Originally Posted by
MoAlpha
I would need more details about his sailing CV, the plan, and the boat, but all kinds of fools cross oceans successfully in unsafe boats and bad things happen to the best prepared. On the TBI and judgment issue, I spent several years working with frontotemporal dementia patients and my and my collaborator’s attitude on activities was, as long as it doesn’t endanger anyone else’s life or property and the family understand the risks, go for it. With sailing there is always the issue of the expense and risk to SAR assets in case of disaster, but my strong feeling is that SAR is a normal activity and that the people who do it live and train and love to do their thing and would be very sad Indeed if mariners stopped taking risks.
Understood. He is an interesting guy. I met him while riding bitd at the Hop. He was a brilliant intellect, but had bipolar that was not always well compensated so he would go from brilliance to depression frequently. He would take advanced engineering classes and sit in back and point out when the professors would make mistakes. He was riding in downtown Bmore (on MY Vitus blue aluminum screw/glue frame btw) with a helmet on and hit a storm grate with the openings parallel to the road. Splat! Had decent head trauma and could not think clearly for some time. When he got to his new baseline, he was clearly dumber than before but actually closer to “normal” and way less of a French Shower to others. The joke is that the TBI cured his bipolar, a reverse Phineas Gage type of tale.
Now, 33 years later, he does have some mild cognitive impairment but does ok.