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Cult of Personalities
As I was walking down the street in front of the Federal building in downtown San Francisco last week, some dude pulled his pickup to a screeching halt and shouted “Hey, Mr. Clean!” While plenty of people have recognized me at the yacht club or regatta from my stories on SA, this was the first time that I’d been recognized by a complete stranger in a non-sailing environment, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like it. Mer’s dad is one of the best-known broadcasters in Detroit, so she barely noticed – but I did. What I couldn’t understand is this: In 2002, I was a major cast member in a six-part miniseries called The Ship that was broadcast throughout the English speaking world on the BBC and History Channel. A year later, it was translated into Spanish and French and aired in another 25 countries. Despite all that exposure, no one ever really recognized me from the show. It’s incredibly hard to quantify the nature of internet-based communities. The biggest marketing companies in the world are spending millions of dollars to try and understand exactly how and why these communities exist (and how to cash in on them, of course), and between margaritas and spliffs in Mexico, I realized that we were doing the same thing – trying to get to know and understand more of the SA community. We all know that a substantial portion of the people we race with and against are regular visitors to SA, but beyond that, not even the Ed really knows the scope of this community that he built. I can tell you this: My major role in a six-hour, six-part documentary that cost something like 12 million dollars to make and saw distribution in dozens of countries didn’t make me even remotely famous. Yet a few dozen articles about racing little boats, getting ridiculously hammered and racing other little boats has people (person) stopping me in the street to shake my hand, others inviting me on all-expense paid trips to go sailing, and still more folks opening their homes to me and my family without hesitation, despite the fact that my family includes a farting dog the size of a pony. I think that Mer and I are finally getting some real understanding of what SA is, at least as we’ve seen it. In the 8 weeks we’ve been traveling, we’ve met literally hundreds of sailors, and almost invariably they tell us that they use SA more than any other sailing site. The real junkies use SA more than anything else, including their own e-mail. People have told me that they only read the front page (like my “fan” in SF) and others have said they hang out in the forums all day while their employers think they’re working. Aussies and Detroiters come to talk smack before regattas, everyone checks in to debrief afterwards, and the usual suspects bitch and complain about ratings and cheaters and bad organizers. We use the site to stay in touch with crew who live around the corner, with friends who live on other continents, and to be told how stupid we are when we ask for rigging, sailing and cruising tips. Industry people find employees here, wannabe rock stars find sailmaking jobs here, and other companies stay afloat through business from SA’ers. There are even a bunch of us who are stupid enough to argue about religion and politics on a sailing website. There are some who lament the long-lost days of the original Sailing Anarchy – a mythical world inhabited only by the most insane multihull and skiff sailors who could anonymously rant about any subject they wanted while browsing porn posted by someone half a world away. These complainers miss the point of the place. It was never to be another “EXTREME” website – there are plenty of those, and they’re all fads. It’s an outlaw site, but only because yacht racing is full of anachronistic, nepotistic, sexist, racist, and classist bullshit, and if you’re not into that bullshit, you have to be an outlaw. The real outlaws are the people we were hoping we would meet on this trip, and we’ve not been disappointed. They’ve been calling, e-mailing, eating, drinking, smoking, and sailing with us in Mexico, San Diego, Santa Monica, Pismo Beach, Santa Cruz, Mendocino, Portland, Pacifica, Richmond, San Francisco, Port Angeles, Seattle, and Denver. We’ve been shown places we would never have found, and we’ve gotten to know people who are absolute gems, all of whom want to see a stronger sailing scene wherever they are – inclusive rather than exclusive. In meeting all of these Anarchists, we’ve realized that, on some level, the inmates have taken over the asylum. We are something of a cult of personality – a group that grows and grows because of the characters that make it what it is, from the Ed on down to the lurkers. The personalities that inspire the loyalty could be real or they could be more online bullshit, but so far, everyone I’ve found matches their SA persona, and it’s a colorful and wonderful group. So many of these personalities want change, and now that we can talk about it in one place, slowly, subtly, it’s happening. So often, the people that are driving the incremental changes proudly call themselves Anarchists. The rants that are commonplace here on SA are popping up in class newsletters, in club meeting minutes, and even, occasionally, on websites that, five years ago, wouldn’t dream of rocking the boat. The people at the top of yacht racing are listening, and participating, and now that they are, let’s collectively make sure that we don’t let up. In fact, let’s turn up the pressure to make racing more fun and exciting, and sailing more accessible and more recognizable to those who don’t know what a great lifestyle it is. As for road trip updates, I don’t have much to tell at the moment. It’s hard to write about sailing when you’re surrounded by 13,000 foot mountain peaks. We’ve got hundreds more photos than the few I’ve put in here, and I’ve got plenty of stories from the 5000+ miles between Nayarit, Mexico and the little coffee shop in Aspen where I’m typing this, but that’ll wait for another day. Now that we’re landlocked for a week or so, I’ll have the time to post some of these fun video interviews we’ve done and to share some of the more interesting photos we took along the way - a way that has been full of new friends, great stories and awesome trips on the water. SA’ers are an astonishing family, and there’s no real way to thank everyone for every little bit of help, but thank you all the same. A very special thanks goes out to Amy B, Bob Y, Tikadog and Mikko, Robert Perry and Ben Souquet for the beds and bedtime stories. You’ll hear from us soon – besides the features we’ve got to catch you up on, we’ve got Charleston Race Week just around the corner, and shortly after that, the Cleans get to check out the scene in Australia and New Zealand – and wherever you are, you’re coming along for the ride. 04/05/07 |
