Lessons from a Voyage

I have just returned from an exciting voyage: crossing the Atlantic on a sailboat. You can find updates from along the way on the J44 Frolic website, Twitter/X and Instagram accounts. In this post I am gathering up my lessons learned. Some of these are just about sailing, in particular passage making, and some are broadly applicable life lessons.

Offshore sailing is intense. I always had great respect for offshore sailors, and in particular solo sailors, and this voyage has only deepened that. To be successful requires lots of different skills: navigation, sail trim, anchoring/docking, mechanical, plumbing, electrical (AC and DC), fishing, cooking. Not everyone on board needs all of these but it is good to have all of them as part of the crew, ideally redundant. If you want to follow exciting single handed racing, I highly recommend the upcoming Vendée Globe race. On each of these skills, experience makes a huge difference. Going into this adventure there was a lot that I understood theoretically but had never done (I had zero offshore experience). So I was thrilled to do this with my friend HL DeVore who has extensive offshore experience, including two prior Atlantic crossings.

Technology has made passage making much easier. The voyage also increased my respect for what it took to cross the oceans in the past with minimal technology. We had access, via Starlink, to up-to-date weather information. We had redundant chart systems including on board but also on our phones, so we knew at all times where we were and how quickly we were making progress. We had a fantastic auto pilot that was able to steer accurately even in fairly confused sea states. We were able to make fresh water on demand with an advanced filtration and desalination system. We had fresh food in a fridge and frozen food, including ice cream (!), in a freezer. We had an electric kettle for fast water heating. An ice maker to add ice cubes to our water. A hot pot for making rice and other dishes. You don’t have to go very far back to get to a time when none of this was available. And yet people crossed the oceans routinely.

Clear and non-defensive communication is essential. Everything on a boat has precise terms to identify what it is and what action is supposed to be taken. It is essential to learn this language to be able to communicate quickly and precisely. There are some areas where different sailors will use different terms and so it’s good to converge on terminology for the boat. Beyond precision it also matters that communication has to be non-defensive. Everybody on board can speak up at an moment if they see or hear something that others should know. And when someone speaks to you, you always acknowledge that you have heard and understood by saying “copy.” For example you might say “small craft 5 boat lengths out at 2 o'clock” and helm will acknowledge with “copy” even if they have already seen it. So much miscommunication can be avoided simply by acknowledging what has been said.

Alertness is crucial. Always be on the lookout for things that look or sound strange. A line hanging slack that is normally tight. Or a clanging noise that wasn’t there before. All of this requires a high degree of alertness and also intimate knowledge of the normal state of the boat. For example water flowing by the boat often makes a gurgling sound when you are below deck and close to the sides. But at one point I heard a gurgling sound coming from an unusual location. We investigated and it turned out that a hose had come loose and we were spilling fresh water.

Know your boat inside out. Some people may be tempted to buy a new boat for an adventure like this. But every boat handles differently. And new boats often have small issues that will only bet detected while out at sea. We bought a used J44, a boat that my partner in this adventure has been sailing for over a decade. We then completely overhauled the boat and took it on several shake down cruises and races, with the ultimate pre passage shake down being the Newport Bermuda race. You also want to know the details of systems performance. For example fuel consumption of a diesel engine varies non-linearly with RPM. For example on Frolic the fuel consumption goes up by 33 percent from 1800 to 2000 RPM.

Life is supported by systems. Spaceships are called ships for a reason - they are both life support systems for humans. The ocean is not quite as uninhabitable for humans as space but it is definitely not where we can live without technology. Our water maker was a great example of that. In its absence we would have needed to bring a large quantity of freshwater along and hopefully catch rainwater (we would likely have to ration water which risks being dehydrated). Systems need redundancy in case they break and you can’t fix them. We always had some water in jugs to tide us over, but we also had a mid sized and even some handheld desalination systems).

Observation matters. It is always important to complement what electronic systems spit out with what we can observe directly. Modern weather forecasts are amazingly accurate. But local weather can still differ significantly and sometimes forecasts will be wrong. It really helps to understand the weather at different scales, from the very large (the entire North Atlantic), to the region you are in (e.g. the Azores), down to the specific location. Another example of a system that helps tremendously but needs to be complemented with observation is the Automatic Identification System (AIS). It uses VHF to communicate the identities of boats, along with their location, heading, and speed. This makes it much easier to identify and avoid potential collisions. When we were approaching Portugal we had to cross through shipping lanes and it would have been much more challenging without AIS. But we did encounter two cargo ships that were not properly broadcasting. One was highly intermittent (and would only show up on our chart plotter occasionally), the other one not at all. We encountered the second one at night and had to fall back to visual observation and hailing the other vessel.

Slow is fast. Take the time to talk things through, such as a spinnaker take down. This means making sure everyone understands their role and the sequence of tasks. Prepare everything that can be prepared, such as getting any lines properly coiled that need to run out or having sail ties at hand. Move deliberately around the boat . Something going wrong is not only dangerous but will usually take a lot more time to fix than getting it right in the first place. This is even true when something has already gone wrong. We did great overall but did wind up with one accidental jibe. The instinct might be to rush and fix that immediately but it is much better to take the time to make sure everyone is ok, the boat is ok, and then make a plan to jibe back in a controlled fashion.

Preparation requires anticipation. We were incredibly well prepared. We had all the tools and parts on board we needed. We had all the medications on board to treat everyone on the crew for a variety of thankfully small issues. We had enough fuel to get through some of the light or no wind stretches. All of this was the case because we anticipated what the problems might be that we could encounter. You can’t get stuff onto your boat once you are in the ocean. Our planned path via the Azores is notorious for people running out of fuel or food or both because of the extent of the Azores high.

Safety is not negotiable. Our default was to wear harnesses when on deck and to clip in. The only times we would not do that was during the day time in extremely calm sea state while motoring. All it takes is one wrong step for someone to go overboard. And at night or with six foot waves it is not only hard to see someone, especially when the boat is flying along at 10 knots, but also tricky and dangerous to get back to them and get them back on board. Another key rule is “one hand for yourself and one hand for the boat.” This is where the expression “single handed” sailing comes from. I violated this rule once by trying to bring two bags below at the same time (coming back to the boat at the dock). I missed the last step down the companion way, twisted around and fell backwards into the galley, hitting my head on the stove. I was lucky and came away with some scrapes and bump on the back of my head but it could have easily ended badly.

Good food makes everyone happy. We were fortunate to have my son Peter Wenger on board as a chef. He had pre-cooked some meals which we carried in our freezer. But he also made many wonderful things fresh, such an incredible Mahi Mahi ceviche from a fresh catch. And of course my personal favorite: French toast for breakfast.

Great on shore support really helps. There is some fear associated with being far out on the ocean where help can be a long way away. And so it is wonderful to have strong on shore support. Psychology really matters for well being and stress. When I fell down it was great to do a call with med team and get concussion assessment. We relied on Katie and Jessica from Regatta Rescue for medical support. They were terrific and also had put together an incredible med kit for us to bring along. We also got daily macro weather updates from Ken McKinley at Locusweather. Finally, it was fantastic to have family emotional support, in particular from Susan “Gigi” Danziger, who also helped with logistics, such as getting to Newport, and joined us in Bermuda, for cruising in the Azores, and in Lisbon upon arrival.

All in all this passage was an incredible adventure and I feel fortunate to have been able to experience this passage. I hope this will not be my last one and am already thinking about what bringing the boat back across the Atlantic might look like. In the meantime I am keeping my fingers crossed for a safe passage of Frolic through the Straight of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean.

Posted: 8th August 2024 – Comments
Tags:  personal sailing adventure lessons learned

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Lately, I have been doing a lot of crazy things and today I might have done the craziest thing possible, i.e., I accessed the Dark Web. Many of you might be familiar with the term but still for you folks who are hearing this term for the first time: the Dark Web is one of the parts of the Deep Web. To know about Dark Web you require some basic understanding of the Deep Web. Regardless, the Dark Web is a secretive, hard-to-trace, encrypted digital ecosystem on the internet that is filled with criminals, and infested with drug cartels, UN-sanctioned terrorist organizations, political dissenters, anonymous journalists, and Government spies.

Deep Web is 95% of the content on the internet which is nonindexable by search engines or has a strange re-routing of connections and multi-layered entry tunnels before reaching the server. These are often indicative of private networks that operate to and fro via unique bridge networks. These servers are privately operated often having low-memory UI and also have certain entry codes before providing access to their servers. The dark Web comprises 5% of the Deep Web and it is the underbelly of it, it is a place of secretive criminal activities or services that do not exist at surface levels but rather on the bottom base. The Dark Web websites are made with cryptographic keys hence making them hard to be traced by any entity or organisation.

To be precise it is a place for people who have criminalistic instincts or enable the perpetration of crime, or a space for accessing all morally deprecative activities like:

1. Ordering a hitman to kill someone.

2. Accessing abuse porn including minor age pornography.

3. Selling of personal data, PayPal account, fake USD notes.

4. Accessing chat rooms that have explicit live gore being performed, also known as Red Rooms.

5. All kinds of drugs, also known as Tor Cart.

6. Hire professional hackers to hack social media accounts.

7. Hire DDOS attackers, malware attackers that steal data from computers.

8. Buy spyware or bloatware software that is sophisticated in terms of performing nefarious actions.

Every privileged access to this shit hole is through payment which is often done via Crypto and no other medium of transactions.

Unlike traditional URLs that are formed of coherent and well-formed words, Dark Web URLs often have letters, characters, and even numbers to accommodate the accessibility of the servers. Each journalistic organization has a clone Dark Web page that features banned pieces away from what could be accessed on the surface.

But most mainstream News Websites have a mirror Dark Web version of their website for anonymous surfers who can access the corners of the internet while maintaining anonymity. When I was surfing today, I found Guardian and NYT have their sites with different URLs in the Dark Web. There are more blatant and radical journalistic organizations on the Dark Web that do not shy away from sharing very inappropriate memes in crass language, which would have led to a hue and cry if it were done on the surface web, as with many surface web URLs we always see the URL ends with .com or .org, but on Dark Web its .onion.

Where can you find the Dark Web websites? You can use search engines like Onion Search, Torch, Duck Duck Go, and Tor Gateway to access .onion sites. In Duck Duck Go, make sure to toggle on the onionize radio button. There is also Hidden Wiki, Candle, and Dark Search. Each of these search engines has indexed pages on them. Most search results often lead to more links and then you get access to your desired choices of servers.

The dark Web can be accessed via Tor, also known as ‘The Onion Router’, this began in the Naval Research Laboratory of the United States, to protect US confidential data to and fro via an internet connection that has multiple overlaying encryptions on the application layer of the communication stack.

You can download Tor here. It used multiple overlays that encrypt the network like various layers of an Onion. But later, this browser was made open source and then came the ‘Tor Project', which is an upgraded version of Tor. It became a research hub for Tor safety and encouraged hacking in the Tor Network to look for loopholes in the multiple relays Tor performs.

Tor works by encompassing over 7 thousand servers of anonymous users and throws an access connection to multiple relay networks that appear like a hoch poch random numbers before sending it to the Onion website. When it bounces off the connection, each specific to have been encrypted a random relay will send the connection request to the server, There are 3 different types as well as levels that one can attain through Tor in terms of security.

This feature, as the name suggests, involves simply downloading Tor from its official website and then surfing after connecting to the Onion network. Its steadfast and easy, it provides anonymity, but recently there has been news about breaches as well in the relay network. To be on the safer side, you can try the second method.

Along with using Tor, you can also use a reputed company’s VPN, which will layer the encryption more. Also, VPNs have their tunnels, concealers, and wire guards.

Tails is a live OS that provides one-time sessions and removes all the traces of activity from the system. It is often booted on a USB stick, even used in USB, and its hitherto internet access is via the Tor Onion Connection.

It serves as a great tool for people who want complete anonymity on the web, backed by Snowden Tails is changing the way we see and understand Operating Systems and internet connectivity. Its a freeware and available for download.

As much as the Dark Web appears to be an unsafe space, it is a hub for Journalists, Dissenters, Investigators, Spies, and many other people who cannot afford to reveal their true selves. Various press bodies operate here and write pieces similar to any page. The few ads on the search portals, however, are related to crime activities and booking orders that promote criminalistic sentiment. Is anonymity nice? It is, but the pall of anonymity does not justify certain wrongs that have far-reaching consequences.

Before answering the problems, let me put up a question from my side: Is Dark Web legal? For starters, these pages escape indexation of search engines on surface web, they are in the network on a server that’s not easy to find. You have the right to have your stuff on the internet, what you do not have the right to do is commit illicit crimes, and film sadistic videos, including acts of rape, abuse, torture, harassment, and sexual stuff that’s animalistic and brutal, as well as videos of bodies opening up for post mortem on morgues.

This is what shook me to my core. There are open invitations to buy stuff that is being sold off, such as someone's genuine credit cards, bank accounts, PayPal accounts, digital currencies, counterfeit notes, buying services of hacking, etc. I am all for freedom of expression, but this is too much; it just makes me question humanity and there are Red Rooms and Forums that allow these activities to be streamed live with people paying to watch them.

The good side is too hard to see here, despite a few good pages that expose critical details of government brutality or their plans of manipulation, this feels like a collection of all things that deprive humanity of substance. There is stuff I saw that I cannot talk about, and it's just accessible via a protected browser. The point of writing this piece, I think, is to make people aware such a thing exists and visualise with their own eyes that this is what we have collectively become, and that’s saddening,

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LATASHÁ is the founder of Topia. The evolution will not be televised. It will be onchain.

She’s an artist, musician, producer, world builder. An original from the onchain music scene who was minting works on Zora back in 2021 kinda time. She had one of the earliest websites with onchain music videos and tracks.

In this period she became Community Lead at Zora and produced ZORATOPIA. An events series and community which helped to educate and onboard artists into new internet ways of releasing music and working together.

Music prize winner in the We Love The Art contest from Optimism for WAVE, a track and music video produced from her home studio and environment.

We talk about her origins in music and production, making beats and writing, coming up in the scene in New York City. Experiences working at ZORA in these earlier formative stages of the onchain arts community. Reflections on the space in this moment in 2024, and hints at what she’s building now at Topia.

Welcome back to the show.

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The contest witnessed an influx of brilliant onchain creators from around the globe, making it one of the largest globally-accessible art contests in history**.** It galvanized the superpower of blockchains as a global force, proving that onchain truly is for everyone.

We ❤️The Art started as an idea on how the Collective can band companies, judges, and artists alike to celebrate with one another. Like with the Superchain, we asked: how big can we go if we all go together?  The initiative led to many first time creators on the Superchain where we will continue to prove that this can be a home for creators, a place where new people can onboard with low fees and welcoming communities, and of course, we will continue to show that onchain really is the next online.

This contest had limited amounts of winners, but this is just the start of our creative journey together, a journey that you can help dictate. Optimism is not here to just change lives, it is here to upgrade the system, and the Collective will do so by working hand in hand with creators who are determined to do so.

Here is the full winners list.

As we celebrate the winners, we want to extend our gratitude to every creator who participated, shared their genius, and contributed to the vibrant tapestry of We ❤️The Art. Your passion, creativity and driving force is what drove the success of the contest.

Massive shoutout to our amazing Superchain partners Base and Zora, co-marketing partners, judges and the community supporting the contest.

Stay tuned for more highlights, spotlights on the winners, and upcoming campaigns. We ❤️The Art may be over, onchain creativity will continue to grow and we can’t wait to see what you create!

Winners will receive an email from wlta@optimism.io with instructions about their claiming OP prize. If you want to share your WLTA result, check out this template to create your own custom design!

We believe that artists have been told what to do for far too long, the Optimism Collective seeks to listen. We encourage people to explore Optimism Governance and help shape where the Collective goes in the realm of art next.

Good news! If you’ve received OP, you have the opportunity to have a voice in the most robust governance system in the ecosystem, and take a first step in shaping how the Collective embraces artists. We hope you use this as a starter in building the foundation for your journey into governance. You can learn more about the Collective’s Vision and how to begin participating in governance by delegating your OP.

And, as always,
Stay Optimistic! 🔴✨

If you enter a new environment intent on exploding out of the gate, you risk wreaking havoc instead. — Chris Hadfield, the first Canadian to walk in space

Right after joining Crunchyroll, I remember being so fixated on driving changes. There was so much low-hanging fruit! The mobile sign-up flow read more like a cumbersome contract. There were display ads, which were a small part of revenue, peppering the site & diminishing the user experience. We were creating complexity by selling several products when one was the vast majority of revenue. Our value proposition wasn’t clear.

Having come from Hulu & learned “best practices”, I attempted to steamroll through conversations. “Trust me, I learned this at Hulu, I know what’ I’m talking about” was a common refrain. Alas, this was a poor approach.

I lacked situational awareness. I hadn’t searched for the reasoning behind past decisions. Moreover, I didn’t understand the interconnectedness of those decisions with other considerations. I failed to appreciate the difficulty of prioritizing with extremely limited resources. Most important, I had developed zero trust with other team members. The team that had built Crunchyroll from scratch. The ones that had been scrappy & resourceful, pouring their heart & soul into every aspect of the product.

One of the benefits of sticking around a company for a while is seeing other team members come & go. Everyone has a different approach to joining a team. Most of the time, it seems people skew towards wanting to have an impact as soon as possible. I think there’s something very human about that. Perhaps it’s some insecurity, where we need to prove our own worth to others, or to ourselves.

Whatever the reason, in hindsight, it’s clear that it’s hard to add value right away in a new environment. It’s a great time to be patient and listen, and start to build trust with those around you. Most people are rational and there’s usually decent reasons behind past decisions (though they may not age well). Develop an understanding of your surroundings and the interconnectedness of everything. Slowly work your way into a position where you can actually add value.

I recently read An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield. It’s full of incredible life lessons (and obviously it’s cool to read about rockets & living in space). One of the chapters is “Aim to Be a Zero”, surprising coming from an overachiever like Col. Hadfield. But that’s kind of the point: being patient & waiting to have a positive impact is one of the hardest things to do for ambitious people, like astronauts. I’ll leave you with one of my favorite excerpts from the book:

When you have some skills but don’t fully understand your environment, there is no way you can be a plus one. At best, you can be a zero. But a zero isn’t a bad thing to be. You’re competent enough not to create problems or make more work for everyone else. And you have to be competent, and prove to others that you are, before you can be extraordinary. There are no shortcuts, unfortunately. Even later, when you do understand the environment and can make an outstanding contribution, there’s considerable wisdom in practicing humility.

P.S. While in command of the ISS, Hadfield recorded a cover of David Bowie’s Space Oddity. It’s truly amazing.