problems in sailing occur because of compound or interacting risks: Not only do extreme events tend to co-occur, but a combination of “average” events can quickly lead to an extremely bad situation. Extreme wind for instance occurs not only with extreme waves, but such extreme conditions will mean longer and more difficult night shifts, more human tiredness, and possible Future, London: The Bridge Street Press. 15  Brymer, E., & Mackenzie, S.  H. (2017). Psychology and the extreme sport experience. In Extreme sports medicine (pp. 3–13). Springer, Cham. 16  Inoue, J. (2020). Review of forecast skills for weather and sea ice in supporting Arctic navigation. Polar Science, 100523.

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mistakes. Just a slightly strong wind, for a ship sailing somewhat close to the coast, with a badly trimmed a sail is a sufficient recipe for disaster. With experience, one’s mind needs to become more and more agile at anticipating not just risks, but their interactions. This is no small task as humans are usually bad at compounding risks. From what we know since Slovic or Bar-Hillel in the 1970’s, even in the safety of a laboratory and when dealing with mere lottery choices, most people do not manage to reduce a series of one-stage lotteries to a single probabilistic equivalent: They accept a compound lottery composed of 10 stages with each stage having a 80% winning probability, and do not see that it is the same as one lottery offering 11% probability of winning. The more the compounds, the worse the calculations tend to be, and things get even worse when loss, rather than win, is at stake.17 How could remote sailing require, or reinforce a capacity to anticipate such compound risks? Our calculations may be better in concrete situations, than for the abstract cases of lotteries presented in the lab but I think there is more going on here with sailing. First, the boat and the external conditions represent a simpler system on which to compound risks than financial or international affairs, for instance, if only because most elements are physical, and not mental or intentional. A trader or politician has to anticipate human behaviour, and not natural forces. Even the most volatile weather is not as unpredictable as markets frenzies, or urban protests, though I admit that such a statement is more a question of degree than a qualitative demarcation. ‘Social physicists’ argue that some human matters can be modelled like the weather, and human factors are not altogether absent when one sails with other, possible unpredictable, crew members. Leaving those aside, the important factor which makes compound risk calculations somewhat easier to run for experienced sailors comes from the repetitive character of manoeuvres: Time after time, similar actions such as trimming the main sail, checking the mechanical travellers, the outhauls, putting the winch handle at the same place, need to be performed, again and again, across various situations, giving people on board multiple opportunities to get things slightly wrong, and learn where and when mistakes and risks can occur. For all of these reasons, sailing is an activity where compound risks are better tracked, because they are more tractable. It is also a place where interacting risks can be sensed and embodied, rather than intellectually calculated. Two things here coincide in a small, over-learned environment like a sailing boat: With time, one’s mind goes from a model-based, highly abstract representation of the ship and what needs to be done, to a more and more model-free representation where locations, gestures, and possible risks become habitual. With time, the boat itself get organised and shaped by human actions and habits: The ropes find themselves at the same place, details get added to prevent risk or give advance warnings to the crew. With  Slovic, P. (1969). Manipulating the attractiveness of a gamble without changing its expected value. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 79, 139–145. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0026970, Bar-­ Hillel, M. (1973). On the subjective probability of compound events. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 9, 396–406.

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time, the boat that one has in mind and the boat that is really out there coincide more and more, and form a dynamic model to which weather conditions can then be compounded. Even today, I believe I can trace in my mind each centimetre of the boat that I sailed on for three decades, and know exactly how my right hand could reach for the winch handle from the steering wheel. The reason I can is that this has been the handle’s place for 30 years – and I paid a cost every time it was not being put in that place, and suddenly needed.18 No one better than Joseph Conrad has captured this close connection between one's mental model of the boat and the boat itself, in what remains one of my favourite sentences of his memoirs on sailing: “A ship is a creature which we have brought into the world, as it were on purpose to keep us up to the mark.”19 At the end, there is a distinctive rule which governs sailors’ cautious attitudes towards what one sees as the wilder aspects of sailing, exemplified by the proverb “hope for the best, prepare for the worse”. As the weather gets worse, or something else gets wrong, one’s eyes and ears quickly runs through the possibly interacting or compound risk factors, but also starts adjusting  to every possible disaster, much without deliberation about how exact or low the probability is that the worse will happen. For the worse is always possible, and the worse is always very bad. A favourite example of mine comes from an episode in the Beagle Channel, where I was sailing on a friend’s sailing boat – an elegant 18 m aluminum sloop, familiar with extreme latitudes. We had sailed into a fjord that separated into two smaller channels, each ending on a glacier, and had opted for the shorter East side one. As we were trying to get out, a mini-tornado started. This micro-climatic event is to be expected in such parts of the globe, due to katabatibc winds descending along the glaciers, and despite its cute name (Williwaw) it can wreak havoc in a very short time. The winds got above 50 knots, whipping up the water into a white frenzy. We needed to quickly escape from the narrow fjord we were in, but coming back to the junction with the main channel, the waves and winds were stronger than our ship’s engine: Trying to go through, face to face with 4–5 m high waves, was like trying to go through a wall. I remember turning to my friend and suggesting retracting back to the small channel we had left: We knew things were probably also worse there than when we left, but at least we could hope for more protection from the waves. And we knew what the area was like: This was my risk calculation. My friend’s response was fast and opposite – if we had to go back, he said, we would better choose the West path – the one we did not know, for the good reason that it was the longer of the two: “If the engine or something breaks”, he said, “we will

 The cost can range for being shouted at by someone else who looks for the crank, to being delayed in a pressing manoeuvre where it is needed, or bumping onto it with one’s bare feet because it was left lying on the roof. The obligation to put objects and instruments at a predictable place is heightened by the fact that several people will need them, at different times, and cannot spend their time asking where things are. Outside, like inside the boat, there is real punishment for not tidying things. The irony being that the most mobile homes of all, is, in this respect, the most stable of all. 19  Joseph Conrad, Mirror of the Sea, 1919. 18

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have more time to come up with another solution”. Not only had he compounded risks (the risk that the weather would get worse, with the risk that something on the boat could break) but he also quickly accepted that by now, our compound risk assessment was probably full of mistakes, and we had also to factor in ambiguity. The best sailors I know, far from being wild and seeking risk for the sake of it, are extremely risks-sighted. They mostly quickly accept to give up on clear probabilities, and act to avoid the worse case scenario, which has one clear definition: Damaging the boat.

10.2  A Most Uncomfortable Accommodation There is a clear inter-dependence between sailors and their boats, where each is causally responsible for the other’s safety. This again makes sailing very different from other remote or wild activities, such as high-altitude mountaineering. Mountaineers share many similarities with remote sailors, including regarding the risk and ambiguities described above, but they  part when it comes to their clear focus on their bodily safety: The cost of a bad decision in mountaineering will most likely have direct consequences for your own body. The cost of a bad decision in sailing will damage the boat first. Avalanches, crevasses, falls, are the things that alpinists watch for, and need to directly protect their own bodies from. Sailors, during a storm, think first about protecting the boat, rather than themselves: Wearing a harness is, of course, a good safety measure, but it is only valuable to be tied to the boat if the boat is safe. The relation I have to the boats I sail is very different from the relation I may have to a house. Overall, the reason why I do not complain about accommodation, is that I do not see boats as “accommodating” us. Houses’ primary function is to serve as homes. Boats primary functions is to sail, hopefully across most weather conditions. A house’s integrity does not really depend on moment to moment decisions: Most of the solidity of the house, its walls, roofs, flooring requires slow, long term checks. Except for a fire starting inadvertently, there is little one can do wrong while in a house and would immediately lead to a wall collapsing, or the roof suddenly leaking. The responsiveness of the boat to decisions makes it more similar to “a living creature’s quick wit and graceful precision”, as Joseph Conrad wrote. Still, long distance sailing turns a boat also into the place where people live – eat, read, day dream and sleep. The latter seems particularly surprising for many to hear. I sailed much  as a child with my parents, and the question that my schoolmates asked about our travels was irreplaceably the same: “But so, where do you stop at night?”. With cars and highway stops in mind, it was impossible for other 6 or 7 years old to realise that there is no harbour in the middle of the Atlantic, and that no anchor could reach the thousands meter deep sea floor to afford a night’s mooring. What they could not imagine is that one sleeps on, or rather in, moving boats, though sleep may be interrupted by night shifts, incidents or collective manoeuvres.

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How cosy one’s bed feels inside the rocking boat, when the shift is done and the wind howls outside, or when one hears waves crashing on the bow, also remains an incomparable experience. The difference between the wet and windy deck, and the dry comfort of the cabin is augmented by the fact that the awareness of these two worlds is also coming through different modalities: One sees inside the cabin but only hears what is going on outside. Neither the portholes on the side of the hull, or the deck hatches give a glimpse of anything, but water whirling or crushing. Most of the awareness of the natural conditions outside becomes auditory, while the visual environment looks humanised: Here is the stove, the bed, the bookshelves and of course all the navigation tools. Darwin’s comments to his father in the first letters he sent after crossing the Atlantic reveal only compliments about the accommodation,: “I find”, he wrote after a year on board “to my great surprise that a ship is singularly comfortable for all sorts of work.— Everything is so close at hand, & being cramped, make one so methodical, that in the end I have been a gainer.—I already have got to look at going to sea as a regular quiet place, like going back to home after staying away from it.”20 The same letter, and others afterwards, still reveal many complaints about sea-­ sickness. Sickness apart, the unpleasant sensations of constantly being in a washing machine put on a particularly random programme are probably amongst the key deterrents against long sailing travels. Besides, as Darwin wrote at the end of its notes on the Voyage of the Beagle, some of the losses that one experiences on board “although not at first felt, tell heavily after a period: These are, the want of room, of seclusion, of rest”.21 The Beagle was comparatively bigger than today’s sailing ships, but with its 27 m long and more than 50 crew members, it may also seem as claustrophobic as a 13–14 m ship shared by 6 or 8 people. Once on the boat, there is nowhere else to be than these few moving meters, sometimes for weeks and weeks. The discomfort of being on such a small vessel at sea comes with a cost, but also sometimes sumptuous gains. When the boat is steady, each movement one shares with it tells all is well and strong. Being on the deck then, whatever time of day or night, could be called sublime, if philosophers like Kant had not tied the word to a sense of passivity and smallness: Great days of sailing, especially when steering, combine the sublime with a sense of active involvement. It would be difficult to try to capture the phenomenal qualities of such moments, and most of them are better kept to oneself. Darwin’s notebooks and letters remain extremely spare of descriptions of the sea, or impressions of sailing – but clearly, and despite his sea-sickness, he never regretted the 5 years he spent on the Beagle.

 Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 158,”, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-­ LETT-­158.xml 21  Darwin, C. (1839) The Voyage of the Beagle, London: Colburn (Penguin ed., 1989, p.372). 20

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10.3  Long Term Effects: The Sailing Character Sports build character, and character reveals itself in nature: These two pieces of common wisdom explain Robert Darwin’s concern that his son’s character would be impacted for good by a 2 year sailing trip. As the voyage of the Beagle took five, his worries sound only more valid. Clearly though, Robert Darwin’s fear that sailing would make his son less able to settle for a steady life thereafter was irrelevant: Charles stayed for many years in London, then in Kent, enjoying regular days of work, writing and walks. He got married in 1839, shortly after his return, and what he seemed to have retained from his early years on the Beagle was the habit of weighing the pros and cons before choosing long-term commitments. If there is one character trait here that sailing eliminates, it is everything but lightness of commitment: Sailing around the world, still today, is a big material and time commitment (and let us not forget, also luxury). Like in sky-diving, the commitment is  needed to make the jump or depart: Afterwards, there is no tracing back on your footsteps. The difference is that, with sailing, that initial jump commits you for a long and often ill-defined amount of time. Like with attitudes towards risk and comfort, it is delicate to build generalisations regarding the character of long-distance sailors. Plato and Aristotle still tried, but disagreed about  whether sailing builds up courage, or mere fearlessness22. Sailing certainly can promote resilience, patience, determination, autonomy, and, when shared, a heightened sense of communality. Some school programmes today send teenagers on months long sailing schools, with apparently fair results in instilling a sense of discipline and collective responsibility in the students on board.23 Long distance sailing is also not competitive, and therefore unlikely to promote a selfish desire to win at all price – a vice sometimes developed by athletes and other sports adepts. Technically, most remote sailing is unlike many conventional sports, as it is not bounded by rules – the reason why it is so often associated with a sense of freedom, and perhaps self-realisation or recklessness. The real concern, however, is not really that, after sailing often or for long, one returns with a different character, but that one simply is unable or unwilling to return. After 7 months alone at sea, and while leading in the solo race around the globe, the French skipper Moitessier resolved not to complete the tour, as people were expecting him to, and sent a message to race officials simply stating: “I am continuing non-stop to the Pacific Islands because I am happy at sea, and perhaps

 In Plato’s Laches, while trying to define courage, Socrates seems to consider that “those who face perils at sea” are no less courageous than soldiers, and show the same sort of endurance of the soul, while Aristotle, in the Nichomachean Ethics, consider that soldiers, but not sailors, are courageous, as only the former face danger for the worth of a greater good. 23  Marshall, A., Allison, P., & Hearn, J. (2020). The question of significance: Tall ship sailing and virtue development. Journal of Moral Education, 49(4), 396–414. 22

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also to save my soul”.24 Three months later, he arrived in Tahiti. The sailing mindset, whether it imprints into character or not, sometimes does not easily transfer to life on land. This is why many sailors stay on their boats and prefer to watch life on land from the sea.

10.4  Still Useless? Now that there is not much coast left to chart, and that trade or commercial travels seldom rely on the winds, sailing far is even more a rarity than it was in Darwin’s times. It remains full of ambiguities, moderately rough and not entirely reasonable even less so when it can no longer be justified as an instrumental goal to explore, or rather exploit, new territories. The hardest objection against sailing then is also the one that came last in Darwin's father list: it looks gratuitous, and useless.    Is it why after a few months at sea, Darwin conceded that his father ‘s warning against the voyage had some truth, and admitted that he would hesitate to recommend to anyone to start a trip as his own? Still just below, he wrote “I [still] find a ship a very comfortable house, with everything you want, & if it was not for sea-sickness the whole world would be sailors”.25 Ophelia Deroy holds the Chair in Philosophy of Mind at Ludwig Maximilian Universität and is a member of the Graduate School in Systemic Neuroscience (GSN) in Munich. ophelia.deroy@lrz. uni-muenchen.de  

 Moitessier, B. (1971). La longue route, Arthaud.  Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 158,” https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-­ LETT-­158.xml

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Chapter 11

The We-Perspective on the Racing Sailboat Frances Egan

Racing in sailboats is for the most part a team sport, sailed in everything from two-­ person dinghies to super-maxi boats that require well over a dozen crew. Sailing is challenging enough but crewed racing boats present special challenges. Successful sports teams are able to adopt what is known as the we-perspective, forming intentions and making decisions, somewhat as a unified mind does, to achieve their goals. In this paper I consider what is involved in establishing and maintaining the we-­ perspective on a racing sailboat.1

11.1  Gilbert’s Account of Plural Subjects There has been a lot of work in the last 30 years on collective intentionality, the phenomenon of treating complex systems, themselves composed of intentional agents, as subjects of propositional attitudes such as beliefs, desires, and intentions. Such group minds, as they are sometimes thought of, include corporations, clubs, religious organizations, military units, and more transient associations assembled for some immediate goal or purpose. Following standard usage in this literature I will call propositional attitudes ascribed to such collectives we-attitudes and the goals and intentions ascribed to them we-intentions. I will make use of Margaret Gilbert’s well-known plural subjects theory (Gilbert, 2006, 2009) in spelling out these notions. Her account provides a useful framework for introducing the notion 1  Much of what I say will apply to crewed cruising sailing, but my interest in this paper is in sailing in the context of competition.

F. Egan (*) Philosophy, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. Casati (ed.), The Sailing Mind, Studies in Brain and Mind 19, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89639-3_11

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of a plural subject, and the related notion of the we-perspective, though in the next section I will argue that it is inadequate to characterize the plural subject that is the racing sailboat. Central to Gilbert’s account of plural subjects is the notion of a joint commitment. She asks us to consider two individuals deciding to take a walk together. In doing so each takes on a commitment to act in a certain way. More precisely, here is how the joint commitment is created: In the basic case… each of two or more people must openly express his personal readiness jointly with the others to commit them all in a certain way. Once the concordant expressions of all have occurred and are common knowledge between the parties, the joint commitment is in place (2009, 180).

Non-basic cases “involve authorities whose status derives from a basic joint commitment” (180). Joint commitments, Gilbert says, give rise to a normative structure of obligations and entitlements. If A and B are jointly committed to take a walk, then each is thereby obligated to act in an appropriate way and each is entitled to expect and demand of the other that they also act accordingly. Each owes the other the appropriate action. As Gilbert puts it, the joint commitment establishes the following conditions: … one’s being owed that action by [the other] prior to his performing it, one’s being in a position to demand it of him prior to its performance, and one’s being in a position to rebuke him if he has failed to perform it at the appropriate time (2009, 176).

The joint commitment grounds the notion of a plural subject: A and B… constitute a plural subject (by definition) if and only if they are jointly committed to doing something as a body—in a broad sense of ‘do’ (Gilbert, 2006: 145).

By undertaking the joint commitment the individuals involved create a collective entity  – the plural subject  – to which the attribution of propositional attitudes is appropriate. Together they accept and are committed to act on these we-attitudes and we-intentions, and each feels entitled to demand of the others that they also act accordingly. They have adopted what is called the we-perspective (hereafter WP).2 Adopting the WP has an obvious pay-off: by taking themselves to be so bound a group is more likely to achieve goals that individual members of the group take to be worthwhile. They can more efficiently make decisions that require integrating diverse sources of information in a timely fashion and co-ordinate their behaviors to produce more complex actions. As long as the individuals in the collective continue to endorse the shared goals that define the group each has a strong motivation to abide by the normative commitment that binds them together and to recognize the obligations and entitlements that the commitment entails.

2  For general discussion of the we-perspective see Petersson 2017 and Crone 2020. My use of the notion is independent of their analyses. The we-perspective is closely related to what Raimo Tuomela in a series of works (see e.g. 2003, 2005) and Gallotti and Firth (2013) call ‘cognizing in the we-mode.’

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Some clarifications are in order before I turn to the application to sailboat racing. Adopting the WP does not require anything like a single locus of consciousness or a “distinctive form of ‘subjectivity’” (Gilbert, 2006, 134), nor does it entail that the individuals in the group share many other attitudes. As Gallotti and Huebner (2017, 257) put it: … you will still have your own perspective on things, which may be similar to mine, yet will not be an exact replica. After all, it would be unrealistic to assume that two people have to think the same thoughts as they perform a task jointly, if their minds are to count as shared in joint action (257).

And while views about the metaphysical status of group minds and extended minds vary, Gilbert herself holds a deflationary view of the notion of a plural subject: This label [“plural subject”] should not be thought to have any ontological implications beyond those involved in the claim that certain persons are jointly committed in some way (2009, 182).

In making use of Gilbert’s plural subjects theory and the related notion of the WP I take no stand on whether attributions of propositional attitudes to groups should be construed literally, with the implication that individuals and groups are minded in something like the same sense, or whether they are merely a useful fiction. What is required to be a proper subject of intentional attribution is a vexed question that I will also take no stand on here, and nothing that I say about plural subjects or we-­ attitudes is intended to have any implications for intentional attributions to individuals.

11.2  The We-Perspective on the Racing Sailboat My central claim is that success in sailboat racing depends on the team adopting and sustaining the WP, as I will further characterize it in this section. The joint commitment that underpins the normative structure of obligations and entitlements is typically implicit, undertaken by individual sailors agreeing to be a member of a racing team. I will hereafter call the plural subject that is created by the joint commitment the boat, in order to underscore the analogy with an embodied thinking subject.3 So the boat will be the subject of we-attitudes. The sailors, as well as the physical platform on which they sail, are all constituents of the boat. It will be clear from context where I am referring to the physical platform, the crew, or both. And by crew I include the skipper, the person ultimately (and indeed, legally) responsible for decisions made by the boat. So the skipper is a constituent of the crew, though one who has a special status.4

 This is in fact how a team of racing sailors describes themselves, as ‘the boat’.  The plural subject framework can be applied at a higher level of aggregation to team racing, which typically involves two competing teams of three boats each working in tandem. 3 4

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When the WP is in place it is appropriate to ascribe we-attitudes to the boat – goals, beliefs, desires, intentions, and so on. The ambition of every boat is to win, but for many boats winning is unattainable. In a large fleet that may include professional crews, Olympic medalists, Rolex ‘sailors of the year’, and college All-­ Americans, only a small number of boats have a realistic chance of winning the race (or the regatta or the series). But every boat has the goal of finishing well, where, depending on the experience and abilities of the crew, and whether the vessel itself has been optimized for speed,5 finishing well might mean placing in the middle of the fleet or avoiding the dreaded DFL (‘dead f…ing last’). Joint commitment to the collective goals of the boat – and the obligations and entitlements that the joint commitment underpins – contributes to the success of the boat in at least two distinct ways: (1) it facilitates the smooth execution of joint action; and (2) it increases the chance that individual crew members will exert their best effort in fulfilling their particular roles. I will discuss each of these in turn. 1. Joint action Many of the actions required of the crew are joint not merely in the sense that they are done by multiple agents acting together, but in the stronger sense that they are constituents of a more complex action involving the coordination of individual actions. A joint walk requires little more coordination than that the individuals involved meet at a certain place and walk at roughly the same pace. Two people dancing a tango is a better example to serve as a model for the sorts of joint actions required of a racing crew. The actions of the dancers are tightly coordinated. Successful execution of the dance requires the smooth and seamless co-ordination of synchronized individual actions. Developing this skill requires practice, and with practice the maneuver becomes ‘second nature.’ Many of the joint actions required of racing crew are similar in this respect. In dinghies and small keelboats the crew will typically facilitate tacking or gybing the boat by shifting their weight from one side to the other, i.e. by roll-tacking or roll-gybing. This maneuver enables the boat to maintain speed through the tack. A perfectly executed roll-tack or gybe can actually accelerate the boat, which is against the racing rules of sailing. Race referees are constantly on the lookout for excessive use of the maneuver, especially in light air where a series of quick tacks or gybes can give a boat an unfair advantage. Just as in dancing, timing and coordinated footwork are crucial: a roll-tack requires helmsperson and crew to simultaneously lean back to windward bringing the boom across the boat, duck under it, step up and across the boat while they tack the main and jib respectively, spin around, throw their weight back on the rail, and trim the sails for the new wind. A poorly executed tack or gybe risks dumping the air from the sails and stalling the boat, which in close proximity to other boats can mean disaster. 5  Factors contributing to the sometimes elusive property of ‘boatspeed’ include how the standing rigging is tuned, the condition of the sails, the state of hull, keel, and rudder (e.g. whether properly faired), whether the hardware is ‘state of the art’ as allowed by class rules, whether all unnecessary weight has been removed, and so on. As every racing sailor knows, the list is endless.

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Perhaps a more central example of joint action required to sail effectively is the close coordination between helmsperson and sail trimmer necessary to achieve maximum VMG (velocity made good).6 Very much like in ballroom dancing one takes the lead and the other responds appropriately. Sometimes the coordination will involve the helmsperson setting an optimal course for the conditions and the trimmer responding by easing out or trimming in to maintain optimal sail shape for the apparent wind. But the prevailing conditions always determine the most effective means of coordination. In heavy air and high seas it can be difficult for the spinnaker trimmer to make quick changes to sail shape, and so it is often preferable for the trimmer to take the lead, trimming the sails to what is optimal for the apparent wind, with the helmsperson responding by steering the boat up or down to maintain optimal sail shape, all in the context of maintaining the desired course. Often close coordination requires constant communication between the two, especially in very light air where the trimmer may be fighting to maintain sail shape. (Helmsperson: “I’m heading up to avoid a starboard tacker”; spinnaker trimmer: “I’ve got good pressure, you can come down” or “I’m losing it, steer up.”) Sometimes special features of the venue will favor a unique solution to the coordination problem. I vividly recall racing in a JY157 North American Championship in the shallow water of Great South Bay off Long Island, NY and seeing former Sunfish world champion Paul-Jon Patin punch very effectively through the short, steep chop with a series of sudden extreme tiller movements. The trimmer made no effort to adjust sail trim to each jerk of the tiller, instead pre-setting the jib sheet for a sail shape that was going to be satisfactory most of the time. In any other condition this method would not be effective. 2. Encouraging best effort Some years ago we were competing in the Around Long Island Race in our 10 m racer/cruiser, surfing along under spinnaker at night in a building 25 knot breeze. The predicted squall was approaching fast and we were thinking about taking down the kite, but for the moment we were enjoying the ride, flying by the boats that had opted to sail close to the beach off Fire Island. Suddenly the squall was upon us. Just as a flash of lightning illuminated the scene, the boat off our starboard quarter was hit by a huge puff, shattering its spinnaker into hundreds of shimmering pieces. We were next; the puff slammed us hard to windward, causing us to broach. Everyone was clipped in, and we immediately scrambled to the high side. Our spinnaker trimmer, Mike Shannon, had been fully underwater for what seemed like minutes, but when the boat righted he was still standing, still holding the spin sheet, still focused on the task at hand. The squall was over as suddenly as it hit and after a quick clean­up we were back in racing mode. All of us were wet but Mike was thoroughly drenched in cold, salt water; however, he didn’t miss a beat. His gear soaked and 6  VMG (velocity made good) is the actual speed towards some intended destination, for example, the next mark of the course. Because sailboats are rarely able to sail directly towards their intended destination, a boat’s VMG is only rarely identical to its speed along its current heading. 7  A JY15 is a two-person dinghy popular in North America.

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useless, he sailed the remaining 150 miles of the race in a T-shirt and nylon shorts, wrapping himself in sail bags to keep warm when he was down below off-watch. Whatever else was going through Mike’s head during the broach and its immediate aftermath, and the remaining 24+ hours of racing, he was laser-focused on the joint task at hand: getting maximum speed out of the boat, maintaining our position against the competition, and knocking off the odd boat here and there where close boat-on-boat tactics allowed. Throughout the race he remained fully committed to the shared goals of the boat, exerting optimal physical and mental effort despite considerable discomfort, and inspiring others to raise their level of performance as well. It might be objected that people are capable of extraordinary effort when they are engaged in solitary activity, so it is not obvious that we must invoke the WP to explain such feats when they are engaged in joint activity. It is certainly likely that Mike would have exerted a similar degree of effort had he been solo racing; he is the relatively rare individual who is capable of performing consistently at the peak of his abilities whatever the context. The very top crews are constituted entirely by such people. My point is rather that having an exceptional team member will raise everyone’s performance. As long as they want the boat to succeed and feel themselves to be part of the boat – that is, as long as they maintain the WP – then even relatively weak members of the crew can perform at the peak of their abilities. Moreover, everyone on the boat can take pleasure in the fact that the exceptional individual is on the team and can legitimately feel pride in his (or her) performance. These emotions – we-emotions attributable to the boat – strengthen the joint commitment and make the team better. Often, though, there won’t be an exceptional individual to lift everyone’s game. In that case, commitment to the joint goals of the boat – and a desire to perform well as a group – is perhaps even more crucial to success. In the final section I will discuss how to achieve and maintain the WP on the boat. First I will return to Gilbert’s plural subject theory and consider how well it characterizes the WP on a racing sailboat. According to Gilbert the joint commitment that brings the plural subject into existence underwrites a normative structure of obligations and entitlements. Recall how Gilbert characterizes this structure: … one’s being owed that action by [the other] prior to his performing it, one’s being in a position to demand it of him prior to its performance, and one’s being in a position to rebuke him if he has failed to perform it at the appropriate time (2009, 176).

Applying this characterization to the racing sailboat: each crew member, in undertaking the joint commitment to the boat, owes to the others the actions required by his/her particular role on the boat, and each in turn is entitled to demand these actions of the others, and to rebuke them if they fail to perform these actions. While Gilbert’s account of plural subjects captures some aspects of the joint commitment that binds racing sailors together, some features of her account would misrepresent that commitment. Most importantly, it cannot explain the fact that adopting

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and maintaining the WP is crucial for the boat’s success, and for success in team sports more generally.8 It is true that when racing sailors undertake the joint commitment that establishes the WP a normative structure of obligations and entitlements is put in place. But Gilbert’s account leaves out something that is essential to team sports – each team member is not merely obligated to fulfill their designated role and entitled to expect and demand that others do so too. Each is further obligated to put forward their best effort in pursuit of the shared goal and entitled to expect and demand of others that they do so. So the account fails to characterize the particular obligations and entitlements characteristic of sailboat racing, indeed of all team sports. Gilbert’s account of plural subjects doesn’t adequately describe the joint commitment undertaken by racing sailors because it has the following three shortcomings: 1. The account is too legalistic. The commitment undertaken by racing sailors when they agree to race is more amorphous; it is not like a contract or a promise, committing the parties to some specified course of action. They do not typically think of themselves as engaged in anything quite so formal. That said, though, sailors do feel entitled to rebuke other crew members when their performance is sub-par, even if, in the interests of crew harmony, they may refrain from doing so. The notion of entitlement relevant here is intermediate between a kind of informal agreement and a fully legalistic contractual entitlement.9 2. The account is too individualistic, requiring that each party “openly express his personal readiness jointly with the others to commit them all in a certain way” (2009, 180). Racing sailors know what they are committing to when they agree to join a racing crew – they are committing to race – but Gilbert’s account mischaracterizes both the nature of the commitment and how the commitment is undertaken. As I noted above, committing to race is committing to do one’s best – to put in optimal effort – in the pursuit of the boat’s shared goals. This can only be fully understood against the background of team competition. Thus the joint commitment undertaken by racing sailors presupposes a well-established social practice of racing, which involves precise rules governing the behavior of the boats on the course, one boat being designated the winner, and so on. But once the role of the social practice in structuring the joint activity is appreciated, then what is required of the individual sailor in undertaking the joint commitment is much more minimal, something that falls short of an open expression of readiness undertaken with other sailors. In presuming that the joint commitment that underlies the normative structure of obligations and entitlements that gives rise to plural subjects can be fully understood without reference to the social practices that make the joint commitment possible, Gilbert’s account doesn’t adequately characterize the plural subject that is the racing sailboat. 8  Gilbert’s account, of course, wasn’t expressly intended to apply to sailboat racing. But the fact that it fails to adequately characterize the joint commitment involved in team sports indicates a limitation of her plural subjects theory. 9  Thanks to Roberto Casati for pushing me on this point.

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3. The account is too intellectualist or too cognitive, leaving out the affective aspects of sailboat racing, indeed, of team sports more generally. This is another respect in which Gilbert’s account of plural subjects is too individualistic. We are essentially social creatures. Most people derive pleasure from being part of a team, or more generally being part of a group devoted to achieving a shared goal. Being part of such a group is often valuable in itself. Sailors agree to join a racing crew not primarily to achieve the goal of racing successfully on that boat, but rather because they want to race as part of a team. Competing as part of a team is not simply (or not primarily) a means to an end, it is an end in itself. The special feeling of belonging to a team explains why people can take pleasure in having an exceptional individual on the team, as I described above. When the boat does well every crew member feels it is their success, taking pride in the outcome; when the boat does poorly it is everyone’s failure. All are emotionally invested in the performance of the boat. The general point that her account of plural subjects is too cognitive (or intellectualist) applies to Gilbert’s own parade example. Two people agree to take a walk together not simply to satisfy the goal of getting some exercise. They do so in part because taking walks with others is enjoyable in itself. In missing the essentially social aspect not only of team sports, but also of many other joint pursuits, Gilbert’s account leaves out the affective aspects of group activity. Much more can be said about the social aspect of sailboat racing, but I will only make a brief remark here. The shared interest in and commitment to racing is itself a kind of glue. Off the water there is a good deal of camaraderie among sailors on different boats, sharing information after racing about what worked and what didn’t, both formally in post-race debriefing sessions, and informally at the bar. Though it is not the main point, much of this activity helps newcomers to the sport develop their racing skills. It also has the effect of promoting a kind of WP at higher levels of aggregation than single boats, binding individual sailors and boats together in local fleets, and in regional and national class associations, creating plural subjects connected by the shared goals of developing and promoting the sport.

11.3  Building and Maintaining the WP In this final section I will discuss how to build and maintain the WP on the boat and consider some characteristic situations that can pose a threat to the WP. Most critical for maximizing a boat’s chance of success is having the right mix of individuals making up the plural subject. There is an important asymmetry among the crew. A boat is not a democracy; even if all crew members have input into the boat’s decisions, the skipper – the person who bears moral and legal responsibility for the vessel and its crew – is ultimately in charge. Crew members occupy various roles – tactician, jib trimmer, bowperson, etc. – but the roles need not be as well-­ defined as they are for other plural subjects such as corporations or clubs.

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Putting together a crew requires integrating individuals with different physical and cognitive abilities, different emotional profiles, and different strengths and weaknesses into a well-functioning whole. Good racing sailors know how to constitute themselves as a team. Any plural subject is more than simply the sum of its parts; its existence depends on the joint commitment that underpins the normative structure of obligations and entitlements described above, a commitment that, for teams engaged in competitive sports, involves an emotional component as well. Even if each individual is an experienced sailor, the team itself will often be a work in progress. The individuals must gel as a team. A good skipper can spot potential strengths and weaknesses, developing the former and being prepared to compensate for the latter.10 Ultimately, the goal is to build a crew that functions something like a unified organism, though with this difference: in an organism, if the heart isn’t working, the liver isn’t going to take over; if a crew member fails to do their designated job or gets into trouble, everyone is expected to step up and fill the gap. Being prepared to do so when necessary requires everyone maintaining the WP. Ultimately a skipper must recognize when a crew member simply can’t do (or isn’t doing) the job and replace them. There are other ways an individual may be a ‘bad crew’ besides being unable physically or mentally to do the job. Bad crew tend to come in characteristic types. There are sailors who think they are much better than they are, who overestimate their sailing knowledge or their ability to ‘read’ a situation, say on a crowded starting line or at a mark rounding, and can get the boat in trouble. There are ‘takeover types’ (typically, men) who move in to ‘help’ a crewmate (often a woman) who is doing perfectly fine. A woman sailing on a mixed gender boat is unlikely to be the strongest person on the boat, but strength is only one factor in allocating crew positions; good technique can make up for less brute strength. Timing is essential in tacking a jib, gybing a spinnaker pole, or raising a halyard; an experienced crew will execute the maneuver before the sail has a chance to load up. This is not to say that a good crew member doesn’t look around to make sure that no one needs an extra ‘pull’, but consistently stepping on a teammate’s toes can undermine the team spirit on the boat and threaten the WP. Another potential sign of trouble is the sailor who is always talking about themselves (or simply talking too much), bragging about their impressive feats in other situations and on other boats and generally attempting to focus the spotlight on themselves. A skipper interested in building a strong crew must be attuned to behavior that corrodes the WP on the boat and prepared to eliminate the threat. In summary, crew members can pose a threat to the WP either because they can’t pull their weight on the boat or because they have character traits or ingrained habits that corrode team spirit. That said, though, there may be someone on the boat who is so good – so physically gifted, so  For convenience I speak of the skipper as the person responsible for putting together the crew, but on many boats this job will be done jointly by the most experienced and long-standing members of the crew. Larger racing boats will often have a crew boss to handle crew issues, or in the case of offshore racing boats, watch captains who are responsible for the management of the crew on their watch.

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tactically brilliant – that the team is willing to put up with their flaws, but then it takes special vigilance to make sure that the problems do not ultimately outweigh the benefits. Performance under stress plays an important role in building a strong team. Many boats function well in ideal conditions. Everyone is at their best on a warm sunny day in 15 knots of breeze and flat water. But extreme conditions will test the boat and reveal the caliber of the crew; that’s when you find out whether you have someone who freezes in a tough situation, possibly jeopardizing the safety of the crew, or someone who balks at carrying out a directive, such as raising the spinnaker on a windy run. A crew breakdown has immediate consequences: others have to step up and take on extra responsibilities in the moment, sometimes putting themselves at risk. When the WP frays in this way it is generally impossible to repair it without replacing the errant crew, who has shown the team that they can’t be counted on. Often these individuals will decide to leave the boat of their own accord. On the other hand, having successfully managed stressful situations tends to strengthen the WP, provided that the success cannot be attributed simply to good luck. On most boats there will be times when not all of the crew are in “racing mode”, that is, when some sailors are not focused on the team’s goals. Sometimes this is appropriate: off-watch on a distance race is the time to relax and recharge one’s batteries, though one is still committed to jumping up on deck to help if called. But when crew members explicitly disengage from the WP – when they are no longer fully committed to the team’s goals  – the performance of the boat will suffer. Emotional challenges such as fear, boredom, and anger or frustration can cause crew to disengage from the WP, as can fatigue, seasickness and other forms of physical discomfort. I will conclude by discussing some of these factors. Even when fully engaged in racing, the sailors constituting the plural subject (‘the boat’) are still individual subjects, agents in their own right, with their own particular experiences, beliefs, desires, intentions, and emotional profiles. These don’t go away when sailors adopt the WP, and they can undermine the WP on a boat. Suppose we attribute to a boat the we-belief that the left side of the course will be favored on the next leg, and the we-intention to tack immediately after rounding the leeward mark and get to the left. We can further suppose that the crew discussed the various options on the previous leg and the skipper or tactician announced the decision to tack after the mark. That said, an individual sailor can have a contrary belief  – can even know  – that the boat will be heading to the wrong side of the course, perhaps having noticed and reported that boats ahead on the right side are sailing in a freshening breeze and pointing higher before the we-decision to head to the left was made. Attitudes attributable to the plural subject do not require that every constituent individual subject have the corresponding individual attitudes, and it is quite common that crew members may have opposing opinions or no attitude at all toward the matter at hand. It isn’t just physical labor that is distributed over the various crew members; efficiency typically requires that mental labor is too. If one’s input to a joint decision is overridden, one doesn’t just ‘check out’; a good crew member will still be fully engaged in getting the best out of the boat. But sometimes the dissonance between we-attitudes attributable to the boat and attitudes had by

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individual sailors will be too much. The belief or feeling that bad decisions are consistently being made can threaten the WP and undermine the joint commitment to the boat. The more crew members who feel this way the greater the threat. The problem is exacerbated if the boat is ahead in the race and a series of bad decisions threatens to squander a hard-fought-for lead. And it can be excruciating in light air where there may be limited opportunities to recover from mistakes. In general if the skipper (or the tactician, if the skipper has yielded authority) is too autocratic, consistently making bad decisions and ignoring input from the crew, so that it is obvious that their opinions are not respected, the WP may be threatened and the boat’s performance can suffer further. As I discussed above, heavy air creates stresses that can either threaten the WP or, if everyone rises to the occasion, strengthen it. But no condition is as challenging and as potentially corrosive of the WP on a sailboat as lack of wind. While the very top crews usually do well in light air (roughly, less than 3–4 knots) very few sailors know how to sail in it. Light air magnifies differences in sailing ability. The number of jobs on the boat effectively shrinks down to two – steering and sail trim. Everyone else is engaged in positioning their weight for optimal heel to take advantage of whatever wind there may be, subtly adjusting position as the wind fluctuates but most of the time trying to stay perfectly still so as not to disturb the sails or halt the boat’s forward progress through the water. While steering and trimming in light air require a soft touch and a great deal of skill, the other crew members are unable to use their sailing skills. And the field of view shrinks down to what is happening right here. It doesn’t matter that the boat that rounded the last mark behind you has a private puff and is now 100 m ahead (grrr!); boat-on-boat tactics are irrelevant now, you have to figure out how to get every bit of speed out of the air you have right here, right now. In very light air crewmembers may be sent below to sit on the cabin sole to lower the center of gravity in the attempt to make the boat a more stable platform for sail trim.11 Maintaining the WP in these conditions is perhaps most challenging of all. It is hard to keep your head in the race when you are down below and can’t see what is happening, when for long stretches nothing is happening, or, worst of all, when the boat next to you has a private puff while you have been parked for 20 min. Yet, as I have said, the very top boats consistently do well in light air. The key is patience. Above all, the boat has to resist doing some maneuver – usually tacking or gybing – motivated simply by boredom or wishful thinking. Often the best strategy is to do nothing, trim to whatever scintilla of wind one has, optimize weight placement, and wait it out. There may be calls from impatient, antsy crew members to tack or gybe, but nothing should be done without a clear rationale. Finally, another source of frustration, and a potential threat to the WP if it persists undiagnosed over the course of a race (or longer), are boatspeed problems. The boat simply isn’t moving as it should be  – boats on both sides of the course are consistently moving faster or pointing higher – and no one can figure out why. Is the rig tuned too tight, is the jib halyard too tight, or too loose, is the helmsman

11

 On the J/24 I sailed on for many years we called being sent below “getting sent to Elba.”

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pinching, is crew weight not properly distributed, is the boat overpowered for the conditions, could there be weeds on the keel (someone has already gone back to check the rudder)? Everyone’s head is exploding. The crew may be at the point of trying anything and everything – without the patience to apply Mill’s method of difference – to coax more speed out of the boat. If it gets to the point where the boat’s performance no longer depends on tactics and boat-handling, that is, on factors within the crew’s control, but rather on some mysterious lack of boatspeed, then morale on the boat will suffer. The upshot of this discussion is that many factors go into building and maintaining the WP, most obviously, balancing strengths and weaknesses of the crew, but there are also intangibles. The WP can be a fragile thing, but the best boats are composed of individuals who have what it takes to sustain it.

11.4  Concluding Remark In this paper I have made use of the notion of the we-perspective as a way of considering what it is to be a racing team. The notion allows us to characterize a crucial component of success in sailboat racing and to diagnose distinctive ways that racing teams can fail to sail to their full potential.12

References Crone, K. (2020). Foundations of a we-perspective. Synthese. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s11229-­020-­02834-­6 Gallotti, M., & Firth, C. (2013). Social cognition in the we-mode. Trends in Cognitive Science, 17(4), 160–165. Gallotti, M., & Huebner, B. (2017). Collective intentionality and socially extended minds. Philosophical Psychology, 30(3), 251–268. Gilbert, M. (2006). A theory of political obligation: Membership, commitment, and the bonds of society. Oxford University Press. Gilbert, M. (2009). Shared intentions and personal intentions. Philosophical Studies, 144, 167–187. Petersson, B. (2017). Team reasoning and collective intentionality. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 8, 199–218. Toumela, R. (2003). The we-mode and the I-mode. In F. Schmitt (Hrsg.), Socializing metaphysics: The nature of social reality. Rowman and Littlefield. Toumela, R. (2005). We-intentions revisited. Philosophical Studies, 125, 327–369. Frances Egan is Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. She is primarily a racing sailor, sailing mostly dinghies and small keelboats. [email protected]  

12  Thanks to Roberto Casati and to my spouse and longtime sailing partner, Bob Matthews, for valuable comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Chapter 12

Epistemology of Sailing Nicla Vassallo

To Eva who loves the sea. Swiftly cutting through the water, Falling spray on either side, Coyly dipping, Rising, skipping, Borne along by wind and tide, Merrily my boat doth glide. Dorothy Allen

Epistemology (philosophy of knowledge) is, together with metaphysics, the main discipline in analytic philosophy, as it has always been during the whole philosophy before the post-Kantian continental turn. Both in analytic philosophy and in continental philosophy, philosophy of sport was born, and in the analytic sphere it was particularly developed. Yet, in analytic philosophy of sport, epistemology does not appear as a major discipline, nor is any special attention paid to sailing. In the present article, I attempt to fix this by examining the kinds of knowledge that relate to the sea and sailing, and the value of testimony in this regard. Since we are in the analytical realm, the rich use of examples is to be expected. They are also indispensable in order to make sure that the relevance of epistemology is understood both by philosophers, considering that few philosophers are sailors, and therefore are not familiar with sailing, and by sailors, considering that few sailors are philosophers, who therefore are not familiar with philosophy. In any case, the present paper does not intend, nor can it claim any privilege to be conclusive, starting from its title. Why, for example, “Epistemology of Sailing”, and not “Epistemologies of Sailing”? Furthermore, a clarification: I am well aware of the importance of feminist epistemologies, and perhaps one day it will be worth reflecting on the possibility of N. Vassallo (*) School of Humanities, Philosophy Section, University of Genoa, Genova, Italy e-mail: [email protected]; https://niclavassallo.net/ © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. Casati (ed.), The Sailing Mind, Studies in Brain and Mind 19, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89639-3_12

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developing some feminist epistemologies of sailing, although I believe that the category “gender” should be abolished, as a category which penalizes women and “normalizes” them, robbing them of their personal identities and their knowledge, those of every human being, and every human being, to be such, at least according to Aristotle, must aspire to know.

12.1  Background Andrea is a cognitive subject. Woman – just a maritime superstition has a woman bring bad luck on boats. She has always been at sea and on the sea. She knows how to sail and windsurf; how to careen boats; how to free dive; how to swim (competing in the 100-meter freestyle); how to fish; how to race on “small” and “large” boats; how to row (Nicola Vassallo, her grandfather got her started on a canoe); how to dive. Andrea: was an examiner of practical-theoretical sailing for the achievement of the nautical patent; a nautical journalist (in that capacity, she also went to New Zealand, and, in particular, to the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, as well as to a hangar, where there were crammed KZ 3, KZ 5 and KZ 7); a sailing teacher; a bowman; a helmsman; awarded for her sailing qualities on the Amerigo Vespucci; recognized “expert sailor” by the Italian Naval League on January 13th, 1982; rescued and saved, during a shipwreck, by a military ship, the 5532; a professional skipper; obtained the license of qualification to command pleasure craft, motor and sailing without any limit of distance from the coast, issued on December 7, 1981 (Andrea was born on November 6, 1963); she participated several times in the Giraglia Cup. Andrea has a great-grandfather Maritime Master, Paolo Demoro, “Omu Grossu”, who often sailed with his consort (women at sea), skilful sailor, ocean sailor, embarked on brigantines, commanded the Marinetta and took command of the Carignano on June 26, 1907 to disembark only in December 1913, the year in which he began to command the Madonna di Montenero, and in 1919 the San Giuseppe; many services on steamships, as commander, boatswain, officer; in 1920 he started to captain the San Maurizio. Andrea’s great-great-grandfather, Capt. Napoleon Vincenzo Vassallo, was born in Porto Maurizio and graduated from the Nautical School. Against Savoia’s domination, he ordered an engraver to make a Genoese shield for the transom of his own ship and then to take the latter to national and international seas and ports; the shield did not have the cross of Genoa surmounted by a count’s crown, supported by two griffins with their tails low between their legs, but rather the doge’s crown, and the griffins with their tails high and swollen: “Griphus ut has angit sic hostes Janua frangit”. What types of knowledge does Andrea have?

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12.2  Three Types of Knowledge There are three main types of knowledge: competential, direct, and propositional. Competential knowledge – also called knowledge-how or practical knowledge – involves having some skill or expertise. We possess competential knowledge in knowing how to do not only simple “things” such as swimming, but also more complex and “technological” things such as operating motor and sailing boats. We find ourselves in the presence of direct knowledge when we know someone or something. This kind of knowledge, which clearly requires having been or being in direct contact with that someone or something, is quite common: we have direct personal experience of people and objects in the world, so that we can, for example, have direct knowledge of sailboats, crews, islands, seas, military ships, clouds, grandparents, waves, and winds. Finally, propositional knowledge takes the form of knowing that a proposition is true. Its range is very wide. Just consider how much knowledge we believe we possess, or possess: it is not only the knowledge we acquire in school (knowledge of propositions related to astronomy, biology, philosophy, logic, geography, mathematics, history, religion, and so on), but also the knowledge that the decision to build a watchtower on the Giraglia was taken by the gentleman Don Cristoforo Tagliacarne and the governor Stefano Passano, in order to defend the Corsican littoral from Pisan attacks, or the knowledge that KZ 3, KZ 5 and KZ 7 were designed by Bruce Farr – these are just two examples of a putative, long list, also because our propositional knowledge gets richer every day. Propositional knowledge and direct knowledge are considered to be the most important forms of knowledge, whereas competential knowledge is often neglected and considered to be tributary to the other two forms of knowledge. However, let us see what competential knowledge Andrea possesses. At the very least: sailing and windsurfing; examining applicants for boating licenses; hulling boats; being a bowman; freediving; teaching sailing; boating; swimming; fishing; piloting motor and sailboats with no distance limits from the coast; racing “small” and “large” boats; rowing; writing nautical journalism; “skippering”; steering; diving; receiving an award; being rescued. Let us now mention the direct knowledge Andrea possessed. At least of: Amerigo Vespucci; Auckland; sailboats; military boats; candidates for nautical licenses; sailboat oilskins; ropes; safety belts and harnesses (also for hoisting at the top of masts); Corsica; sea coasts; swimming caps and goggles; crews; lighthouses; France; Genoa; nautical papers; Giraglia; goiters; sailing gloves; islands; Italy; KZ 3, KZ 5 and KZ 7; seas; medals; Mediterranean; wetsuit for apnea and racing; military ship 5532; New Zealand; Nicola Vassallo; clouds; waves; brushes, fish; freediving weights; Pisa; hull paintings; stern; harbors; Porto Maurizio; awards; bow; oars; Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron; sheets; scuffles; freestyle, dolphin, breaststroke, backstroke; sailing boots; sailing equipment; lieutenant; tiller; wheel steering; diving boards and reefs; trophies; sails (mainsails, jibs, spinnakers, etc.); winds. Then we come to propositional knowledge, which Andrea has in large measure, even if we limit ourselves to her “being” at sea and on the sea. Drawing a minimalist

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list, Andrea knows that: she obtained on December 7, 1981 the license to command pleasure craft, motor and sailing without any distance limit from the coast; she has participated several times in the Giraglia Cup; KZ 3, KZ 5 and KZ 7 are 12 meters; the Amerigo Vespucci is a Navy sailing ship, launched in 1931; the Giraglia Cup is the oldest Italian sailing trophy, never interrupted since its creation and, for a long time, the only regatta in the Mediterranean; the headquarters of the Italian Naval League are located in Rome; to go sailing, a boat and one or more sails are required; to go windsurfing, a board and a sail are required; to examine candidates for nautical licenses, boats are required; to examine candidates for nautical licenses, questions are required; to hull boats, glass paper is required, etc.; to swim water is required; to go to New Zealand, you need to board planes or ships; to race, you need another boat to race on, or better yet, other boats and race courses; to dive, you often need diving boards and rocks; to receive an award means to have shone; “skipper” means, in seafaring language, “captain” or “master” of a small vessel, while, in sporting language, it indicates that cognitive subject who directs the maneuvers of racing sailboats; a good helmsman has to a very good feeling on the rudder; there is a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II hanging in the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron. A few mentions of the obvious links between the three types of knowledge. Considering the links between competential and propositional knowledge, since Andrea knows how to do certain things, she also has propositional knowledge about them: for example, since she knows how to go sailing, she knows that it is necessary to sew the sails, choose a gait based on one’s course and the origin of the wind, and steer. Considering the links between direct knowledge and propositional knowledge, since Andrea knows her grandfather Nicola Vassallo, she knows that he is the brother of Napoleon L.C.  Vassallo. It is the case, moreover, that competential knowledge and direct knowledge are related knowing the Giraglia, Andrea knows how to circumnavigate it, during the Giraglia Cup. However, a cognitive subject different from Andrea may know how to sail without knowing how to steer, because he is only in charge of the winches, or he may know Nicola Vassallo without knowing that he is the brother of Napoleon L.C. Vassallo, or he may know the Giraglia without knowing how to circumnavigate it. What does possession of propositional knowledge specifically imply? It does not necessarily imply to have competential knowledge: we can, for example, know all the propositions related to the technique of a good anchorage of pleasure boats, because we have learned them from a manual and, nevertheless, not know how to make a good anchorage, that is, even if we know that for a good anchorage in calm sea we need an anchor-rope-chain at least three times as long as the seabed, and that in rough sea conditions it is necessary to increase this length, we can commit the gross mistake of trying to anchor two miles from Capo Noli: the depth of the seabed is one thousand meters, which, with a calm sea, would require 3000 meters of chain! Propositional knowledge, on the other hand, frequently involves direct knowledge: if Andrea knows that her grandfather Nicola Vassallo has blue eyes, this is because she has seen that he has blue eyes, not because she has read a treatise on his grandfather and his eyes, while, if she knows that the Mistral is blowing at forty knots, it is because she is sensing the wind at 40 knots.

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It is quite common opinion that only reflexive or meditative beings, that is humans (and, possibly, some primates and cetaceans) are capable of propositional knowledge, while the whole animal kingdom is certainly capable of competential knowledge and direct knowledge. It is, however, to be emphasized that, compared to primates and cetaceans, our propositional knowledge is incomparably larger, as well as extremely developed and sophisticated: just think that a primate or a cetacean has no concept of what is a pilot book, while humans have drawn up more than one, starting from what is believed to be the oldest in the Mediterranean, the Compasso da navegare, anonymous and undated, that the historian Bacchisio Motzo has found in the Thirties in a library in Alghero. And humans have done far more, centering their society on the need for propositional knowledge, so they have equipped themselves with school systems, books, newspapers, and so on, including sailing schools, schools for obtaining nautical licenses, nautical manuals and books, and nautical magazines. But through what sources does the human cognitive subject, Andrea, acquire knowledge?

12.3  The Value of Testimony I believe that the value of testimony comes particularly to light in the epistemology of sailing. This is because testimony is irreplaceable, more than in other sports. It is enough to remember that the knowledge of the boat, the sailors, and the complex environment, that is the sea, the wind, etc., which are combined in a varied way, depending on the type of navigation, of the stellar configurations (think of astronomical navigation), of the jackets (Arctic and Antarctic navigation) of the lunar phases (the tides), of the instrumentation of the seas that are crossed, relies on testimony. It is not like dancing or playing the violin, where what counts is the repetition of doing, and therefore the development of knowledge-how. It is not even like cycling, playing beach volley, swimming in the sea, skiing, where a variation in environmental conditions is important, but not so stressed. As for the value of testimony, sailing can only be compared to mountain climbing. However, in mountain climbing there is no “object” comparable to the boat, coming in a variety of types, the knowledge of which depends once again on testimony. This claim is an important thesis, and as such it deserves a separate discussion. Here I am concerned rather to show that testimony is not a secondary source of knowledge. What are the main sources of knowledge? When confronted with the question “why do you believe that a certain proposition p is true?” or when confronted with the question “how do you know that a certain proposition p is true?”, Andrea has several answers available: (i) “I perceive that p,” (ii) “I remember that p,” (iii) “I infer that p,” (iv) “I am aware that p,” (v) “I am witnessed that p”. (i) can occur in front of propositions like “the Mistral blows at forty knots”: the corresponding cognitive source is perception. (ii) may occur in the presence of propositions such as “my great-great-grandfather was called Napoleon Vassallo”: the corresponding cognitive source is memory. (iii) occurs in the case of propositions such as “All sailors are mortal and Andrea is a sailor, therefore Andrea is

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mortal” (deductive inference) or “The Black Moor1 is black, the Black Moor2 is black, the Black Moor3 is black, ..., most of Black Moors are black” (inductive inference): the corresponding cognitive source is reason or reasoning. You can get (iv) in front of all propositions that concern self-knowledge (e.g. “I think I am happy in a sailing a boat”, “I imagine a crystal clear sea”; “I feel I love the wind”): the corresponding cognitive source is internal perception or awareness or introspection. Finally, propositions such as “Frank Beken began taking photographs in 1988”, or “the Fastnet race is 608 nautical miles long”, or “Queen Elizabeth runs the Royal Yacht Club” give rise to answer (v): the corresponding cognitive source is testimony. The first four cognitive sources are individual, while the fifth is social: this means that knowledge obtained through testimony requires social interaction (and not that it is the social, rather than the individual, that really knows). Connections between different sources of knowledge surface. Just one example: in order to be able to remember that p, Andrea must first have perceived that p, or inferred that p, or have been aware that p, or have had a testimony that p. It is on testimony that we intend to focus here, for two main reasons: first, compared to other cognitive sources, it has been little investigated, and other cognitive sources, such as perception and reasoning, have been unfairly preferred; second, human cognitive subjects are social beings who have developed and continue to develop a sophisticated system of mutual exchange of information and knowledge. Often Andrea’s knowledge is tributary to the words of other cognitive subjects, to the testimony of others, and if she relied only on perception, memory, awareness, reason, but not on testimony, she would know decidedly less than she supposes she knows: she could not know facts or events of the past (e.g., that the Phoenicians were great navigators), or those events of the present that are far away from Andrea (e.g. that on December 19, 2020, Emirates Team New Zealand won the Series with 5 points, ahead of American Magic at 4, Luna Rossa at 3, and Ineos Team UK at 0), or those scientific theories that are outside the range of Andrea’s expertise (e.g: the “global terrestrial stilling”, which occurred a few decades ago, and, particular, the discovery of the global decrease in wind speed that seems to have started in the 1960s). Without relying on testimony, Andrea could not know even very trivial facts that she takes for granted, such as that the earth is spherical and revolves around the sun, that her date of birth is November 6, 1963, that her grandparents are Adele Beltrami, Luisa De Moro, Nicola Vassallo, Battista Vercesi. Science itself, including the science of sailing, is not a territory alien from testimony. Many of the theories that a scientist accepts depend on what other scientists say. The same is true for data, since often a scientist does not personally perform all the necessary experiments in which data are acquired, nor the analysis of the data: these are operations that, more often than not, take too long to be performed by a single cognitive subject. Furthermore, scientific research is increasingly carried out by groups, and not by individuals, due to the fact that the knowledge of single individuals is not sufficient to conduct experiments etc. If it is true that every observation is “theory laden”, i.e. it is always dependent on theory, then the observations of the scientist are also linked to testimony: it is through testimony that theories are mostly transmitted. In the wake of Gestalt psychology and Wittgenstein’s philosophy, Norton Hanson (1958) has fully developed

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the argument that observation is “theory laden”. He wonders whether Kepler, who believes that the earth moves around the sun, and Tycho Brahe, who believes the opposite, see the same event when they observe the sun rising. According to Hanson, with respect to the rising of the sun, Kepler and Brahe are in the same condition as the rest of us when we observe ambiguous images and see different things (in one image we may see a duck or a rabbit: in another image, an old woman or a comely young woman, and so on). Hanson concludes that observation is a “theory-laden” enterprise, conditioned by prior knowledge of what is being observed and influenced by language, which is employed to express what we know, without the aid of which we would be able to recognize very little as knowledge. And theories are for the most part transmitted through testimony. It is not, however, necessary to deal in detail with a specific branch of science in order to grasp the notion of “theory-ladenness”; it is sufficient to consider a simple observational proposition of everyday experience, such as “Help, Andrea is shipwrecked at sea!”. This statement evidently depends on a theory, a theory that implies the existence of a human cognitive subject called Andrea, who possesses the property of being shipwrecked, and the existence of an object called sea in which one can be shipwrecked. Moreover, the expression “Help!” conveys a request for help, linked to the fact that Andrea is shipwrecked and is, therefore, faced with the event of being hurt or even losing her life. That statement is indeed related to perception, but it depends, in turn, on a complex theory composed of propositions, or beliefs, or knowledge, in the speaker or the listener, relating to the existence of human cognitive subjects, things, properties, requests and events. These types of beliefs are acquired at an early age and are, for the most part, transmitted by testimony from parents or teachers. The term “testimony” commonly conjures up the image of a courthouse. Here, testimony is often linked to reasoning. Assuming that she is a judge by trade, Andrea does not accept testimony tout court, but evaluates the witness – be he an eyewitness or be it reports a scientific theory (ballistic or psychiatric, and so on). It places the testimony in the context of the trial and weighs it, in light of her background knowledge, to accommodate what seems true on the basis of a broad view. Thus, the acceptance of testimony here depends on reasoning: given the premises that (we assume) the witness appear to be credible and that his claims fit with what Andrea knows about the court case in question, she comes to reasonably believe them. It seems, then, that testimony is a cognitive source secondary to reasoning since it presupposes the latter. In everyday life, however, the beliefs produced by testimony have an inferential character only when propositions that appear strange to us are reported. Let us look at a specific case. Let’s imagine that a cognitive subject Y, unknown to Andrea, meets a talented sailor such as James Spithill, currently tenth in the International Sailing Federation World Match Race ranking. Y reports to Andrea that he was having dinner with Spithill at a Yacht Club, alleging that the latter showed strong signs of mental imbalance. Since Andrea knows Spithill well and has never wavered on his mental health, she suspends judgment on the testimony, or remains incredulous. As Y’s account progresses, Andrea reasons in order to evaluate the justification of Y’s testimony and then accept or reject it. Generally, however, when propositions that are not anomalous are referred to human cognitive subjects, the testimony does not require inferential reasoning.

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When trusted friends testify to a certain proposition and the aforementioned subjects do not believe that the proposition in question is beyond the competence of their friends, they normally believe the proposition in question, without too much hesitation. In other words, and more specifically, Andrea believes the testimony of others when the propositions testified to do not conflict with some prior belief or knowledge of Andrea. Consider Andrea’s typical behavior during a common everyday situation: a trip. She has to travel to Auckland. Her travel agent sells her a plane ticket, and she believes what the agent (and the ticket) tells her about the departure and arrival times of the plane. Once at her destination, she goes to the Castaways Resort, where the waiter tells her that the best choice for dinner is the seafood chowder (as an appetizer), roasted salmon fillet (as a main course), and seasonal vegetables (as a side dish), all accompanied by a Clos Henri Pinot Noir 2015: Andrea trusts what the waiter tells her. At the reception, Andrea then confides in what she is told about the spa and the opening hours: she books for the next evening. And later in the day before the evening? Through a website, she books a “place” on a 67-foot schooner, where she will have the opportunity to steer for hours. From the time Andrea left, to helming the schooner, Andrea accepted several testimonies, and, in this example, without inference. Why then doesn’t the epistemology of testimony enjoy wider recognition? Because the proper evaluation of this cognitive source has been hindered by an individualist conception of the cognitive subject, such as that defended by Descartes (1641), who is convinced, for example, that the cognitive subject must be free and respectable from an epistemic point of view and can only be so if it does not rely on testimony. At the head of modern rationalists (but does it make sense to speak of rationalism?), Descartes, as a certain “extremist” reading has it, possibly removed from the “true” philosophy of Descartes, gives priority to reason and reasoning over any other cognitive source. The “extremist” empiricists (but does it make sense to speak of empiricism?) dissent and favor perception. They do not, however, thereby hold testimony in higher regard: for them, real cognitive progress occurs only to the extent that we ourselves consider truth and perceive the world, and not to the extent that we accept the testimony of others. This general devaluation of the testimony meets with some difficulties. Think of the Cartesian program and its consequent methodological solipsism: the cognitive subject is forced to rely only on his own inner evidence in order to defeat the skeptic and achieve the certainty from which to derive the philosophical-rational demonstration of the existence of God and the external world. At the beginning of the Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, Descartes rejects, first of all, the testimony of the Bible, and then discards all that he has learned in the course of his existence and starts from “zero” in order to ground a firm and lasting knowledge and science. We can, however, point out that such a move is not allowed to him: in order to write the Meditationes, he must still rely on language and, therefore, he cannot renounce his knowledge of it: a knowledge that he, like all of us, has learned through the testimony, intentional or not, of other subjects. We can learn, for example, the word “boat,” either by observing that there is a boat whenever someone utters the word “boat” (unintentional testimony), or, more frequently, because someone tells us “this is a boat,” when there is a boat, or because they tell us “the boat is a floating object” (intentional testimony). If Descartes

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intends to write the Meditationes, he is forced to admit the importance of testimony as a cognitive source: by not admitting it, he cannot write them – he could, perhaps, think them out, but not according to the point of view of those who claim that it is not possible to think except in some language. We come now to the extreme empiricists. Against the priority they give to perception, if we limit ourselves to visual observation, we can rehearse the problem, already mentioned, that every observation is “theory-laden”: it is not, therefore, admissible to privilege perception, without also privileging testimony. Certainly, in favor of the empiricists, one can note the fact that it happens that one rejects a testimony by virtue of one’s individual observations. Returning to our example, once in the resort, Andrea intends to visit the New Zealand Maritime Museum, so she asks directions to a passer-by who replies: “Straight ahead, north, on the left”. As she continues in this direction, Andrea sees the Maritime Museum on her right, by the sea, and this observation leads her to reject the testimony that the building should have been on her left. Her refusal, however, is – let us repeat – in favor of the empiricists, only if every observation is not “theory-laden”, that is, if it is not dependent, in the end, on testimony. And, on the other hand, against empiricists, one can point to the dual fact that we happen to reject our observations by virtue of a testimony, as (for example) when Andrea is steering the schooner in the Gulf of Hauraki, and to his statement “That is Pakihi Island”, the sailor replies “No, you are wrong, that is Pakatoa Island”, Andrea reacts by rejecting her own statement together with the observation that supports it and accepts the testimony of the sailor. The extremism of a certain empiricist regarding testimony does not convince Hume, who declares, “There is no species of reasoning more common, more useful, and even necessary to human life, than that which is derived from the testimony and accounts of eyewitnesses and bystanders” (1748, Section VIII, Part I). Aside from the fact that, as seen there, testimony is not necessarily tied to reasoning, this statement reassesses the importance of it. However, Hume does not give testimony the same status as perception; the latter is given a privileged position in any case: he proposes to justify our acceptance of testimony by finding, precisely through observation, that the facts correspond to what is testified to. One of the obvious problems of this proposal is that the testimonies report facts that, for the most part, are observationally inaccessible to most of us. Dissenting from Hume is Reid (1764) who emphasizes, against the individualistic conception of the cognitive subject, our being social creatures, predisposed to naturally rely on testimony, and not by virtue of the reasons, or justifications, which we have: if we had to rely on the latter we would not believe, nor would we know, a fraction of what we are told. According to Reid, the principle of truthfulness (we are inclined to tell the truth) and the principle of credulity (we are inclined to believe others) are always at work in us, unless other factors intervene, such as, we may suppose, the realization that the witness is a liar, or the possession of evidence contrary to what is being testified to, or the realization that the testimony conflicts with our beliefs. Consideration of these other factors introduces, in each case, the problem of justification. In Reidian terms we can say that, in order to be justified in believing a certain proposition p, reported by a certain witness T, the minimum requirements for Andrea are the following: understanding p, not having valid

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reasons to doubt sensibly the sincerity of T, not having good evidence against p, or beliefs in conflict with p. To this can be added the requirement that one has no valid reason to think that T’s belief about p is not justified, or the stronger requirement that one has a valid reason to think that T’s belief about p is justified.

12.4  Hume or Reid How to sail? With Hume or with Reid? Which approach to prefer, given that Humean and Reidian approaches disagree on the need for independent support to grant Andrea justified belief? According to the second approach, but not the first, reasons hinging on testimony and contrary evidence are sufficient. In simple, general, contemporary terms, a Humean approach subscribes to: (h) Andrea is justified in believing that a proposition p is true if she has reasons to believe that the belief of a witness T relative to p is justified. Conversely, for a Reidian approach: (r) Andrea is justified in believing that a proposition p is true if she has no reason to believe that the belief of a witness T relative to p is not justified.1 Assume that witness T tells Andrea the proposition p “You sail the Laser well with a 7.06 square meter mainsail, so you can trash yours which is a 4.7 square meter mainsail”, and that Andrea has no evidence to the contrary. Although her background knowledge – she is fit and well trained – does not allow her to completely exclude that she can sail the Laser well with a large mainsail, Andrea doubts the reliability of the witness, being aware that T states p for the sole opportunistic purpose of inducing her to buy such a mainsail. Andrea has reasons to believe that T’s belief is unjustified, which refers to the condition (r) that, unsatisfied, denies her justification to believe that p is true. However subtle, the difference between (h) and (r) is significant: (h), a strong condition, imposes more than (r). Having good epistemic reasons to believe justified the belief of T regarding p, can make indispensable, unlike not having them, the recourse to an additional testimony, that of an expert, such as, for example, Marit Bouwmeester, her fourth world title obtained in Melbourne in 2020, exceptional laserist, able to attest, on the basis of a good empirical evidence, the truth of the statement p. Even though some philosophers take Hume’s side, and some take Reid’s side, in the belief that either approach works better than the other, there are circumstances in which one approach is reasonable and circumstances in which the other is reasonable. Certainly, proverbs such as “may God protect me from my friends and I will protect myself from my enemies” are pearls of wisdom, but in the contexts of our families and friends, it is mostly sensible to construe testimony à la Reid, while in

 Similar formulations are found in Stevenson (1993).

1

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uncharted contexts, in the presence of unknown individuals, construe it à la Hume. Is it not preferable to place trust in witnesses we have known for a long time, as opposed to unfamiliar witnesses? Yes and no. If a non-sailor friend of Andrea’s testifies to a proposition such as “The white myrtle is good at that bar in Bonifacio,” the lightness of the question itself recommends a Reidian approach, whereby Andrea is justified (or unwarranted) in believing her friend. If, on the other hand, her friend bears witness to a proposition on an issue of the type “On the Laser you can easily get out of Bonifacio with a Mistral of 15 m/sec” – this is much more demanding than sipping a myrtle – the seriousness of the question itself recommends a Humean approach, according to which Andrea is justified (or unjustified) in believing her friend. On the other hand, a Humean approach is advisable when the friend testifies to Andrea about propositions over which they have no competence, such as “You are holding the Laser well with a 7.06 square meter mainsail, so you can trash your 4.7 square meter sail”; a Reidian approach is advisable instead, when the “unknown” Marit Bouwmeester testifies, again to Andrea, such a proposition or one of the same types.

12.5  Witness: In a Nutshell In early childhood, when we sail on Optimists, we accept testimonies without justification, without sufficiently evaluating the witnesses, without having a particular critical attitude. According to Ludwig Wittgenstein, “the child learns to believe a lot of things2” “because he believes adults. Doubt comes after belief”,3 so that “a child learns that there are narrators worthy of belief and narrators who are worthy of belief are not, long after he has learned facts that are told to him”.4 If we were to prescribe otherwise, we would be forced to deny children justified beliefs and knowledge through testimony, which would in fact be tantamount to denying them much of what they learn, including, but not limited to, about the Optimists. Although in early childhood doubt comes after belief, as we grow up, we develop a sort of meta-knowledge, i.e. knowledge about the reliability, even comparative, of different witnesses, to realize that, motivated by self-love, ignorance, stupidity, lust for money, fame, power, the witness loses reliability, or at least should lose it. According to David Hume, “a man delusional, or known for his falsehood and deceitfulness has no authority over us”;5 if he does, so much the worse for us: we acquire lies, false beliefs, unjustified beliefs, suffering epistemic damage. Again, “we harbor suspicion around some matter of fact, when the spectators of the same fact contradict each other, when they are few in number or of doubtful character,

 See Wittgenstein (1969, p. 144).  See Wittgenstein (1969, p. 160). 4  See Wittgenstein (1969, p. 143). 5  See Hume (1748, Section X, Part I). 2 3

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when they have interest in what they assert, when they present testimony with hesitation or, on the contrary, with overly violent assertions”.6 In short, in the case of an adequate number of witnesses, if they agree with each other, their reliability is not questioned, as happens instead when they contradict each other, or when their number is small. On the other hand, reliability is reduced not only if the witness is psychically disturbed (delusional and of unstable character), or dishonest in affirming propositions for interest, ignorance, stupidity, but also if he/she testifies with hesitation or violence. What characteristics must a reliable witness exhibit? In short: attention (to what T himself says and what is said), clarity, benevolent intentions (he does not want to deceive us), competence, consistency (with the testimony of others, and within his own testimony), calmness (T does not claim to be believed at all costs), respect (he does not state insulting propositions).7 I would say that such qualities are required at sea and in sailing, activities in which one often risks one’s life, rather than in the terrestrial and daily existence in which one relies, in fact and unfortunately frequently, on unreliable witnesses.8

References Descartes, R. (1641). Meditationes de Prima Philosophiae. Michel Soly. Hanson, N. R. (1958). Patterns of discovery: An inquiry into the conceptual foundations of science. Cambridge University Press. Hume, D. (1748). Philosophical essays concerning human understanding. A. Millar. Locke, J. (1690). An essay concerning human understanding. The Baffet. Reid, T. (1764). An inquiry into the human mind, in inquiry and essays. Hackett. Stevenson, L. (1993). Why believe what people say? Synthese, 94, 429–451. Wittgenstein, L. (1969). On certainty. Basil Blackwell. Nicla Vassallo is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Genoa and associate researcher at Isem/Cnr. She raced mostly on 420, 470, Laser, and on 27–45 ft monohulls. She presently sails on Laser Master. [email protected]  

 See Hume (1748, Section X, Part I).  Some of these characteristics are enumerated by Locke (1690, Ch. xv). 8  Although it was mentioned, it was not the “new” America’s Cup. It’s just that we agree with Cino Ricci: “I won’t allow myself to say that it’s not good, because everyone lives in their own time and this is the time of sailing today. Neither do I allow myself to belittle those who are on it and all the technicians and designers who have developed these boats: I admire them. I am for progress, for raising the bar and the America’s Cup has to do that in sailing. Every time it must move forward, and it has to be futuristic, in short, out of its way. So, let us forget the old America’s Cups, this is the America’s Cup of this time and there’s no going back. But the art of sailing is something else, it’s what we learn as children on the Optimist”. And about the Ac75: “It’s definitely a prodigious machine. But it’s more like a glider. I miss, again, the spectacle in terms of the science and art of sailing. At least, of my sailing, the one I mean” (La Stampa, December 31, 2020). 6 7

Chapter 13

Inclusive Sailing Anna Oddone

“After two days of racing, at daybreak we find ourselves chasing Bretagne Telecom, our long time opponent. As we enter the Quiberon Bay, we have left all the other competitors behind. We suffer as we see them drifting to leeward of the buoy, a few lengths ahead of us, and then passing it. We finish on a long reaching tack where it is only us and them, ten meters apart from each other: the rest of the world does not exist anymore. Two magnificent boats: in front, a Mach 45, and right behind it, our 13 tons Volvo Ocean Race 60 Team Jolokia. We try to overtake them to windward, get back behind, then try to overtake them to leeward. We observe the water, hoping to spot the change that could give us an advantage. Our eyes are on them, but theirs are also on us – at first furtive and nonchalant, then more and more intense, then tense. For an hour, we do not let go of anything. A few words exchanged on the boat, a few jokes, but in mid-voice, as if the slightest noise could slow us down. We cross the finish line at full speed, so close that we can almost touch them. We burst into joy, in spite of the disappointing second place. We smile and applaud each other, with our adversary who usually never looks at us, never talks to us. A victory alone wouldn’t have triggered more joy and pride than this duel shared with them, than the mutual respect and the recognition of the value of the other.” Jolokia is a non-profit organization created in France in 2012, with the aim of promoting diversity and inclusion in society, and proving that diversity is a source of performance. The project is based on a unique approach: every year, 22 crew members train on a VO60 and participate in top European offshore racing regattas. Despite the program, the crew members who form Team Jolokia are far from being professional sailors: sometimes they are people who have never set foot on a boat. The idea is simple: recruit a crew as mixed as possible – in terms of age, nationality, gender, cultural and social background, presence or absence of physical disability, sailing experience – train them, and bring them to race on the international circuits A. Oddone (*) Plankton Planet, Roscoff, France © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. Casati (ed.), The Sailing Mind, Studies in Brain and Mind 19, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89639-3_13

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alongside the big names in sailing. And of course try to finish each race on the podium. Under their feet, an exceptional boat: a Volvo Ocean 60. With an overall length of 19.6 m and 500 m2 of downwind sail area, the boat is a Formula One of the seas. Designed by Laurie Davidson and built in 2001, Team Jolokia is the former Djuice Dragon, one of the two boats of the Norwegian team who won 6th place in the 2001-2002 Volvo Ocean Race. The Volvo Ocean Race – whose slogan is “Life at the Extreme”  – is a crewed round-the-world sailing competition. It is a very tough race – both for its course and because the performance-based design of the boats makes the deck very exposed to the waves, so there is very little respite from the elements for the crew members onboard. The choice of a VO60 for the project was intentional. When it comes to inclusion and diversity issues, sailing is a particularly challenging field. There is traditionally a very low presence of women, and even more so of disabled people, in the world of sailing, especially sailing competitions. To defy this lack of diversity and prove that it has no reason to be, Jolokia decided to use for their project a VO60, a boat designed with strong male athletes in mind. In June 2012, the VO60 Libertalia (Team Jolokia) moored for the first time at its new home, next to Pen Duick and Tara, at the Cité de la Voile in Lorient, France. One year later, Pierre Meisel and Eric Bellion, the two founders, lined up with their improbable crew at the starting line of the Fastnet Race. Since then, a hundred crew members have passed through Team Jolokia and proven their worth in famous races such as the Fastnet Race, Middle Sea Race, Dhream Cup, ArMen Race and Cowes Week, to name a few. Several podium finishes are now in the record book of this VO60 with an unusual history. We like to say that Team Jolokia has shown by example that diversity is a strength. People who would not necessarily have hooked up at a party, who would not have gone on vacation together or who would not enjoy working together, have managed to connect, to face challenges together, to function in harmony as a team and to find their way to the podium of international regattas. Why does it work? What is the secret? We don’t fully understand it yet, but here I will put forward some ideas and hypotheses. Before offering some thoughts on why the boat is an extraordinary means to work with people, and about how the “Jolokia attitude” is an amplifier of this effect, I will briefly describe what happens on board, to give an idea of what the “Jolokia experience” is, and what the results are. At the beginning of each year the board that runs the association, along with a few collaborators, meets in Paris to select the new crew for the season. Out of the 22 team members who make up Team Jolokia there are a dozen new recruits every year, replacing those who had to leave: Jolokia requires a major time investment, the kind of commitment that many can only afford over one or two seasons. About twenty candidates, selected on the basis of their answers to a questionnaire about who they are and why they are applying, meet for two days during the selection. On the program, an interview with the board to get to know each candidate (and to allow the candidate to get to know Jolokia), an interview with psychologists of the French Navy, a demonstration of sailing ability for those who declared that they know how

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to sail, and a sports test with Stéphane, Team Jolokia’s sports coach (and top sailors’ such as Jérémie Beyou, among others). During these selection days, the candidates begin to get to know each other and start bonding. The distinctive recruitment strategy of Team Jolokia has been analyzed in depth by researchers from Lille University (Warnier & Zaoual, 2020). Two months later, the first training session takes place in Lorient. The new recruits board the boat for the first time, together with “the old ones”, the crew members from the previous year (although this distinction is abandoned as soon as the new crew is formed). The first training session is hard: it is cold, the temperature inside the boat rarely exceeds 10 degrees, the boat is very spartan and the bunks are uncomfortable. In the morning we have coffee on the frozen deck, we get dressed for the sports session and we head towards the beach. The sun has not risen yet, the sand is wet: for an hour and a half we are put to the test, with exercises aimed at developing the physical strength necessary to perform on a VO60 without getting injured. The rhythm is intense. Steph, the coach, is both demanding and understanding. Acceptance of individual differences starts here: among the recruits there are young people, former top athletes, women, men, older people, more sedentary people, people with disabilities. They give everything they have. What is certain is that, even if the results are very different for each one, they all suffer in equal measure. The atmosphere during the training is serious but playful. By responding to the coach’s teasing, the “old crew members” let the newcomers know that they can relax, that no one is there to judge them. Jeff, the skipper and trainer, endure the same exercises and teasing as the rest of the crew. And, in those rare moments when he’s not in charge, he allows himself to joke around too. The first elements of Jolokia’s success are thus put in place: surpassing of oneself and playing. Once back to the boat we have breakfast. Jeff briefs the crew on the course of the day. Once the briefing is over, everybody gets active: we go to the container to get the sails and the sheets, we prepare the lunch, we get dressed for the day at sea, we rig the boat. Then we leave, come rain (which is often the case in Brittany) or shine. If the wind and sea conditions allow it, we will sail: there can be 20–25 knots, with people on board who don’t know the boat, others who have never sailed in their life, people with disabilities... everyone is at their new post. And we will hoist the spinnaker. As a sailing boat, Team Jolokia is a titan. The first time you step on board you feel the excitement of being on board a Volvo Ocean Race boat: you feel proud and suddenly very humble. A bit scared too. Everything is oversized: the winches are 4–5 times the size of a normal winch and are operated by coffee grinders; each sail weighs between 30 and 80 kg; the spinnaker pole is 8 m long; the running backstays carry a load of 9 tons. The mooring lines are thick and heavy: impossible to coil them by holding them in one hand. Once on the water, everyone tries to find their place, figuratively as well as physically: we try not to get hurt with the coffee grinders, to find something to hold onto when moving from one side of the boat to the other during the maneuvers, to follow the instructions, to learn as quickly as possible, while marveling at the beauty and the power of this boat that moves so slickly through the water.

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The training sessions end late in the evening. By the time we have tidied up the boat, put away the sheets, the sails, and made a collective debriefing of the day, it is 9pm. We have a shower at the harbor master’s office, we eat something and then go straight to bed. The next day we start again, even more tired, even more amazed. All those who sail know what it means. The suffering, the fear, the doubt of having abandoned the safety of your home and land for a dream or a chimera; but also the emotion of feeling the boat glide, the sound of the water on the hull, the satisfaction of a successful maneuver and the contentment of returning to shore victorious, with nothing broken. The crew members who come aboard Jolokia are generally very determined people, even when they are not aware of it. This is not to say that they are muscular and fearless: on board there are some strong and self-confident men and women, but there are also weaker people, shy people, or people in the middle of an existential crisis. And mix of all these attributes: shy but muscular, strong but doubtful, weak but confident, kind but stubborn. Perhaps the one trait that unites them all is that they are willing to fight for something they believe in, despite the odds. Given my research work as cellular biologist, I have been involuntarily observing the processes that operate on board the way I look at cellular processes through a microscope. I will share here my observations and interpretations, hoping that this account may stimulate new insights into the processes that operate on a boat, and into the systems that can promote inclusion: it should not be taken as an academic interpretation of this experience. On the other hand, even though it goes beyond the scope of this chapter, the reader should be aware that there is a massive amount of scientific and philosophical research on the value of diversity. The most noticeable result is that Team Jolokia often manages a good position in the races, finishing amongst the semi-professional and professional teams. Teams that have sometimes come to congratulate Jeff on our results, even though at first this strange crew was almost ignored, as if they didn’t belong in these competitions, as if they were almost considered a bad joke. It doesn’t happen every day to see a VO60, and it is even more of a surprise when, on board this powerful boat, you see a woman with a small physique, a visibly disabled girl, a nerdish young man, an old man with only one leg. (“Does everyone have a role on board?” We are asked, a little suspiciously, during the party after the award ceremony. “Yes” we smile “Everyone.”) But the more interesting results are probably the most difficult to describe. The first result is that our view of disability changes completely, as physical differences quickly become blurred. On board, it is sometimes difficult to remember who has a physical disability and who doesn’t, because disability becomes a continuous range of possibilities: in a sense, the absence of disability disappears as it doesn’t take us long to see how disabled we all are on this boat. The notion of disability takes on a whole new connotation: disability is what does not allow us to do what we would like to be able to do. For example, Raphaëlle, who at the beginning of her first season had to move across the boat by dragging herself on her buttocks (she has partially lost the use of one side of her body due to a stroke) was fully able, two years later, to participate in the Fastnet race, where she not only adjusted the spinnaker perfectly using her functional arm, but moved from one side of the boat

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to the other with the same agility as any of us. Or Olivier who, after having made the crew suffer for a long time during his watches at the helm, because he could not see the waves coming, became after a few months the best helmsmen on board. His blindness, initially a weakness, had turned into a strength: it allowed him to develop an incredible sensitivity, and precision, for all the movements of the boat, a sensitivity that most of us will never be able to reach. And many – on paper apparently “normal” – discovered themselves powerless in front of certain tasks. We also discovered to what extent the human being is capable of finding solutions to physical disabilities, and less easily to mental ones. So the notion of “presence or absence of disability” becomes a complex one. And everyone, regardless of their background or physical condition, becomes aware of how disable they are when alone. None of us can maneuver a boat like the VO60 singlehanded: we are obliged to function together, to rely on each other. And in general, we want to. Because the second invisible but meaningful result is what we build on board: the happiness of being with people we don’t necessarily have an affinity with, people we did not choose and yet we hug with joy every time we meet. A harmony achieved also throughout conflicts, and in record time: only a selection of the total crew takes part in each training session, a different configuration for each regatta. The crew is therefore a changing and dynamic animal. Each time a new balance must be found, new antagonisms emerge, new exchanges, new codes are created. This ability to work together doesn’t just function on the water: every time we have to set up a project together, sitting at a table or in a videoconference, we discover with surprise the simplicity with which the process moved forward. It’s hard to describe: it isn’t the magic of a group sharing the same vision. Rather, it is the surprise of seeing how the very same stumbling blocks or aversions that one would find at work are no longer a hindrance: everyone quickly accepts that they exist, builds on the reciprocal contribution rather than standing in opposition, and trusts that on the other side it will be the same thing. Why does it work? The reason, I surmise, is to be found on two levels: the first one is related to the sailing boat; the second one is more specific to Team Jolokia. The boat is a very special place. It is a small, isolated, confined space. When you get on board, whether you are aware of it or not, you know that you won’t be able to get off whenever you want. This impossibility to “escape” is expressed in Eric Tabarly’s famous quote: “Sailing is an activity that does not suit impostors. In many professions, one can fake and bluff with impunity. In sailing, you either know or you don’t know.” Beyond the harshness of his point of view, the sailor reminds us that it is difficult to hide anything on a boat: the marine skills as well as the emotions, the fragilities and the strengths. On a boat, everything becomes salient: our character traits are more visible to others and to ourselves. We quickly discover others, and we quickly discover things about ourselves that we didn’t know or preferred to ignore. This has many repercussions. They are different for everyone, and the range is vast: it goes from anxiety (not being able to leave when you want, not having control, not knowing what will happen,) to pleasure (pleasure of disconnecting from the

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everyday world, pleasure of not having to make decisions all the time, pleasure of being in a small community, etc.). It is a space where the terrestrial, more static habits of movement and balance are continuously challenged: on a boat one is in perpetual struggle to keep the balance. This process is never entirely tamed, possibly communicating to our brain that nothing is acquired forever, but that a dynamic equilibrium can be achieved. Unlike life on land, where we can easily marginalize the body and reduce it to a means of transport for our brain, on a boat the body is at the center. You have to keep your balance, you have to learn new gestures, you have to cope with seasickness, you have to pay attention to the sensations of cold, heat, hunger and all the precursor signals of discomfort: to stay operational you have to anticipate and to pay more attention to all sensations. Everything that we can easily bear and ignore on land, when sailing becomes a handicap in no time. In that respect, sailing is what we would call a “mindfulness” activity. The boat requires and allows us, through the absence of other distractions, to pay continuous attention: to ourselves, to the other crew members, to the boat, to the environment. The body-brain communication is continuously stimulated. Hearing a flap, turning your head around, and confirming that a sail is flapping. Putting all your strength and weight into turning a winch. Then feeling the heel of the boat, the change in speed, and the satisfaction of an action that had the desired result. This action-­ satisfaction circuit must be flexible and adapt to the different rhythms that landscape and weather impose on navigation. There is no single rhythm to be learned An oceanic navigation in calm weather, for example, leaves much more room for contemplation, for reflection, to feel the slightest changes in the boat and operate at a more precise level. Difficult weather conditions or dangerous areas, do not allow much room for reflection: the rhythm is more sustained, with the priority being less on precision and more on action. Many people with a very reflective nature find, on the boat, an excellent training ground to naturally inhibit their tendency to overthink, and develop the capacity to make decisions. Survival is a powerful force, capable of making us overcome in an instant years of automatisms, compensations and blockages. Acting and overcoming the fear associated with a squall, a delicate maneuver, a slippery anchorage or something that breaks, generates an ancestral feeling of satisfaction and strength. Finally, there is the satisfaction of learning. As a sailing instructor, I have often seen the miracles that the boat in school vs. charter mode works on the trainees. While I still wonder about all the benefits of boating, I am convinced that for the best results in terms of well-being, learning must be part of the activity. The benefits of sustained concentration, the acceptance of one’s own limits, the satisfaction of seeing these limits move as one progresses, are very present in learning to sail. Because you are immersed in learning day and night, because you see the results of your actions immediately, because you have the opportunity to observe others and learn from them. This learning is also a source of fulfillment. Many of the habits integrated into our “earthly” lives have deprived us of elements fundamental to well-being: silence, slowness, physical effort, companionship, simplicity, natural environment, and beauty on an unexpected scale.

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By contributing to the well-being and fulfillment of each person, these elements facilitate the cohesion of the group. However, they are not enough to explain the performances of Team Jolokia, and to ensure that, in the face of difficulties, the group sticks together instead of splitting up. There are specific ingredients that, like the chili pepper symbol of Jolokia, ensure the recipe be successful. In what follows, I will try to describe these ingredients. The first element is the common project. A double project in the case of Jolokia: on the one hand, to demonstrate that diversity is richness; on the other hand, to perform on the boat. Two closely related goals, where one is a means to achieve the other. “To sail fast, to win” are measurable, short-term goals. Once on board, getting the boat to move as fast as possible, succeeding the maneuvers, is a clear priority. This aim allows you to channel all your energy (concentration, learning, communication) into action, towards a concrete, measurable target: performance. The other goal, “to show that diversity is a strength”, is initially less obvious, and more difficult to implement. At the beginning, we tend to conflate working well together with showing kindness, with helping others when they don’t know or can’t do (thereby depriving them of the possibility of discovering themselves and of acquiring autonomy); or with positivity at all costs, with conflict avoidance, with taking it upon oneself and hiding one’s doubts or disagreements. This attitude quickly shows its limits: on a boat, tensions are poorly concealed, maneuvers get immediately less fluid. It takes some time to get over this first phase but, in spite of these initial awkward attempts, the objective of inclusion is omnipresent in people’s minds, and provides an important framework: we are always looking for solutions to create the desired harmony. The presence of a common project allows us not to get lost: at any moment, each one knows why we are there. When you are afraid, when you are sick, when you are angry, when you disagree, when you feel lonely, the common project gives you a direction. The existence of a goal allows you to persevere and find a solution. I insist on this point: it is not persevering in the sense of accepting everything, of sacrificing ourselves for the common goal, but rather in the sense of looking for a solution, even to our uneasiness on board. This continuous quest for individual and collective well-being is key for long-term performance. It is towards this common project – to perform by valuing differences – that the skipper of Jolokia continually guides the group. While the presence of a common goal is a prerequisite, it is not sufficient for the recipe to work. Jolokia is a difficult and demanding boat. The crew on board is not a trained crew: when Jolokia is lined up for the start of the regattas in May, the crew members have only 2 or 3 training sessions under their belts, far too little for a VO60. Inevitably, tensions build up on board. In a group of people who have been chosen after a strict selection process, and find themselves sailing on a prestigious boat with the aim of winning, performance can easily become a source of stress. You want to prove that you are up to the task, that you have your place on board. At the

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beginning, no one dares to admit their doubts: the fear of not being up to the task automatically directs all the energy towards the technical goal, putting aside the human objective. In addition, there is usually no shortage of opportunities to get upset: “I didn’t tell you to start hoisting!” “Wake up! The sail is flapping!” “I wasn’t ready. He/she did not communicate!” I remember training sessions where, in the stress of the running stopwatch, everyone gave orders at the same time, until the skipper’s voice was no longer heard; or situations where the more experienced ones would jump on the winch to replace the beginner; or where an uneven distribution of tasks set in (e.g. sandwich making vs. boat rigging) whereby the less competitive members would be relegated to less skilled tasks and thus be deprived of the opportunity to progress. Even a group of people who believe deeply in good human relations, whose focus is to show that diversity is a strength, easily fall into the same traps as anyone else, when they are put under pressure. Two other ingredients intervene to overcome these difficulties: the infrastructure developed by Jolokia for the construction of the team, and the toughness of the offshore competition. Diversity is not a strength per se. It is essential to use the right tools and framework to turn differences into performance, to deal with conflicts and potential drawbacks. In the context  of Team Jolokia, this infrastructure is based on several elements: the concept of neutral benevolence, i.e. keeping a non-evaluating attitude towards the others and oneself; the concept of autonomy, i.e. never turning the perception of difficulty of the other into immediate help, which would reduce their capacity of initiative and innovation; respecting the different learning rhythms, because a slower learning curve has nothing to do with a lower performance, and can produce in the longer term a safer and more controlled performance. This framework makes the learning more effective: free from external judgment and from the stress of having to show their worth, the new crew members are free to concentrate on the technique, and learn more effectively. These elements have been described in detail elsewhere (Duchamp, 2015; Meisel, 2016) and I will focus here on another tool that I believe is essential: an effective briefing-debriefing system. Each training day starts with a briefing. It is a pleasant ritual where we meet for the first time each day: on deck or, if it is raining, inside the boat, sitting on the sails, in the companionway, on the bunks. During the briefings Jeff explains the objectives and the program of the day, underlining the important points. If we sailed the day before, he summarizes the observations of the previous day. This is an opportunity for the crew to visualize, to mentally project themselves into the training, and for the coach to take the pulse of the crew: to check, through the questions and remarks that arise, if things that were taken for granted are not, and if the level of fatigue is such that the program must be modified. “Anticipation” and “adaptation”, two words that are very dear to the Jolokia’s skipper, take shape from the moment of the briefing. But it is above all the debriefings that are, in my opinion, a fundamental instrument for the success of the project. I had used them a lot myself during my teaching at Les Glénans sailing school, and considered them as a powerful learning tool. I

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didn’t realize how fundamental they were also for the creation of the group. Debriefings are imparted at several points during the training. The first type of debriefing is done on the spot, after each session of maneuvers, when everything is still fresh in the minds of the team members and it is easy to analyze what worked and what didn’t. Everyone has a say and offers their vision of things. These debriefings allow us to understand and focus on the technical aspects. The second type of debriefing takes place at the end of each training day. Once back at the mooring, tired but happy (or not), we all meet to share the observations and emotions of the day. We go around the table and everyone is invited to share their impressions and considerations on the day. The memory I have of the first debriefings is that of moments of tension: moments when some spoke more than others, who kept their observations to themselves; when some limited themselves to positive or, as much as possible, neutral remarks. Despite this apparent calm, we could sense the beginnings of potential conflicts. It is fundamental, during these collective debriefings, that the “old crew members” open up with honesty and benevolence in front of the others, showing them that they can trust the group, that nobody is expected to show strength, that we are all free to show ourselves for what we are and what we think. It is also fundamental that the skipper knows how to welcome and make room and sense of these remarks, and that he knows how to answer everybody with consideration, and sometimes humor, thus signaling to the crew that not only these remarks are “allowed” but also welcome: what everyone is truly thinking and feeling is an important contribution to the debriefing. One of the big challenges of Jolokia is to do so much with so little time: learning to sail the VO60 requires time and the technical aspects of the training sessions take up most of the day. As a result, the debriefings often last less than what we would like them to last. One of the solutions that was implemented lately was to limit everyone’s feedback to three words during the debriefing (with the possibility to explain more in depth if necessary). Even if a bit skeptical at the beginning, I have to admit the power of this approach: it allows you to save time and, above all, to express different facets of what we experienced during the training session, without having to choose only one aspect. If, for example, the training was difficult but we were surprised by how smooth the maneuvers were, and we are happy to see the boat and the crew after a winter of work, the three words could be “fluidity”, “challenge”, and “reunion”. Or if we are grumpy because we did not have time to eat due to the dense program, but we are also positively impressed by the new crew members, we can say “impressed”, “fatigue” and “brunch”. This quickly allows you to express emotions and feelings in a compact and symbolic way, thus giving lightness to the communication (I am no longer obliged to find the perfect sentence to express my message and make sure that I am not offending anyone; by saying “brunch” I can express my discontent in a less dramatic way). It introduces an element of play (the more we get caught up in the game, the more we wait for the words of the others), and shows that each one of us interprets reality according to what he/she has in mind (when I say “reunion”, am I talking about the boat, the crew members, or my

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longing for being on the water?). Finally, it forces everyone to try to understand the others: “what did he/she mean with this word? » After these collective debriefings, once every one is back home and the training has been processed, each team member has a personal debriefing by phone with Jeff. This debriefing is precious: it is the opportunity for each one to open up, to say more frankly what we did not dare to say in front of all these strangers. After the first training session, Jeff is still a stranger for the new crew members. These personal debriefings help generating mutual awareness and trust. These debriefings focus on three aspects: technique (“what are your thoughts on the maneuvers and the boat?”), human, at the individual level (“how did you feel?”) and human at the collective level (“how did you feel within the group?”). They help bringing to the surface and defuse the tensions that accumulate during the first training sessions. It is a first opportunity to share, to open up, even if it is only with the captain. What is very interesting is that as the season progresses, the difference in feedback during collective vs individual debriefings fades: we learn to trust ourselves (“my intuitions/observations make everyone progress”) and to trust others (“I can disclose my thoughts, express my doubts, show my weaknesses”). Towards the end of the season, a capacity to accept one’s vulnerability is born within the group and, as if a kind of balance had to be kept, at the same time the strengths of each one emerge in a more obvious way. As we become able to open up to others, they are more willing to give us an image of ourselves without judgment. An image in which the flaws are painted with humor and tenderness, allowing them to come to light; where the abilities of each person become more visible thanks to the group’s gaze. Each one thus becomes a “character”, a complex mix of traits that make him or her unique within the group. And the more we feel this freedom to be a character with qualities and defects, the more our “character” will take shape and be reinforced through the mirror of the crew. Each person thus acquires a place within the group, differentiating him or herself in a natural way, and fitting in with the others in a complementary way. The debriefings allow for openness, the sharing of feelings and observations: the common project laid the foundations, but it is thanks to the respectful attitude and the debriefings, wisely managed by the coach and kindly encouraged by the “old crew members”, that the group is created. A harmony is progressively built as the training sessions take place. A real desire to perform together is consolidated in each one. This harmony is far from being constant, but is rather an elastic capacity to come back to a point of equilibrium in spite of the confrontations and the frictions. A continuous search for a solution. The competition marks the turning point, the moment in which the challenge is no longer with oneself or the group, but with other opponents and with the harshness of the open sea. This concrete challenge quickly pays off. During the training sessions the difficulties imposed by the intense rhythm of the training seem sometimes artificial, and require a lot of general good will in order not to burst into antagonisms, but once at sea everything becomes very real. When there are 40 knots of wind and 4 meters of swell, when half of the crew is knocked out by seasickness, a bond is quickly formed between these beings who have observed each other, who

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have prepared the ground during the days of training. There is no more time for mistrust, we can only do one thing: trust in the other, because our well-being suddenly depends on theirs, our life is, sometimes literally, in their hands. There is no more time for internal competition, adversity, or for who is right and who is wrong. Each one will naturally have gestures of attention towards the other, each one will draw from a smile, and from the presence of the group, the energies that they lack; each one will instinctively keep to themselves everything that is not crucial for the survival and will not add any misery to the situation with their complaints. Safe in the knowledge that, whatever the case, at the end, when we will be safe and sound, we will be able to say everything we have in our hearts, if needed. I am not in favor of positivity at all costs: I have seen too often on board the harms of this attitude. In a healthy system, there must be room for criticism as well as for appreciations; a physiological balance must allow all relevant observations to exist and contribute to the development of the group. In a healthy system, where the ground is fertile, these moments of difficulty, once passed, leave behind a feeling of joy and pride. Individual satisfaction and collective satisfaction: we are aware that the success is that of the group, a group that has functioned as a living organism. It is a collective surpassing of oneself that takes place on board, and that makes each one feel part of this success, and feel included, quite simply, in the hardship as much as in the celebration.

References Duchamp, N. (2015). Le management de la compétence collective. Université de Lille, Mémoire M2 MGBU IAE. Meisel, P. (2016). L’efficacité dans la diversité, la preuve par Jolokia. Séminaire Économie et Sens. Association des Amis de l’École de Paris du Management. Warnier, V., & Zaoual, A.-R. (2020). Inclusion à l’horizon ! Leçons de la création d’un équipage de course au large hors-norme. Paper presented at the XXIXème Conference Annuelle De L’aims. Anna Oddone is a molecular biologist working with the PlanktonPlanet initiative, Station Biologique de Roscoff. She is sailing instructor for the French school Les Glénans and crew member of Team Jolokia, a VO60 in Lorient. She completed three transatlantic sailing, one of which on board of the expedition schooner Tara. She is the happy owner of a First 28. [email protected]  

Chapter 14

Navigation in Real and Scientific Waters Randy Gallistel

When asked when I learned to sail, I have to say I do not remember, because I was tutored by my father and mother from an early age. My father designed and built sailboats as a hobby. All kinds of sailboats, including an iceboat. Also, a windsurfer. Also, a family-sized skate sail. We have a picture of him, my mother, myself and my sister (7 and 5-years old, respectively) clinging to the long central spar of a family-­ sized skate sail. Standing on your own two feet and leaning on a skate sail while driven by a fair breeze at 30 miles an hour is a sensation not to be missed. About once every 3 or 4 winters in Minnesota and Wisconsin, around about Thanksgiving, the lakes freeze solid on a calm, bitter cold night, and then the first snowfall holds off for several weeks, while the temperature remains well below freezing. In those winters, the ice is smooth, black and thick. Sailing an iceboat for miles across that smooth, thick black ice is a thrill. You are only 6 inches off the ice. There is practically no friction. When the sail fills, the craft accelerates so rapidly it scares you. In seconds, you are tearing along at 40–50 miles an hour. The rumbling of the runners on the ice fills your ears and the icy wind turns your cheeks bright red. The world record speed for an iceboat is 143 miles an hour. It was set on a Wisconsin lake back in the 1930s. Around that same time, my father was standing on his skates, leaning hard into a skate sail he had made, going 60 miles an hour on the smooth black ice of Lake Mendota, beside a friend driving a Model A Ford. In the summers, we kept one of my father’s designs on a mooring just off the dock below the low bluff at which our front yard ended. I slept in the screened-in 2nd story of a boathouse set into the bluff. On moonlit midsummer nights when a gentle breeze sprang up after I had gone to bed, my parents would wake me and my sister for a sail. As a teenager, I took my girlfriends moonlight sailing. There is nothing more romantic. R. Gallistel (*) Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. Casati (ed.), The Sailing Mind, Studies in Brain and Mind 19, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89639-3_14

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Sailing on a lake provides few navigational challenges. My first experience of marine navigation came shortly after I married Rochel Gelman, whose experimental work on the development of arithmetic reasoning in young children inspired my interest in number theory and its history. My closest friend’s father did a favor for a German architect. It must have been quite a favor, because, in return, he was given the use for 10 days of a 20-meter steel-hulled, twin screw, teak-decked sloop with a 2-man professional crew. The yacht’s engines were being refitted in Palma, the principal port of Majorca. My friend’s father told his son to invite a few friends of his to join the father and his wife on a cruise from Palma to Sardinia and back. Rochel and I were two of the three invitees. This was the summer of 1970 before loran navigation came into general use by recreational sailors. Navigation was still done the old way. In the old way, as happens even today with the GPS, sailors made mistakes. Even professional sailors did so. The crew of our yacht did not have the compass boxed after the new engines were installed. As we were soon to learn, the compass was off by more than 30° on some courses. After one day in port touring Majorca and going to a night club—this jet-set life was utterly new to Rochel and me—we set sail for Minorca with a sirocco blowing. The spray was flying and we were in foul weather gear as we plunged along at 12–15 knots. This was my first experience of blue water sailing. I was fascinated by the chart and the dividers and the parallel rule and the whole business of determining the range and bearing of the waypoints one from another. My friend wasn’t interested. He was a reluctant sailor—to the chagrin of his father, who had served in the Navy in WWII. On the course we actually sailed once we rounded the southern tip of Majorca, we missed Minorca by something like 15 nautical miles, a distance so great that we could not see the island, even though it rises to almost 400 m. The crew realized their error only when their mental dead reckoning told them that the island should be clearly visible given how fast we were going. Looking around, they saw clouds massed in the distance off the port beam. That was when I learned that the clouds that tend to form over islands are often the first sign of a landfall. After a day in Mahon, we sailed back to Palma to obtain the services of an expert. The expert counteracted the effects of the large iron masses of the engines on the compass in the binnacle right above those masses by placing small bits of iron around the compass while the crew used the chart and the visible landmarks around the harbor to repeatedly steer different true courses—“boxing the compass”. By the time we had a properly functioning compass, we were 5 days into a 10-day cruise. That trashed the plan to cruise Sardinia; we cruised Ibiza instead—interesting, but not half as interesting as cruising Sardinia would have been. It remains on my bucket list. The trashing of our cruise plan was an important lesson about marine sailing: you have to be prepared to alter your plans when faced with the unanticipated situations produced by some combination of the weather, the state of the sea, gear malfunctions, and the consequences of your own bad judgment and stupid errors. It

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was not the last such lesson. Those lessons bred in me the habit of thinking, if conditions get rough, where might I run to? My fascination with navigation has had personal and professional consequences. The personal consequence is that I have done a good bit of coastal cruising in various parts of the world skippering chartered yachts. These were bareboat charters, because, for me, being responsible for the navigation, for bringing the craft safely to port or to anchor in some sheltered cove, is no small part of the adventure and hence the fun. Sailing is a thinking person’s sport; if you’re not doing it yourself, it’s boring. Never having been more than 50 nautical miles offshore, I have never done true deep-water sailing. However, most of the dangers that arise from navigational errors come into play only when one is near shore where reefs lurk beneath the waves. As a consequence of my marine sailing history, I have extensive experience of near-shore navigation, supplemented by experience in back-country canoeing (mostly in the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota) plus backpacking and back country skiing in the Rockies and the Sierras. In all of these activities, navigational errors have serious consequences. Partly for that reason, I have been a keen reader of the literature on navigation—the instructional literature (Bowditch), the adventure literature (Slocum), and the misadventure literature (May, 1960). What I have learned has played an important role in my professional writings about animal navigation and its implications for cognitive science and neuroscience. What we know about navigation in ants and bees has far-reaching implications for cognitive science and neuroscience. Ants and bees are ideal subjects for the study of animal navigation because they forage in order to bring back food to the nest or hive, making repeated journeys in the course of a single day. Another advantage for the experimentalist is that they are unperturbed when captured by experimenters, carried half a kilometer or more from the site of their capture, and released to pursue the course they were about to pursue when captured. This experience would terrify a mammal. The desert ant Cataglyphis nests in and around salt pans in the Tunisian desert. It forages over featureless terrain out to several hundred meters distant from the nest, in the midday sun, when temperatures may exceed 40 °C. The outbound trips are a straight run in a given direction followed by a tortuous wandering here and there. When the ant finds food, it returns straight to the nest (Fig. 14.1a). It does not lay an odor trail. A single foraging expedition may cover more than a kilometer (Huber & Knaden, 2015). Like Columbus, the ant relies on dead reckoning to keep track of its location (Wehner & Srinivasan, 2003), with the sun for a compass. Unlike Columbus, it is its own astronomer: When they first become foragers, ants and bees learn from sparse observations the azimuthal solar ephemeris—where above the horizon the sun is as a function of the time of day indicated on the clock in their brain. The rapid learning of the solar ephemeris makes the sun-compass possible (Capaldi & Dyer, 1999; Dyer, 1987; Dyer & Dickinson, 1994; Gallistel, 1998; Lindauer, 1957; Wehner & Menzel, 1969).

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Fig. 14.1 (a) The tracks of foraging desert ants. Note the scale. (From Buehlmann et al., 2014 by permission of publisher and authors). (b) Two examples of ants displaced at the start of their run back to the nest. Red and blue squares mark the nest locations. Black wavy lines trace the outward journeys. Black arrows show the displacements. Yellow wavy lines trace the post-displacement “homeward” runs and the beginnings of the search for the nest. (From Huber & Knaden, 2015, used by permission of the publisher and authors)

Dead reckoning requires an odometer as well as a compass. To measure distance run, the ant counts its steps. When the final segments of its legs are snipped off, shortening its strides, its nest-ward runs terminate prematurely. When its strides are lengthened by glued-on toothpick stilts, it runs too far before it begins its search for the nest hole (Wittlinger et al., 2006, 2007). The remarkable quality of an ant’s dead reckoning is revealed by experiments on its search for the nest following displacement. At the end of its “homeward” course, the experimentally displaced ant is in fact nowhere near the nest hole (Fig. 14.1b). Wehner and Srinivasan (1981) studied the hour-long futile searches for the nest. The searches are tortuous and the ant loops out further and further as its search goes on, but it returns repeatedly to within a few meters of where it started its search (Fig. 14.2). One might assume that it took a positional fix at the start of its search but experiment shows this is not the case: Its returns depend on its reckoning, not on piloting. Wehner and Srinivasan showed this by displacing the ant a second time in mid-search. Now, the ant returned repeatedly to a location displaced from where the search began by the range and bearing of mid-search displacement (Fig. 14.3). The importance of navigation to a central issue in cognitive science and neuroscience has been evident since the pioneering work of Tolman (1948). He famously argued—or infamously argued, depending on your theoretical stance (Warren, 2019)—that spatial behavior in rats was directed by a cognitive map. I was educated at behaviorist schools—Stanford and Yale—when cognitive science was being born (the early 1960s). With the exception of my undergraduate mentor, Tony Deutsch, the people who taught me the theory of learning—Gordon Bower, Pat Suppes, Neal Miller and Allan Wagner—were S-R theorists, that is, rank behaviorists. They scorned Tolman’s arguments, often repeating Guthrie’s (1935) put-down that, “So far as [Tolman’s] theory is concerned the rat is left buried in thought.” In recent years, the cognitive map hypothesis has been widely embraced by both cognitive scientists and neuroscientists, albeit not by all (Bouchekioua et al., 2020; Warren, 2019) There is, however, an irony in the fact that Tolman is the original

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Fig. 14.2  Tracing of the ant’s path in the first hour of a futile search for the nest. (a) The first 21 min. The open circle marks the start of the search. (b) The remainder of the hour; the gray rectangle covers the area in A. (From Gallistel, 1990, Fig 4.2, p. 63, reworked from Wehner & Srinivasan, 1981 and used by permission)

proponent of the cognitive map hypothesis: His experimental evidence came from maze studies in rats. The most compelling evidence comes from experiments using insects navigating out there in the roadless natural world, where I gained my own

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Fig. 14.3  The effect of a mid-search displacement on the ensuing search pattern. (a) Tracing of the search prior to the displacement. Open circle marks the start; black circle (labeled C) marks the location when captured for mid-search displacement. (b) Tracing of the search after displacement. Open circle marked R is at the terminal of the mid-search displacement. Gray marks the area covered by the pre-displacement searching in (a). (From Gallistel, 1990, Fig 4.3, p. 64, reworked from Wehner & Srinivasan, 1981 and used by permission)

experience. The still greater irony is that many of the researchers on insect navigation, whose experiments have produced compelling evidence for metric maps in ants and bees, are determined opponents of the cognitive map hypothesis (Wehner, 2020). The reasons for this curious state of affairs have everything to do with the intellectual history of the last hundred years. In science as in personal histories, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” (Faulkner, 1951). Before I turn to those reasons, I review very recent evidence for a cognitive map in bee—work in which I played a role. I have never laid fingers on a bee, although some have jabbed their stingers into me. However, I have been fortunate to collaborate occasionally on navigational work done by one of the most eminent students of bee behavior and physiology, Randolf Menzel at the Free University in Berlin. (For a highly readable account of his diverse and extensive work see Menzel & Eckoldt, 2016). My contribution has been to the data analysis. Von Frisch won the Nobel Prize for his experiments showing that returning bee foragers do a waggle dance in the darkness of the hive. The dance tells the other foragers where to find the source from which the dancer has returned (von Frisch, 1967). The dance has the form of a tilted figure 8. The bearing of the source is given

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by the angle at which the 8 tilts from vertical; the range is indicated by the number of waggles the bee makes in the portion of the 8 where the two circles join. Bees recruited by this dance do something very similar to what one sees in the foraging ants in Fig. 14.1: they make a straight flight (called the vector flight) to near the danced location followed by a tortuous twisting and turning search for the source. During this tortuous search, they look for visual and odor beacons to home on (e.g., flower clusters). It has always been assumed that the recruits learn only the rhumb line from the hive to the source. However, previous results led the Menzel group to think the recruits might also convert the rhumb line to map coordinates (Cheeseman et al., 2014; Menzel et al., 2011, 2012). If they did so, then recruits that were captured as they emerged from the hive on route to the danced source and displaced hundreds of meters from the hive in various directions prior to being released might be expected to show two remarkable behaviors. (1) The vector portion of their search for the food should be perturbed by the fact that they are not seeing the terrain their map leads them to expect. (2) When, as a result, they abort their vector flight, they should set a course directed more or less toward the food from the arbitrary and unexpected location in which they happen to find themselves when they abort the vector flight. When Menzel group did this experiment, this is indeed what they observed. The conduct of this experiment was made possible by their development 15 years earlier of methods for radar tracking bees—no mean technical feat (Riley et  al., 2005). When provided with their radar fixes of bees searching for the food, I made an animation of the searches—220 different searches from bees released at 6 different locations, including at the hive itself. (The hive was where the recruits were captured and fitted with a tiny radar transponder glued to their thorax). One can view the animations on the Open Science Forum. It’s like riding on the back of a bee as it makes its way more or less toward the food. Any sailor who has been unsure of just where they are and just where the sought-for port is will sympathize. Given the radar fixes (a bee’s range and bearings every few seconds), it was trivial for me to compute each bee’s closest approach to the food’s true location and to the “virtual” food location at the terminus of the danced rhumb line when the origin is displaced from the hive to the release site. The no-map (rhumb-line only) hypothesis predicts that a displaced bee will search near the virtual location and then return to the hive; the map hypothesis predicts that a bee’s search will gravitate toward the true location; the location it got by hearsay (following the dances of the foragers returning from that location). The fraction of a cumulative distribution to the left of the vertical dashed line at 0 in Fig. 14.4a is the fraction of the bees in the given group that came closer to the true location of the food than to its virtual location in the course of their search. A majority (53%) of all displaced bees got closer to the true location than to the virtual location. At the more remote release sites (R5, R6 and R7), more than half the bees searched closer to Fr than to Fv, often 100s of meters closer. The fraction of the red curve to the left of the vertical dashed line in Fig. 14.4b is the fraction of displaced bees whose closest approach to the true location of the food fell within the range seen in the hive-released bees. The searches of 65% of the

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displaced bees brought them within that range. The data in Fig. 14.5 speak for themselves. I do not believe that one could persuade any sailor with real-world navigational experience that the bee whose search is plotted in Fig. 14.5 did not know with astonishing precision the danced location of the food—as well as the location given by the dance rhumb line when flown from a release at R2. In my biased opinion, the results in Figs. 14.4 and 14.5 prove beyond reasonable argument that bees have a metric cognitive map. It plays the same role in their navigation as does the chart in a sailor’s navigation. Nonetheless, when submitted to

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Fig. 14.5  The search fixes for one of the bees released at R2. It first searched at the virtual location of the food (Fv) and then at then made one and one-half round trips to the true location (Fr); at the conclusion of its second visit to Fr, it gave up and flew back to the hive. Many other bees also first direct their search toward the virtual location and then to the true location, generally approaching the latter more closely than the former

Science, this conclusion prompted savage pushback from two out of four reviewers. The question for our time is, What’s their problem? What is it about the way they think that makes them think a map cannot reside in the brain of an insect? The central issue as I see it is whether behavior is informed by a symbolic representation of the experienced world stored in memory and translated into behavior by computations performed on the symbols that carry the information. The behaviorists—which include almost the entire neuroscience community—reject this view because they remain committed to John Locke’s (1690) theory of the mind. In his theory, sensations are the primitive ideas and concepts are clusters of primitive ideas and clusters of such clusters—all held together by associative bonds. I call this the dustball theory of concepts (For a recent exposition of this theory in its neurobiological form, see the Langille portion of Langille & Gallistel, 2020). The central fact about the associative theory of mind for my current purposes is that associative bonds are not symbols; they do not stand for anything. Put another way, they do not convey information forward in time, as information is understood in modern science (Shannon, 1948). Indeed, some proponents of the associative theory reject the idea that the concept of information has any useful role to play in neuroscience (Brette, 2019). A fortiori, a neurobiologically realized, readable symbolic memory must be a fantasy among some soft-headed cognitive neuroscientists. The cognitive map hypothesis is often accused by the Gibsonians of concealing a lingering and unwitting Cartesian dualism (the fallacy of the humunculus that reads the map), as witness the following very recent quote (Warren, 2019, p. 2): ... the metaphor of looking at a map in our own heads commits the ‘representationalist fallacy’ that has long bedeviled cognitive science (Huemer, 2001; Ramsey, 2007). If apprehending the environmental layout is explained as viewing an internal map (or, more

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The fear of a lingering non-material theory of mind is also no small part of what drives behaviorist opposition to the cognitive map hypothesis, as witness a second very recent quote: “To our knowledge, there are only three [maze] studies that have succeeded in resolving this issue, all showing clear evidence of novel route taking, a behaviour outside the scope of traditional associative learning accounts. Nevertheless, there is no mechanistic explanation as to how animals perform novel route taking.” (Bouchekioua et al., 2020, italics mine) The quote appeared to me to reify Locke’s theory of mind as the only possible neurobiological explanation: it appears to assert that any non-associative theory of navigation cannot be a mechanistic theory.

I have, subsequently, been assured by Aaron Blaisdell that this was not their intended interpretation (Blaisdell email Nov 25, 2020). They meant only that there was no explicitly material account in the literature. To me a cognitive map account was always a transparently mechanistic account because maps and map-based navigation have been implemented on computers for more than half a century. In any event, ‘mechanistic’ is not infrequently used as a synonym for both ‘physically realizable’ and ‘associative’, as witness: “Psychology offers two classes of explanation for such behaviour: the mechanistic and the intentional. Mechanistic accounts appeal to psychological processes that gain their explanatory power by analogy to physical processes. A classic example is associative learning theory.” (Clayton et al., 2006, p. 198) In the excellent review of their work on food caching in scrub jays, these authors repeatedly contrast the mechanistic (i.e., associative) theory with the theory that the birds behave rationally. They clearly espouse the belief that rational behavior cannot be explained mechanistically. “It is the rationality of this practical inference process that distinguishes the intentional explanation from the mechanistic one. ...Of course, evolution will have ensured that behaviour governed by such mechanistic processes is adaptive in that it contributes to the reproductive fitness of the jay by maintaining its nutritional state, and in this sense associatively-controlled cache searching can be regarded as biologically rational (see Kacelnik, Chap. 2, this volume). But such biological rationality must be distinguished from the psychological rationality of the practical inference process that generates cache searching from a belief about the consequences of this behaviour and the desire for these consequences. According to this analysis, the issue of whether an animal is psychologically rational turns on the nature of the processes causing its behaviour; specifically on whether this behaviour is caused by psychological mechanisms or by intentional processes” (Clayton et al., 2006, pp. 198–199). This latter quote seems to assert in pretty unequivocal terms that: (i) A rational explanation cannot be reduced to a mechanistic explanation; (ii) Mechanistic explanations in cognitive neuroscience must be associative. Most students of the vast literature on the neurobiology of memory will acknowledge that both of these assumptions undergird the enterprise. In my opinion, they have prevented our

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discovering the physical basis of memory during more than a century of determined efforts by many leading figures (cf Langille & Gallistel, 2020; Gallistel, 2020). It is also true, that the large literature on cognitive maps has few if any explicitly mechanistic explanations of what a cognitive map is. In this essay, I explain (i) What a mechanistic theory of map-based navigation looks like. (ii) What it implies about what the physical basis of memory must look like (iii) Where in neurobiology structures with the requisite properties are to be found. From my perspective as someone who embraced the computational theory of mind in graduate school more than half a century ago, the question is, how can arguments like those I have just quoted be put forward in this day and age? Where have the quoted authors and most of the neurobiological community been the last 50 years? The computational theory of mind was inspired by the emergence of machines that computed and by the mathematical developments that laid a rigorous conceptual foundation for materially realizable computation (Chomsky, 1956; Oliver et al., 1948; Shannon, 1948; Turing, 1936, 1950). To me, the most obvious lesson to be drawn from this history was that computing machines put paid to arguments like those I have quoted. There are no homunculi in computing machines. They are most certainly mechanistic devices. Their behavior is not explained by a Cartesian soul that does the thinking/computing. The machine reads its own memory. I have always assumed that cognitive map explanations were transparently mechanistic because map-based navigation has been implemented on computing machines for half a century. I assume that, like me, the quoted authors get spoken directions from their mobile phones when driving to unfamiliar destinations and that they glance from time to time at the map thereon displayed. On this map is an arrow or a pulsing blue dot showing them where they are on the map. Is there an infinite regress inside a mobile phone? I assume the quoted authors understand that the map displayed on the screen is not where the map resides. The displayed map disappears when they press the right button, but it may be summoned back whenever wanted. I assume we’re all clear that the map is not in the screen’s LEDs; it’s in a memory chip inside the phone. Similarly, the firing of place cells cannot be the material basis of the cognitive map, although many models in the literature are founded on these cells (Burgess, 2008; Bicanski & Burgess, 2016; Gerstner & Abbott, 1997). That firing communicates to other neurons locational inferences drawn from the information stored in the map but it is not the material realization of the map any more than the light emitted by the pulsing LEDs on the screen of the phone is the material realization of the map in the phone. To imagine otherwise is to confuse signals with symbols: signals are the transient conveyors of information from one location to another; symbols convey information forward in time (Gallistel & King, 2010). Perhaps, however, we’re not all quite so clear about the form in which that map exists inside that chip. I get the feeling sometimes that some cognitive scientists think there’s a tiny piece of paper in there on which the map is microscopically inscribed. What else is one to think when one reads someone objecting to the cognitive map hypothesis because it implies a ghostly reader of the map? Well, actually, I don’t really think that any of those authors think there’s a tiny piece of paper in

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there, but I do struggle to understand what their conception of digitally encoded maps might be. I struggle even more to understand how they conceptualize the use made of those maps by the computers that now drive cars around San Francisco and by the map program on your phone that tells you to “take the next exit on your right in a quarter mile.” (Can a mobile phone be quoted? There’s a metaphysical poser!) I can understand that these authors might not subscribe to the computational theory of mind (or, at least, not to my version of it). However, refusal to subscribe to the view that the brain is a machine that computes cannot be because we now have no clear conception of what a machine that computes is and what it can do. It is also true, as one of the hostile reviewers of our paper wrote that the many papers that embrace the concept of a cognitive map are not explicit about what that means and what it entails. I turn now to remedying that defect in the literature. A cognitive map is a metric vector space in neural tissue, anchored to a portion of the world in which an animal moves—the frame of reference for the vector space. Navigational computations operate on the vectors in this space. Among the vectors that constitute this space is one that marks the animal’s current location. There are also vectors that represent the locations of landmarks; vectors that represent boundaries to navigation and the loci of visually and tactilely experienced texture surfaces. There are also vectors that mark locations whose affordances (edibility, drinkability, defensibility, concealability and copulatibility, for example) might make them a goal at some time in the indefinite future. This vector space is an integrated repository of useful information about the geometry of the world in which an animal navigates. Its location vectors also give access to other useful information, such as the color and odor of the flowers from which the dancing bee has returned. This other information is represented within other vector spaces (Chang et al., 2017; Chang & Tsao, 2017; Stevens, 2016) and accessed by way of location and time vectors (Gallistel, 1990, Chaps 14 & 15). I need also to be explicit about what a vector is. In reading the theoretical side of the animal navigation literature, one gets the impression that some authors think that a vector is an arrow. There are no arrows in memory chips, nor do I imagine that there are arrows in neural tissue. A vector is a string of one or more numbers. If we are thinking only of locations on a plane, vectors are strings of two numbers. If we’re thinking about bat, bird or bee navigation, then location and direction vectors have to be strings of three numbers. Direction vectors in a plane are strings of either two numbers or one number, depending on our assumptions about whether directions are represented as points on the unit circle or numbers in a circular field (Gallistel, 2017, Figure 4). Course vectors in the plane are two numbers, one representing the range (distance) and one the bearing (direction) of the goal from the start. Vectors are strings, not bags of numbers. The ordering of the numbers in the string matters, just as does the ordering of the words in a sentence. In a location vector, one number represents latitude (distance north-south) and the other longitude (distance east-west). In a course vector, one number represents the range and one the bearing. Latitude and longitude are not interchangeable in navigational computations, nor are range and bearing.

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The four most common navigational computations defined on spatial vectors are vector subtraction (in course planning), Cartesian to polar conversion (in course setting), polar to Cartesian conversion (computing the location to which a given course, i.e., rhumb line, will take you), and vector addition (in dead reckoning, and more generally, in determining to what location a sequence of courses takes you). Okay, so the cognitive map hypothesis entails that there be strings of numbers in neural tissue on which neural machinery operates. Some neuroscientists—actually, many, indeed most—may well object, what could a string of numbers look like in neural tissue? And what could the machinery that operates on this neurobiological fantasy possibly look like? Is it not just as implausible to imagine that there are numbers in neural tissue as to imagine that there are arrows? Not at all! However, to realize this we must be clear that we are talking about numbers as a computer scientist understands them not about the Platonic numbers of mathematicians, logicians and philosophers. We must not go down the metaphysical rabbit hole of worrying what a number really is (In arguing this thesis, I find that I cannot keep most neuroscientists and many cognitive scientists out of that hole). For a computer scientist, a number is a physically realized symbol operated on by machinery that performs the basic operations of arithmetic. Those operations are built into every computing machine. The above-mentioned operations on cognitive maps are implemented by the composition of the basic arithmetic operations, the operations we learned to do by hand when we were in elementary school. The physically realized arithmetically manipulated symbols in the memory of a computing machine—that is, the numbers in its memory—often carry information about measurable abstract quantities like distances, durations and numerosities. The symbols in a memory, whether computer memory or neurobiological memory, are generated by past computations to convey useful information to computations that may be performed at some unknown later time. Their capacity to transmit the results of one computation through time to serve as inputs to later computations makes possible the temporally unbounded composition of functions. Computation is the composition of functions; memory liberates computation from the tyranny of time. A number we stored in memory 70+ years ago may enter into a computation our brain now performs. As Turing and von Neumann already understood, the efficient physical realization of numbers requires a basis set of 2-or more digit elements (e.g, 0 & 1 for a binary code, or 0–9 for a decimal code, or 0–9 & A-F for a hexadecimal code). The number of elements in this set is the base of the code. The elements must be concatenable into strings. The ordinal position of a digit in the string must signify the power to which base is to be raised, because the number that the string represents is the sum of those powers when each power is scaled by the digit at its position in the string. The essential requirements for the elements of a basis set are that they be readily generated, readily concatenable, and readily read. Polynucleotides (DNA and RNA) satisfy these requirements. Polynucleotides are strings of four nucleotides. The machinery for building and editing them exists in every cell, as does the machinery for distinguishing between them on the basis of the ordering of the

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nucleotides—the molecular machinery that reads the molecular strings and generates the proteins whose structures the strings encode. The energetic cost of generating a string is minimal, because hydrolyzing a single ATP molecule provides the energy required to add a nucleotide. The generation of a string proceeds rapidly: 10–100 nucleotides per second (Milo & Phillips, 2016). The information density in the resulting strings (bits per cubic angstrom) approaches the limits imposed by physics (Gallistel, 2017). The realization that randomly generated short polynucleotides are the equivalent of random draws from an extremely large pool of different serial numbers has given rise to a powerful method for tracking the projections of numerous individual neurons. Each neuronal cell body is infected with a different transportable “bar code” in the form of a random short polynucleotide. The polynucleotide is attached to a protein that migrates to the terminal ends of axons. The axon terminals are “scanned” by reverse transcription, each for its (almost) unique bar code (Kebschull et  al., 2016). Every neurobiologist worth her salt knows about bar coding with an RNA-­ protein complex. However, this knowledge seems not to suggest to most neuroscientists anything about where to look for the kind of memory that is required in a machine capable of a rational behavior—like navigation. Bottom line: Every neuron contains molecules that could serve as the physically realized numbers in a system of arithmetic. Moreover, in a brilliant, highly original paper on molecular computation, Hessam Akhlaghpour (2022) has recently shown that RNA can implement all the computational operations, including embedding— putting one string as an element within a larger string. Therefore, it is now possible to form a clear and highly material idea of what a string of numbers could look like in neural tissue: It could look like micro RNAs inside individual neurons. They could serve as both the symbols and the machinery that operates on the symbols. There are thousands of micro-RNAs inside every neuron, most of which have no currently known function. These considerations bring us back to the neurobiological implications of the behavioral facts: The dead reckoning in the log books of the early explorers, together with their descriptions and sketches of landfalls, were the most valuable information they brought back. The log book is the memory of a voyage; its contents are generated in the course of the voyage. The metric and snapshot information in log books made it possible to put the new world on the mappa mundi (Waldseemüller, 1507). Similarly, the dead reckoning in the tiny brains of ants and bees generates the location vectors that constitute their cognitive map and their neurobiological camera generates the snapshots of the notable terrain features they encounter. These geographically located, compass-oriented snapshots constitute their pilot book. The ant’s dead reckoning mechanism updates its cumulative displacement from the nest stride by stride (Wittlinger et al., 2007). Each stride is about 1 cm. The ant takes several strides per second. There are roughly 100,000 strides in a kilometer-­ length outing. During that outing, the ant makes several snapshots (Cheng, 1998; Cheng & Cody, 2015; Cheng et al., 1987). Each snapshot is annotated by the ant’s heading and location at the time the snapshot was taken. A snapshot is itself an array of numbers—photon catches by the photoreceptors in the ommatidia, which are

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probably processed into vectors recording textures and shapes prior to entry into memory. A back-of-the-envelope calculation with these quantitative facts tell us that the brain of a foraging ant or bee generates and stores in memory something like 10–100 vectors per second—36,000–360,000 new memories in an hour—all in a 1 mm3 brain with about 1,000,000 neurons. The only physical structures that can transparently encode many newly generated numbers at high rates are the string-like molecules inside neurons. The cell assemblies (neuronal dustballs) favored as the physical basis of memory by those committed to Locke’s theory of mind (Bi & Poo, 2001; Langille & Gallistel, 2020; Poo et al., 2016) are hopelessly inadequate. Their evident inadequacy explains why admitting the existence of a cognitive map is a bridge too far for many neurobiologists. An understanding of what successful navigation requires—an understanding essential to every serious sailor—leads to an understanding of what the physical basis of memory must be. I believe this understanding will someday revolutionize neuroscience, but it will come only when the field has navigated past the reef raised by Locke’s theory of mind. At present, the field is like Captain Cook when he could find no way to get beyond Australia’s Great Barrier Reef—on which he eventually holed his ship.

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Chapter 15

Navigation and Mètis François Hartog

I’ll talk about a time before GPS, in other words, the time of sailboats and oil lamps! Born far from the sea in Albertville, a small town in the Savoie region of France, I decided at a very young age that I would be a sailor. From the sea, however, I only knew the Normandy beach where we spent a few weeks each summer in the company of many cousins. It was in Yport, near the port of Fécamp, still famous for its Newfoundlands trawlers which went to fish cod on the banks of Newfoundland, hence the name Terreneuvas, whose names made me dream. I think I knew almost all of them! On these pebble beaches, the only nautical gears were, at the end of the 1950s, the perissory for summer visitors and the caicos for fishers (which were hailed on the beach). Sailing and sailing boats were out of the question, even the rustic little Vaurien had not yet made an appearance there. I went out on the water as much as I could (a fisher had taken a liking to me). Later, I even managed to embark for about ten days on a fresh fishing trawler, and another time, on a cargo ship of the New Peninsular Le Havre Company, to go non-stop from Hamburg to Taranto, but my real initiation to sailing and navigation took place later and mainly at the Glénans. Founded at the end of the war by two former Resistance fighters, Philippe Viannay and his wife, Hélène, the school was at its beginnings more an apprenticeship of the sea than sailing: life at sea on boats with mediocre performance, but seaworthy (and with a large crew). On board, as soon as the hawsers are dropped, a new time begins, breaking with the ordinary time on land. We can call it “time at sea”. It is first and foremost that of the watches that will set the rhythm of life on board until landing. Upwatch and downwatch follow one another and deploy all their temporalization effects when the cruise is on the high seas. Those who finish their watch prepare tea or coffee for those who are going to start the next, pass on instructions, exchange a few jokes, F. Hartog (*) EHESS, Paris, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. Casati (ed.), The Sailing Mind, Studies in Brain and Mind 19, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89639-3_15

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then silence returns, or rather, the sounds of the boat tracing its course, the wind in the rigging, the waves along the hull, interspersed by a few whispered exchanges around the chart table. Master of life on board, this time at sea is as repetitive as it is empty. It is also dynamized or weighed down by another time that can be called “sea time”. Here, “temps” should be understood both in the meteorological (weather) and chronological (time) sense. It is multiple, composite, evolving and therefore constantly updated. From regular summaries made by the navigator decisions could follow or be made: a change of sail or route, the choice of a stopover, an anchorage or a shelter. To understand the sea weather-time, the Glénans taught you that the main instrument is the logbook which, as is well known, can be used as a proof in case of damage or accident. It is divided into sections recording some direct observations: barometer readings (rising or falling, slow or fast), state of the sky (which clouds over the hours), state of the sea (whether the sea is wind sea or not, swell direction), wind strength and direction, visibility (good, deteriorating, improving), hygrometric degree (which may, for example, hint at the possibility of fogpatches). These are all indicators that hint at possible trends. By means of these notations, a first phase of the operation begins, which consists of transcribing meteorological weather (“temps”) into chronological time (“temps”). Moreover, when sailing in the English Channel or the Atlantic coast, there is a more than useful calculation to make before setting sail: that of the tide. Having as accurate a representation as possible of this time, which is literally that of the sea, is important for several reasons: determining the height of water at such and such a time of the tide at such and such a point of the planned course affects the choice of a route. Knowing the coefficient of the tide makes it possible to more accurately assess the strength and direction of tidal currents, depending on whether it is a spring tide or a neap tide. Here again, the choice of a route must take this into account, otherwise the boat will not move very far over ground or be shifted where it is not desired. It is therefore necessary to introduce this parameter and deal with it. It is well known that there is no question of crossing the Raz Blanchard (between the cape of La Hague and the island of Alderney) against the current or that it is better to aim to pass the Raz de Sein (between the Pointe du Raz and the island of Sein) at slack water, especially since, if the current opposes the wind, the sea can be rough, or even become quickly hostile. As boating developed, charts of tidal currents appeared, giving hour by hour the direction and speed of the currents. The first ones covered the English Channel and were, I believe, English. Before, one had to make these calculations (fairly approximate) oneself, according to the indications on the remarkable charts of the Service Hydrographique de la Marine. To complement the direct observations and, in sum, see further ahead, marine weather reports were available. At the Glénans, taking the weather forecast was a genuine ritual to which the trainees were initiated right away. The most accessible station was the fisher’s radio station, Radio Conquet (near Brest), which broadcast 2 bulletins a day, in the morning and at the end of the day at H+33 (7:33 a.m. and 7:33 p.m., as far as I remember). When, after some sputtering, one heard “Here Radio Conquet, good morning to all, here is the weather report...”, silence was made

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and the skipper started taking notes. In order to have a more complete view of the general situation and its evolution, the BBC bulletins were also taken. There were 2 or 3 per day, including one in the middle of the night. With the latter, we were almost in a religious service. Perfectly audible, the speaker read the bulletin in a neutral voice (whether it was announcing a gale – Gale warning – or a flat calm) and unfolded the litany of zones (Cromarty, Forth, Tyne...), always in the same order, thus going around England, adding Biscay (the Bay of Biscay). Today, when everyone can follow hour by hour on the screen of their phone the weather of the beach where one is, evoking this ceremony can make people smile. Especially as it was most often about coasting along the coast of Brittany. But let’s not forget that the boats of the Glénans were not good upwind boats and that they had no engine. If sculling is a wonderful technique, it also has its limits. Above all, this regular tuning in for the weather allowed us to draw an actual or mental weather map. It was something other than a “feeling”. We could see the position of the lows, the direction and speed of their movements, the position of the Azores High, the pressure gradient, the curve of the isobars, in short, we understood what was happening and what was going to happen. The meteorological weather (“temps”) explicitly became chronological time (“temps”) from which anticipations became possible, and therefore strategic choices could be envisioned, depending on the target to be reached (a port, or, if one was racing, a marking buoy to be rounded). All in all, the constantly evolving sum of these direct and indirect observations makes it possible to construct a synoptic view of the situation, as if, while on board, one could step back and thus bring into play, correlate and prioritize all these parameters, each of which has its own rhythm and temporality, its own force and sphere of action. Synopsis: overview at time t and also t+3, t+6 or t+12. If I appeal to another ancient Greek concept, I would say that the sailor must display mètis, that is to say, a form of flexible and cunning intelligence that Ulysses, inspired by Athena, knew how to deploy in his navigations. Indeed, it allows the pilot to “steer straight” and to find the “passage” (poros) in the middle of this always mobile and properly diverting (aporetic) space. For the Greeks, the art (techné) of navigation was the responsibility of Athena and not of Poseidon, no matter that he was the uncontested master of the sea. What the Odyssey says in its own way is that it takes the intelligence of Athena to decompose and then recompose what I have called the “time-weather of the sea”. Armed with his trident, Poseidon only knows how to make the winds blow in a gust of wind or spread a flat calm. It is certainly better to have it with you than against you, but when you don’t have it with you, it is all the more important to be able to mobilize Athena’s knowledge. Any deployment of a strategy presupposes that we know where we are. Let’s not forget that we are talking of a situation in which there is no GPS or route planner! We must therefore determine our location: that is, at the end of a series of operations, transfer a point on the map indicating the boat’s position. When landmarks are visible and we are able to identify them (for example, at night, by the characteristics of a lighthouse), three bearings with a compass draw a triangle in the center of which we are located. But when there are no more landmarks, when visibility is reduced or when we are sailing on the high seas, we must resort to another

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well-known technique: dead reckoning. It is the operation by which we mobilize the various parameters, we evaluate their respective ranges, and we summarize all these elements that make up this time of the sea to give at the end a graphic transcription: a point on the map. In view of all the elements at my disposal, I feel that I am there: I mark the point on the map and note its coordinates in the logbook. Dead reckoning is the most complex and richest operation in the art of navigation; when it is confirmed, of course, for example by astronomical observations, but even when it proves to be faulty, because then you have to understand why. I will end with a personal recollection of a successful dead reckoning in navigation. The Glénan, a 13-meter Illingworth cutter, had to be shuttled as quickly as possible from Ireland to the Glénan Islands, non-stop. Between the Fastnet lighthouse and the Basse-Froide – the buoy that overflows the Sein causeway (to be left on the port side) – there was only dead reckoning to track our progress. The weather conditions were good, a wind from the western sector of force 3 or 4 was blowing, if I am correct. The navigator’s job was therefore to evaluate the drifts due to the wind (depending on the speed) and the current (depending on the tide) in order to know our course over ground and thus set the course to follow, correcting it as the estimated time of arrival at the buoy became increasingly clearer. An additional complexity was added: what was the best point of sail for the boat? If deviating a few degrees from the direct course allowed a gain in speed, was this gain greater than the lengthening of the course that the change of course entailed? Was the estimated time of arrival earlier or later, and by how much? Moreover, if you got a header or the wind was to strengthen or, on the contrary, to weaken, it followed that dead reckoning had to be revised (in particular, the impact of tidal currents). In short, “going straight”, as Athena taught Ulysses, imposes a constant vigilance. When, at the beginning of a beautiful clear night, we saw appearing a few miles in front of us the bursts of a lighthouse, which, according to the book, were those of Basse-Froide, it meant that, this time at least, we had been able to mobilize a small parcel of the mètis of Ulysses. François Hartog is a professor at EHESS, Paris. He sailed and raced across the Channel and the West coast of France. [email protected]  

Chapter 16

Anchoring: What’s Going on Down There? William Sharpe

How is it that satisfaction is to be derived from repeating actions that have been sources of unpleasurable feelings? –Encyclopedia of Psychoanalysis

Anchoring is a combination of faith and physics, delight and doubt. Its pleasures and pains are as intertwined as the strands of a hemp rope. What could be better than dropping the hook in a beautiful spot, imagining the idyllic farniente to come, cradled by gentle waves, the ideal conclusion to an ideal day on the water? What more satisfying than sipping ambrosia (or cold beer) in honeyed light while the late-comers straggle into a harbor and thrash about, having failed in the art you yourself have mastered? What better than to bob upon the waves, secure in anticipation of a blissful evening and a good night’s sleep? Seen from land, the yachts that picturesquely dot an azure bay are an object of envy, the centerpiece of a thousand postcards, the very image of luxurious relaxation. And yet all is not well aboard. At anchor, doubt creeps into every crevice of the sailing mind. In this aqueous Eden, the serpent of uncertainly slithers along the murky bottom beneath many a keel. Because it lies out of sight, the set of an anchor is like a black hole, known only by its effects on what’s visible in the vicinity. You, the mariner, must trust your deductions about the anchor’s underwater behavior, and you must calculate the possibility of divine retribution for your ignorance or your misplaced faith in your own mortal powers. Anchoring is a low-key struggle for high stakes, a battle fought on the flat wet frontier between the seen and the unseen. Most of what a sailor does badly, from failing a tack to dropping the winch handle overboard while reefing in a panic, takes place out on the water, far from the eyes of the world. But anchoring almost W. Sharpe (*) Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. Casati (ed.), The Sailing Mind, Studies in Brain and Mind 19, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89639-3_16

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inevitably involves an audience. Unless you are the first to arrive, your cozy cove is a stage and your boat is the spectacle. The nature of the performance—tragedy, comedy, or theatre of the absurd—will depend on you and your crew. Since the Amateur Anchor Hour is a show that appeals to the worst of human instincts, you can’t win much favor with an audience that is hoping you will do something stupid to amuse it. The best you can hope for is to bore spectators by doing things right, at a considerable distance. The worst you can do is entertain them, nearby. The story of your shame and humiliation will regale the cockpit crowd at happy hour for years to come. “And then when the fluke caught in the fender and the lifeline snapped …” “I did wonder why he was holding all that chain so close to the outboard motor …” The unseen part of anchoring is perhaps even worse. As an out-of-sight, uncertain stay against possible destruction, the anchor is, as early Christians saw, a perfect image of an imperfect faith, a faith that needs constant reassurance. You rely on but never trust an anchor. For, like the Lord in the Bible, the anchor does its work invisibly, and most sailors are doubting Thomases, who want tangible results in order to believe. When they are not entangled in more solid materials, anchors are intertwined with Christian symbolism, and have been since the first century. The source is a biblical passage attributed to an often-shipwrecked author, St. Paul: “We have this hope [of heaven] as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure” (Hebrews 6:19). For any sailor, the hoped-for heaven is simply to stay put while staying afloat. Praying and anchoring go together like anchoring and alcohol. Yes, repeated anchoring increases your understanding of physical laws, and concurrently your secular faith in a properly followed set of procedures. But repeated anchoring, alas! also increases your store of unpleasant experiences and foolish mistakes. I count myself a proficient anchorer, but the reader is urged not to emulate any autobiographical details mentioned in the following pages. Having greater experience means that debilitating doubts lie in wait, the moment one thinks about the dreaded drag. The more one anchors, the more one becomes familiar with constant low-level worry, a basso-continuo of regret about the spot chosen and the methods used, coupled with an agonized, continual assessment of neighboring rocks and boats, all leading to sleepless nights spent peering into the darkness, plagued by paralyzing indecision and wracking self-doubt. In the name of rest and relaxation, anchoring draws malicious attention, demands skill, and produces anxiety. What follows is not a locker-full of practical advice but rather an exploration of the thoughts and fears that the anchoring process stimulates. These speculations are based on my amateur and unsystematic experience of having chartered over twenty-­ five different boats, about 10 meters in length, in periods ranging from a week to a month, always in a different location, always with a family on board, always coastal cruising, and so always curious about what’s on shore. Always learning and never repeating an itinerary, my family and I rarely use marinas, preferring secluded anchorages. Since the sailboat and sailing waters are always new to us, anchoring for the night is an important way for our crew to regroup, rest, record what’s past,

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and plan what’s to come. As travelling people the world over have found, the freedom to travel must include the freedom to stop. I would like to think that there might be something about tethering a floating object to an invisible patch of land that produces ideas on the same level with those conceived when steering by the stars toward a far horizon. But it could be that the thoughts of the anchorer are limited by the mundane desire to go nowhere instead of somewhere. Is stopping the intellectual, as well as the physical, opposite of moving? Or does the anchored sailor have special insights, too? That’s what this essay hopes to discover.

I How did a portion of the human race come to subject itself to this seductive torture? It probably began with a rock. At the end of a fine day spent drifting about, someone must have thought, why drag this heavy log up on the beach, when it would float happily if only I could attach it to the bottom in a temporary fashion? The rock and the rope were an early solution to one of sailing’s fundamental problems: How do you make a boat, designed to move freely in a liquid medium, stop in that medium, when the medium is itself in motion, and the boat’s slipperiness in the medium has been deliberately maximized? On land, gravity, friction, and inertia keep most things securely grounded. On water things sink or float, and if they float, then they move as the water and wind move them. Anchors hold floating objects fast in a curious fashion, by allowing them to move. This stop/go tension is the essence of the coastal cruiser’s problem. To continue your journey, you need to pause now and then to replenish your water and fuel tanks, re-provision your food and drink, fix a few things, and see the sights you set out to sea to see. If, on the other hand, you are blue-water cruising or a participant in the Vendée Globe, you can forget about these problems and paradoxes until fatigue, an accident, or the finish line confronts you. As a lover of sea narratives from Melville to Moitessier, I admire those adventurers who sail and sail and never drop the hook. But when I’m the skipper I worry about where the boat is going while I sleep. So I exchange one set of worries for another. If “up anchor” means freedom and adventure, “drop anchor” spells short-­ term relief from the responsibilities of that freedom. Unfortunately, anchoring introduces its own series of qualms, requiring constant vigilance, often from the obstructed vantage point of one’s berth. “Anchor” is both a noun and verb, an object and an action. Like the French ancre or the Italian ancora, the English word “anchor” comes from the classical Latin anchora, behind which looms the Greek word ἄγκυρα (ankura). In classical Latin the word was also used figuratively for “a person who provides support or confidence” (OED).

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Building and keeping that confidence are essential not just to sailors, but to society at large. While the freedom to move is highly prized in Western culture, the number of compound words formed with “anchor” indicates that fixity and making-­ fast are also desirable. The heaviest person on a tug-of-war team is the anchor. Immigrants are claimed to propagate anchor babies to bind themselves to a chosen country. Shopping malls require anchor stores to retain customers. Television news programs have anchor-men or anchor-women to filter the flux of events. Objects that connect things securely are often called anchors, though they may be used far from water, on a roof, perhaps, or a rock-climbing route, or a sheet of dry-wall. To judge by the number of commercial brands that incorporate the name, anchors must have market appeal for the buyers of butter, beer, frozen food, software, or surgical supplies. As a design motif, anchors have a special attraction for decorators of bathrooms and seafood restaurants, and hold an inexplicable charm for the purchasers of baby outfits. Taken together, non-literal anchors spell out a human need to be grounded. (Anchorites, those Christian devotees, usually women, who brick themselves into a church wall, live as much by faith as sailors, but their name derives from a Greek word for “withdrawal” anachōréō, signifying “to withdraw.”) Closer to the sea, anchor-images have, in the form of tattoos, adorned the bodies of sailors for centuries. In the world of naval insignias, anchors hold pride of place, and not just any anchors. Almost universally, the anchors that adorn flags and clothing of navies and their officers are fouled anchors, anchors entangled in their own ropes. In 1776, the Continental Marines of the soon-to-be United States chose a fouled anchor as their emblem, perhaps because the device was already used by officers in the British Navy. A fouled anchor is the official seal of the Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom. A fouled golden anchor was historically the insignia of the French Navy. Since most sailors like to retrieve their anchors from the water without physical or emotional turmoil, the popularity of the fouled anchor, its flukes wrapped with what must be fraying rope, is somewhat of a mystery, right up there with nautical language. Why invent a separate sea-going vocabulary for items that already have perfectly good names on land? And why glorify a piece of equipment whose function is seriously compromised by stray ropes and sloppy seamanship? The most common explanation is that the steadfast hope represented by the anchor will triumph over life’s adversities, represented by the entangling rope. In the American Navy the fouled anchor, symbolizing daily trials and tribulations, is particularly associated with the rank of Chief Petty Officer, the highest position an enlisted sailor can attain. Some claim that the motif dates back to a Lord High Admiral of Scotland, circa 1400, or failing that, to the seal of Lord Howard of Effingham who, as Lord Admiral of England, defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588. There may be a memorial and a warning in that seal, since much of the Spanish fleet was destroyed rounding Ireland on its inglorious return home. Because so many Spanish ships had cut their cables to escape an earlier English attack at Calais, they sailed anchorless and could not seek shelter from the Atlantic storms.

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II Savvy skippers assess the possibilities and pitfalls of each anchoring spot, as if picking a campsite or buying a house. Once decided, they must forget everything they have learned from Dante: instead of abandoning hope, they must now embrace it. The mariner who enters a potential anchorage for the first time has a mind divided, like Gaul, into three parts. One third flies above the surface scanning wind and water, looking toward the shore for shelter or hazards, calculating fetch, studying swing room amid other boats, and evaluating what changes in position might ensue from changes in wind or tide. Another third of the brain dives below the surface, thinking about the depth and the bottom, its composition and holding qualities in regard to the anchor about to be dropped. Will the water be lower or higher later? What is the likely force of an ebbing or flowing tide? Is there enough room to allow for proper scope on the rode? Given the depth, is the boat in danger of running aground now or later, and are there underwater cables or other anchor lines to be avoided? If the basics are sound, is this the sort of spot where nightclubs on shore will, like Macbeth, murder sleep, or where, if the weather is too lively to deploy a dinghy, fresh bread might be delivered or a pizza ordered? (Praise be to Calvi in Corsica, Tobago Keys in the Caribbean). The final third of the sailor’s mind is perhaps busiest of all, repressing awareness of critical onlookers, so that the first two-­ thirds of the consciousness can do their job efficiently. At this point, bad choices should already have been ruled out. No point in dropping in a Norwegian fjiord: you will never touch bottom. You will have avoided, as this author has not, mouths of rivers (more on that later); tidal areas that will leave you grounded just at the moment you want to depart; cute little one-boat hideaways swarming with water snakes; postcard-perfect Caribbean bays whose jellyfish will make a stung child scream for hours; busy channels and ferry landings whose turbulence will dislodge equanimity along with the anchor; and military zones monitored by armed men with a poor sense of humor. Even dropping a desperate anchor at the approach to a harbor because your engine has failed and there is no room to sail clear is not recommended, unless you are the sort of person who likes to change tires in the middle of the motorway. Earlier in the day, you will have taken account of the weather forecast and the orientation of your shelter vis-à-vis the coming winds. You will have noted national or continental differences, so as not to arrive too early or late for amusement at your chosen cove, bay, harbor, or quiet bit of coast. North Americans will all be settled by 5 pm, so that they can squeeze in beer and dinner in the cockpit before dusk brings mosquitos. The French and Italians will race each other to popular anchorages a few hours later, saving their best seamanship for overtaking boats from more patient, plodding countries. Dropping the mainsail and the anchor simultaneously, they revel in stealing spots out from under the unsuspecting bows of non-­ Mediterranean innocents. There’s an entirely different ritual in the land of the midnight sun, in the nature reserve islands off the east coast of Sweden. Entering a small inlet already filled

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with ten or fifteen boats as neatly organized as cars in a parking lot, you drop a stern anchor 30 meters from land, creep forward, and stop less than a meter away from the steep-to rocks that line the shore. The most athletic member of the crew leaps onto a boulder, a bow line in hand, and runs up its nearly vertical side. Once the line is made fast to a tree or iron ring in the vicinity, the on-boat crew tightens up the stern rode and the boat is set for the night. A designated crew member, this time the fleetest of foot, races through the woods to make a reservation at the island sauna, while the longest-armed member of the crew plunges into the cockpit locker and extricates the barbeque. It’s six o’ clock, there are only eight or ten hours of daylight left, and it’s sausage time in the Baltic. But to participate in all this fun, first you need an anchor. Every sailor will have a favorite and, as with boats, none is ideal in all conditions. Once past the rock stage, sailors relied for centuries on a traditional “fisherman’s” anchor with a long shank and big flukes (sometimes called a kedge anchor), designed to catch in rocks and dig into a seabed. Too big and awkward for most cruisers, it nonetheless works well with stones and weeds, but its weight will not overcome a tendency to drag in mud and sand. A Bruce or claw anchor holds well in sand, rock, or mud, but has trouble penetrating weeds and clay, and a lower holding power per pound means it will have to be heavier than other alternatives. The CQR (with hinged shank) and Delta/wing fixed design are plow-shaped anchors with good power-to-weight ratios that do well with everything but rocks. Although awkward to deal with on deck, the hinged plow adjusts better than other anchors to changes in tide and wind. Recent modifications including roll bars and sharper points have rendered plows even more effective. The Danforth often serves as a backup or stern anchor because it stows flat. It is only effective on two grounds— mud and sand—but on these common bottoms it excels. A small, folding grapnel anchor provides a temporary purchase on the bottom for kayaks, canoes, dinghies, and fishermen. Power boaters, who just toss a lightweight any-type anchor over the side in three feet of water near the beach, receive the scorn of the true sailor, who knows that the process should be much harder than this, and that they will be punished in the afterlife for taking it easy now. The anchor, of course, only works well if it is (a) tied to the vessel, and (b) attached to sufficient rode (the anchor line, made of rope or chain). The scope (ratio of rode length to water depth, measured from seabed to bow roller) should be between 3:1 to 5:1 for chain, and 7:1 for rope. The unattached anchor is a particular hazard of chartering, since you don’t know who did what to your boat before it became yours. The unsecured bitter end (so named from originally being attached to bitts or bollards on deck) will sometimes slip right through the unsuspecting charterer’s hands if the rode is short or the water deep. Having the right amount of rode out is the key to having the anchor hold. The rode, whether of rope or chain, provides three commonly accepted advantages: it puts weight on the bottom, it creates a low-angle, close-to-horizontal pull on the anchor, giving it maximum holding power; and it acts as a shock absorber when the weight of the boat pulls it taught. But the first and third of these advantages are said

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to be myths, because once a strong wind or tide pulls the rode tight, the weight is off the ground and there is no play left in the system (unless rope is used). Much of the perennial anchoring debate centers on the role of the catenary curve made by the rode as it descends from the boat to an anchor penetrating the seabed. The shape of the catenary (from Latin, catena or chain) was first described mathematically by Huygens in 1690 and confirmed by Leibniz and Bernoulli the following year. Ideally it will trail along the bottom when close to the anchor and rise gradually to the boat a substantial distance away. But if the catenary advantage is lost in a high wind, then the sailor will do well to have cut down on chain weight and beefed up the anchor itself. And if there is rope somewhere in the rode system, that could also ease shocks and lighten the load (if it does not chafe through on rocks, coral, ice, or rough edges on your boat). Aside from deploying another anchor, the single best thing a worried sailor can do is make sure there is sufficient scope (up to about 8:1) for the anchor to do its work when pulled in a horizontal direction. And that’s where a new set of problems emerges, since anchorages can be small or crowded, restricting the swinging room of a vessel. If the wind is steady, the boats ought to keep their relative positions. But if it is shifty, or if there is no wind at all, they can drift haphazardly like toys in a bathtub. Once in the Virgin Islands we were bumped several times on a still night by a boat that we had warned about this likelihood when it anchored. Since we had anchored first, our priority was eventually recognized and the offenders grumbled away into the night, dimly visible in their white underwear. But once in Corsica we were the offending vessel. We had ducked into a full anchorage, having made a desperate (for us) run from Sardinia in 35-knot winds. Believing that the Mediterranean mistral that had kept us cowering in Sardinia for three days would not abate, we squeezed in where we could. We had a pleasant time watching another boat come in and fail five times to get its hook in (they dropped before stopping, then backed down too fast and hard on it). But when the wind eased and we rowed to the beach, we soon saw that the people on the boat behind ours were waving frantically. We had to rush back, up the dragging anchor, and re-park ourselves in a quieter corner of the bay. We had not swung, but we had not held, either. Having laughed at the boat that failed to get a grip on the bottom, I accepted Neptune’s punishment and methodically re-anchored, by the book. The trick is to drop anchor, face to wind, just as the boat begins to drift backward, paying out a well-marked rode (which is never the case with charters). Then you snub the rode at about 3:1 to make sure it bites. Then you let it out further, to the desired length, and back the boat down on the anchor, slowly at first, to bury it further, then gradually harder, approaching full throttle in reverse. As the boat comes up on the rode and backs steadily, you put your hand flat on the rope or chain to feel if it is vibrating, bouncing, or easing in a way that indicates it may be skipping along the bottom. If so, you haul it in and start again. If you cannot succeed after many tries, you sail away to another spot or, if the children are making their needs known, you admit defeat and find a nearby marina.

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Sometimes cramped local conditions mean you will have to supplement the anchor with a line attached to the shore. In the Iles Lavezzi off the south coast of Corsica you rely on a combination of anchors and lines ashore, wrapped with difficulty around the big rounded boulders that comprise the shore. In Sweden, the anchor and shore line combination is standard. You can also row an extra anchor out in the dinghy, to be dropped at a helpful angle to the anticipated pull of wind and water. Obsessive personalities voyaging in clear, warm Caribbean waters may dive their anchors for reassurance and instructional purposes, such as discovering all the chain piled in a heap on top of the anchor itself. But once the hook is in and the engine off, most sailors will watch the boats and landmarks around them to judge their holding and swinging radius. They line up trees and objects on shore to see if the relationship changes in predictable or troubling ways. Getting closer to other boats or a lee shore is especially worrisome. Boats with stretchy rope rodes may describe a very long circle even in a steady wind, creating a sensation like an amusement park ride. How should we think about the water that provokes so much intense feeling? It’s an active, innocent, hostile, or indifferent sustainer and destroyer, something capricious, predictable, and beautiful. The fact that the faster an object hits the water, the harder the water becomes, might be a metaphor for the relationship of anchor, boat, line, ground—and a fifth element, the person who anchors. Whether easing the anchor into the water without a ripple, or heaving it overboard with a violent splash, that individual initiates a precarious relationship to the invisible holding ground. In anchoring, speed will make everything harder.

III The anchor is buried, the engine turned off, and you relax and look around. Sometimes a Neptunian sign appears to tell you how perfect this all is, as when a dolphin circled our solitary boat in a remote cove in Maine. Or when its French cousin cavorted within petting distance at our stern in Ouessant off the coast of Brittany. In Croatia, at anchor in the harbor at Hvar, we felt as if we were center stage on an opera set, with palms and Venetian-style architecture framing our picturesque position. Ideally, the anchor allows one to step clear of the voyage’s momentum, to disconnect mind and body from its onward rush so that one can relax, do chores, reflect, and ponder the curiosities of land-based life. And yet most of these things might be done just as well as while sailing. Perhaps it would be correct to say that the body is a bit more relaxed at anchor, the mind a bit less. At anchor, new choices open up. Sailors drink, eat, comment on other boats, and go ashore (to drink and eat and comment on other boats). But a musician might pull out an instrument, while an artist will select part of the landscape for immortalizing (drawing at anchor involves special challenges, since both the boat and the scenery are constantly moving). Among other chores, if you are newly arrived in a foreign

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port you must gather the crew’s passports and find a way to check in while not breaking any quarantine rules. And of course any activity involving shore means preparing the dinghy. More questions arise: will we be able to row ashore, where will we tie up, can we leave the dinghy, do we need to signal our anchored status with a black ball or an anchor light? Can we find our way back at night? A boat at anchor is a sitting duck. In addition to the weather, it is prey to vendors, beggars, thieves, pirates, and wildlife ranging from spiders and snakes to polar bears and jet skis. If you are lucky, a Maine lobsterman will offer you five crustaceans for five dollars, or an enterprising Breton will provide croissants and pains au chocolat. If you are unlucky you will have to wrestle the snake, shoot the polar bear, and spend a fortune on the lobster in a restaurant. The mental stress and strain of anchoring may recede at happy hour or on a bright sunny morning. But there are steps you can take to make sure that such tranquility will not last. The best way I know to make a beautiful day turn fretful is simply to leave the boat unattended in order to sightsee. It is understood in my family that sailing is all very well, but we are here (Denmark, Corsica, the Chesapeake Bay, the Isle of Man, wherever) to prowl the streets, lanes, marshes, mountains, museums, roadways, ruins, trails, paths, wastelands, and shop interiors of whatever coast is within dinghy distance. With children to be educated in the joys of travel, the ruling mantra is, “one go, all go, we are only here once and the boat can look after itself.” This opens up a fatal line of thinking: if the anchor is going to drag, you have the option of not being there to witness it. You can head to a beach lying tantalizingly before you. Then as the children obliviously make sandcastles you can either bury your head in the sand, or stare at the boat for hours imagining what feats of heroism will be needed to rescue it if its next swing is not close to the last one. These worries, along with the desperate rescues, have entertained us in Mediterranean, Atlantic, and Caribbean waters. Or you can get everyone ready for a day ashore, lock up the boat, and abandon ship. Then you can worry your way around a Caribbean or a Channel island, capped by the special thrill of returning to find that the boat is not where you left it. Leaving the boat puts the ultimate strain on the anchoring mind. It is a sort of meta-anchoring procedure. Until this moment, only the anchor and rode were unseen; now the whole enterprise will be out of sight (if vividly in mind). Unlike actual sailing, where you actively manage the boat in relation to marine conditions, leaving the boat tests what’s already been done, in hopes that it will not come undone. On occasion, we have left the poor chartered boat in dicey places that still make me shudder: near a rocky beach on the isle of Skye, in terrible swells in Statia (where a cruising boat was later destroyed in the exact same spot), and at the foaming mouth of a tiny river in Scotland, next to the iconic Eilean Donan castle. Here disaster was averted only by our being asked, while we were touring the castle, if ours was the boat spoiling the film shoot now in progress. Bright white fiberglass sloops were apparently not much of a feature in medieval Scotland, when the film was set, and we were urged to depart the twelfth century as rapidly as possible. Finding that the river was now a raging tidal torrent and that our good ship

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was being whiplashed across its entrance, we did some frantic white-water paddling to regain the decks of our knar (or was it a cog?). We pulled away just in time to avoid casting some anachronistic plastic wreckage on the waters of Loch Alsh. The Scottish cruise was a charmed one, since we were also rescued from the windy waters of the Treshnish Isles, where we had gone ashore to look at puffins. On the return to our vessel, the outboard on the dinghy failed, and our frantic efforts to row against the tidal current caught the attention of a local fisherman. He gave us a tow before we were blown to St. Kilda – where the following year I had the deep satisfaction of seeing a Royal Yachting Association instructor deal with the drag of his unattended vessel. The thrill of a displaced boat (I can proudly claim never to have actually lost a boat) can be heightened by discovering, as we did once on the Ile de Bréhat, that the dinghy, alas, was exactly where we left it, tied too tightly to a low step on the landing. The same rising tide that had dislodged our anchor had engulfed the dinghy. It must be admitted that it had taken the combined Franco-American genius of two families to accomplish this. And yet in this case, an anchor watch had indeed been set, in the form of two salty ten-year-olds. After hearing in two excited languages how a Monsieur had appeared from nowhere to interrupt the Monopoly game and re-anchor the boat, the quiet bay witnessed a sheepish crew row a bottle of its finest Calvados over to the good Samaritan who had saved lives and property. When I think of times like these, I feel a certain kinship to Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, whose tag line rings all too true: “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

IV One thing you can be sure of: most of the wind and worry will come at night, when it is hard to make out reference points and the last thing you want to do is (a) get up to look, (b) go out on a windy deck to look; (c) sit shivering by the compass on the windy deck and take bearings on murky objects; or (d) wake the crew for re-­ anchoring when there is little chance that you can do it any better in the dark than you could in the daylight. So you lie in your berth, listening, listening, listening to the crash of the surf on the shore, until anxiety and a sense of responsibility overcome the immense inertia of the warm bunk. There should be an anchor watch, of course, but in my early days as a sailor, I was the sole candidate. The only possible helpers were either below the age of reason, or nursing a baby. So I got up and watched the boat swing like Wonder Woman at the end of her magic lasso. The worst night I can remember came as the wind funneled mercilessly down Willsboro Bay on Lake Champlain. As an inexperienced skipper I did not trust a rope rode or the set of my anchor, and counted slowly to twenty as the boat swung to port, and slowly to another twenty as it swung back to starboard.

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Since then, I have made a discovery. As you swing at the end of your tether in the dark, listening to every creak and groan of your vessel, you can pass the time almost agreeably by softly singing to yourself the immortal words of Priscilla Jane Owens of Baltimore. It was she who in 1882 turned St. Paul’s biblical verse into a still famous and highly pertinent hymn, “Will Your Anchor Hold?”: Will your anchor hold in the storms of life, When the clouds unfold their wings of strife? When the strong tides lift and the cables strain, Will your anchor drift, or firm remain?

These questions take on special urgency in sonorous gloom, as you try to remember the details of the weather forecast (which you have already gone over dozens of times). Was it wind SSE, rising to 20, then falling? Or ESE, with a bit of N in the E, 15–25, then rising after midnight? And was that forecast for here, or further west? And what about the gale warnings for Rockall? Is the British Portland sector the same as the French Ouessant sector? If your memory is sound, you can respond to all these questions by recalling Priscilla’s comforting words: “We have an anchor that keeps the soul/Steadfast and sure while the billows roll.” Unfortunately, in her concern for the soul, Priscilla forgot to offer any reassurances about the safety of the body. If you are lucky – or unlucky – enough to fall asleep, you will dream about anchors, rocks, and lee shores until dawn, which you will be delighted to greet in a dry state. Until you poke your nose outside and see … What you see will depend on you, not me. But I will say that few sensations equal the relief of finding yourself in the same place in the morning as you put yourself the evening before. Conversely, few frights match the horror of discovering that the sea has mounted and the land has neared. But one anchors to soar, not sink. It’s heavenly to swing gently at anchor on a warm night under a canopy of blazing stars. Your hair ruffled by the breeze, your eyes on the stars, you commune with the depths through the anchor rode, feeling its tug yet gliding freely. The earthly water you sit on moves in concert with celestial bodies, your small arcs influenced by a moon circling a spinning planet that circles the sun, a sun whose temporary invisibility, its trip to the depths below the horizon, reveals the stars above. A tug from below tells you your anchor has hooked you to the sky.

V Time to go. The wind is up, the sun is up, the kids have eaten their pancakes. A hearty soul strides up to the anchor locker, hooks it open, pulls on a pair of gloves, and signals to the helm to advance slowly. There’s just enough wind to push the bow over one way, then another. Zigging and zagging, the bow and boat move faster than the hearty soul can pull up chain, or winch it in and feed it into the chain locker. The boat overshoots the anchor and drives over the rode. The hearty soul is in muscular

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pain. Free at last, the anchor drags then dangles. It swings unpredictably until it rises close enough to the surface to start chipping plastic off the prow. Unless, that is, it is coated in mud and weeds and decides to smear the hull first. But somehow, it’s hauled on board and stowed. The bows turns toward open water, and you are off to another adventure. Someone’s back may hurt for a week, the boat may look like it participated in the Normandy invasion, but you are off. Unless, of course, the anchor chooses not to rise at all. It might be caught on a rock, a cable, a chain, another anchor. While the crew explores these possibilities, it’s a good time for someone who will later claim “I was just trying to help” to drop a boathook or trail a line that will foul the propeller. Consultation with other boats may be required, along with patience, diplomacy, and a deaf ear to all the bad advice that will come your way. This is the moment to question the symbolism of the fouled anchor. Instead of an image of stability in a turbulent world, it may now seem more appropriate as a coat of arms for something malevolent that won’t let go: a blood-sucking leech, a freeloading relation, an undivorceable spouse. A regretted tattoo of a fouled anchor could be a fouled anchor in itself, a foreign object that won’t come off the substance in which it has been embedded. The fouled anchor is a misguided icon for the simplest of reasons: anchors are meant to be lost and found; they are made to be thrown away and recovered and thrown away again, for as long as the game is pleasing. It all comes down to this: you have to be willing to let the anchor go, to enjoy the freedom and security a trusted anchor can provide. That deep diver into the human psyche, Sigmund Freud, figured it out in 1920 in a book called Beyond the Pleasure Principle (surely a perfect title to sum up why people sail). Freud writes of a little boy who throws an object away, only in order to retrieve it after it has disappeared from his sight: The child had a wooden reel with a piece of string tied around it …. What he did was to hold the reel by the string and very skillfully throw it over the edge of his curtained cot, so that it disappeared into it, at the same time uttering his expressive “o-o-o-o.” [which Freud interprets as the child’s version of fort (“gone”)]. He then pulled the reel again by the string and hailed its reappearance with a joyful “da” [“there’]. This, then, was the complete game of disappearance and return…. The interpretation of the game then became obvious. It was related to the child’s great cultural achievement … in allowing his mother to go away without protesting.

Like the secondary Roman meaning of anchora mentioned earlier (“a person who provides support or confidence”), the mother must be symbolically cast away so that she can be understood to exist while she is absent. According to the Encyclopedia of Psychoanalysis, the fort/da game, is “founded on disappearance and reappearance,” producing a “kind of pleasure, that felt by the child when he sees what he had thought gone forever return from the void, and thus discovers the possibility of permanence, of continuity.” Seeking that elusive pleasure, sailors learn to surrender the sight of what grounds them to mother earth, so that they can create their own sense of reassuring continuity in the mutability of nature. There’s a revealing verbal confusion in English about what happens when a mariner ups anchor and departs. Because of the identical pronunciation, many people

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hear the command “anchors aweigh” (taking the full weight of the anchor on the chain, thus freeing it and starting the voyage) as saying “anchors away.” Since “Anchors Aweigh” (1906) is the often-sung but rarely-read title of the U.S. Navy anthem, many Americans set sail in a perpetual state of uncertainty over whether their anchor is heavy, absent, or simply stowed away. The confusion is actually a Freudian psychic problem: is the anchor lost, gone away, or is it with us, weighing us down so that we can later weigh it up? The child casts an object away, then delights in retrieving it, repeating the operation again and again, as a way of learning to master the sensation of loss. He does to things what people have done to him. Later he will abandon others. But he also learns that what is cast away can return, sometimes transformed while it was out of sight. When it comes back, one or both of them may be different. There is no guarantee that he who casts away will be the same as he who recovers. There may be a continuity of objects and actors, but the psychic relations may have changed. Sailors who drop an anchor may haul it in again in a moment, frustrated that it did not hold. They may haul it in the next day, with great pains, because it held too well. Someone who pulls it up on one shore and drops it weeks later on the other side of an ocean will regard the piece of metal differently from those who set out a lunch hook and recuperate it in half an hour. But in whatever context sailors drop the anchor, they rely on it to hold them steady in the flux of time and tide, so that they can pick up both anchor and journey at a moment that suits them. The idea that things can be re-found just where we left them is immensely comforting, perhaps even essential to our psychological health. Yet the anchor itself must be thrown away today, hazarded to the depths, so that it can be recovered in the changed world of tomorrow. We have to lose sight of it for it to do its job. Certain people, certain places, too, serve to anchor us as individuals afloat in the sea of life. Will they be reliable, can we count on them to hold, to be there when we return from whatever voyage, literal or metaphoric, that we have taken? We may not think of our personal anchors today in stained-glass terms, intertwined with crosses and fish, but we rely on them no less than our forebears. Every day, in a sea of time and change, we are anchoring and weighing anchor, counting on whatever we have used to ground ourselves to also be ready to be hauled in, to come back and set us free. William Sharpe is Professor of English at Barnard College, Columbia University. He is an inveterate charterer of 30–35-foot monohulls and has sailed with his family in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and Atlantic waters off northern USA, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, and Brittany. [email protected]