There is a common, but rarely discussed, malady affecting many new cruisers. Many of you will have heard of and possibly experienced Mal-De-Mar, also known as sea sickness. While this is very unpleasant, the symptoms generally resolve quickly when calmer water is found. The much more insidious and dangerous Mal-De-Mar is the dreaded BTSD — Boater Traumatic Seafaring Disorder. While this can be a permanent problem among some cruisers, I’m told it is more commonly a temporary problem that resolves when the new cruiser’s expectations adjust to match the sad reality of their daily life aboard.
My own experience with BTSD has two primary triggers: the electrical panel and the lazarette. I’ll use the lazarette in this example to give you an understanding of this troublesome malady. The lazarette, also known as the cockpit locker, is a large unfinished space under the cockpit. Naming it with a fancy French word creates a romantic image in your mind, but don’t be fooled — there is nothing romantic or pleasant about this pit of awkwardness and stinky smells in the bottom of our boat. In this space you will find the engine, the batteries, the steering gear, the refrigerator compressor and everything else that won’t fit in any of the more “civilized” spaces on a boat. Our inventory includes life jackets, spare anchors, buckets, fishing stuff, about 3 miles worth of lines (aka ropes), various poles and hooks, a grill, a pointy radar reflector, engine oil, coolant, cleaners, and so much more. All of the surfaces in this space are rough unfinished fiberglass and none are flat, so everything moves, slides and tangles with great regularity. Boat designers cleverly arrange for nearly every complicated system in the boat to have some critical item hidden away in the lazarette.
The part you usually have to work in is barely visible in the far background of this picture. This is looking in from the interior of the boat.
The new boat owner looks in this lazarette when they take possession and thinks: “I’m going to clean up this mess!” Their chest puffs out as the pride of boat ownership shows through. But then in as little as a few weeks, reality sets in. Inevitably there will be a project, a good example on Regina Maris is adding solar panels, which begins to break the spirit and crush the naïve enthusiasm of the newbie owner. I know what you’re thinking: “solar panels will be out in the sun, what does that have to do with this dark, wet, unpleasant space in the bottom of the boat?” Well here is your first lesson: every addition, change, “improvement” somehow will involve time and effort in the lazarette!
In the case of solar panels there is wiring in this hellish space, there is a controller, there are sensors that connect to the batteries and there is a control panel on the inside of the boat that connects to the panels on the outside which means the wires go all the way through the dreaded lazarette! So before you know it you are laying on your back with a fading headlamp, with an anchor digging into your back, sweating profusely and breathing the dank stale air filled with the raw stench of diesel fuel, solvents and glues. As if that’s not bad enough, you then realize that you didn’t bring all the tools you need! Therefore you must extract yourself. This entails sliding your way, generally feet first, toward the small sliver of light coming from the opening. Your back is dragging along the rough fiberglass, your hands are grasping for holds to propel you inch by inch toward the light. For part of this arduous journey you are upside down and backwards to wiggle around an obstruction (often the pointy end of a spare anchor). Finally you can reach up and grasp the edge of the opening and hoist your aching body into the light. You catch your breath, stretch the cramps from your body, go find the tool, then lower yourself into the pit again and reverse the whole process. As you are inching your way back in over the rough fiberglass the tool slips from your exhausted cramping hand, slides down under the engine and splashes into the bilge where it may never be found. You are feeling the beginnings of BTSD.
After a few projects like this, the mere mention of any project instantly raises a deep anxiety and a panicked search for excuses. A mere glance into the lazarette when you reach in to get a line (aka rope) will cause your heart to constrict and bile to rise in your throat. When you begin to experience anxiety, fear, foreboding, tightening in your throat and difficulty breathing with even the most fleeting thought or casual mention of a new boat project, you know you have BTSD!
How do we cope with this? There are several proven techniques. Many projects require special tools. Throw these tools overboard when you are in the nastiest, deepest water possible. Many projects require expensive and hard to find parts. If you’ve already purchased these parts as spares, throw them over too! If you don’t have them, pray that you will never find them (pretty good chance of that actually it turns out). With these simple, proven techniques you can start the healing process.
Just thinking about the lazarette has upset me too much to even think about including the many problems with working in the electrical panel. The electrical panel is equally terrifying with the added fact that it can be life-threatening, but this discussion will have to wait for another time — I need to go lie down….