Seeking Reality in the Temple of Denial

No more. The current venue for the Seattle Boat show (Qwest® Field Event Center) is nearly empty of sail. The new for 2005 'Sailing Center' is in fact a ghetto - a small rectangle of floor space off to the side devoted to the quaint anachronism called a 'sail boat' - like a Native American Cultural Center that white people visit in our smug superiority; admiring the skills of a people too backward to invent gunpowder or television.

We all know where the real action is: Powerboats! And what powerboats they are; Bigger, Faster and More Luxurious every year.

All of these powerboats depend on just one thing for all their sexiness, luxury, status and power: the amazing energy source we call "oil". Cheap, plentiful, always been there, always will be... or will it?

Never mind that the U.S. is currently occupying a foreign country for basically one reason: it just happens to have the last remaining big oil reserves on earth. Never mind that the price of oil has more than doubled over the last year. Never mind that Peak Oil is due to hit us anytime from "now" to 2010. Never mind global warming. Never mind melting ice caps and raising sea levels. Never mind that there is NOT ONE viable substitute for oil - not wind, not solar, not nuclear, not hydrogen, not anything. Never mind that the modern industrial economy DEPENDS on a cheap and always available source of energy. Never mind any of that. Just keep dancing.

It is with a profound sense of unreality that I walk the Seattle Boat Show, surrounded by vessels of petroleum based plastic from Saudi Arabia, stainless steel from China, and teak from Indonesia. These brand new vessels are dead men walking - anachronisms before they were made. They represent the last gasps of a civilization based upon the unsustainable idea of industrial capitalism -- itself based upon the idea that we are all just individuals who don't really need to give a shit about other individuals - unless we can GET something from them.

"What's it all for?" I ask myself. These massive vehicles - small floating houses, really - pushed by the power of thousands of horses, all for what? To spend a few hours out catching rays having a few beers? To spend "quality time"? To get somewhere? What? I watch people shop for their "dream boat" - their personal symbol for escape and freedom - when in reality their symbol is chained to the lender, the mechanic, the insurance company, the marina and the gas station. The amount of time, money and resources spent on the pursuit of what could be a simple pleasure is nothing short of astounding.

What is it? What is it - at the basic level - that drives us to behave as individuals in ways that guarantee our mutual destruction?

Well, I see I've gotten rather further afield in my entry than I intended. If you know the answer to the above, I'd love to hear about it. Anyway, it wasn't ALL glitz, gold and Gomorra at the boat show. It was a pleasant surprise when I came across an exhibitor of sailboats/rowboats/kayaks who is bucking the trend. It takes not just a little courage to paddle against the mainstream of consumer fashion:

International Marine from Inglewood, California was showing it's West Wight Potter 15 and the 19. Nicely updated, the 2005 version of the venerable design is as appealing as ever. This is the first time they have shown in Seattle in ten years.

Hobie Cat showed its range of sit-on-top kayaks and roto-molded catamarans. The company has (regretably?) moved away from GRP and most of its boats are now all roto-molded polyethylene - even a big 17' beach cat named the Getaway - and big it is - almost 400 lb. The cool Hobie Mirage kayak was front and center. It has the Mirage Drive: a pedal powered device that delivers torque not to a propeller, but to a unique underwater flapping wing. It's a 'sea-ornithopter'.

Sunbacker Fiberglass of Monroe, WA was exhibiting some nice small rowing craft. This was the first time I had seen their boats at the show. They had (among others) a pretty 100 lb. 14' sliding seat rowboat that looked a bit like a whitehall.

Gig Harbor Boat Works was showing their traditionally inspired GRP rowing and sailing small craft. The range spans from the 8' Nisqually tender to the handsome 17' Jersey Beach Skiff.

Easy Rider Canoes & Kayaks from Seattle, WA was there as usual, this time celebrating their 35th year in business -- no small feat for a kayak company. Easy Rider has pioneered modular options like sails and outriggers for their boats, and today they offer a wide range of possible configurations - sailing outriggers, catamarans, trimarans, recreational rowing shells with outrigger stability, electric power, all using their canoes and kayaks as the base.

I think this will be my last Seattle Boat Show. The interesting boats are almost all gone -- and go they should. Newer venues like wooden boat festivals, canoe and kayak symposiums, raids and messabouts are where our sustainable futures are being co-created. The sense of creative energy and hope at these newer venues is palpable - just as palpable as the sense of denial at the 2005 Seattle Boat Show.

Comments

• I, for one, will be thrilled when I don’t have to smell the damn exhaust from those gas engines on the water. Great article Michael and beautiful site. Good luck and I’ll be back!! 

  Posted by  on  03/13  at  05:51 PM

• I can’t tell who the author of this piece is but this is excellent writing and I really like the perspective.  I too dislike the blatant wastefulness inherent in the US today.  And you are right it is all based on oil.  Oil and personal debt. 

  Sometimes I think the we, as a country, would benefit from a severe oil shortage.  Our economy would collapse but I think our families and our souls would grow stronger.  A new economy and a new lifestyle would arise from the ashes of the old oil economy.

  Unfortunately I doubt that we will see the oil economy collapse in our life time.  I do think that oil based recreation (ie powerboats) will become the exclusive toys of the idle rich but that will probably take 15-20 years. The non-recreational functions that oil plays in our economy will still exist long after were dead.  Oil will cost 50x what it does today and people will be forced to be more conservative.  However, electricity and transportation will still be mostly fueled by oil for the next century.  The world is run by the free market and no one is going to develop new energy sources until it is profitable to do so.  I wish it were different but I don’t think it will be.

  Just my opinion.  Of course I still might buy that slow RPM diesel generator and power it with bio-diesel.  Just in case!

  Posted by  on  03/14  at  04:36 AM

• Hi Michael,

  Nice post, and nice site revision!

  I’ve been getting the same vibe every time I walk past the Luhrs/Mainship plant half a mile from here. $300,000 to a couple million for a sportfisherman intended to burn 70 gallons per hour while speeding 100 miles offshore in order to catch $25 dollars worth of fish. We are truly a strange species.

  Posted by  on  03/14  at  04:52 AM

• lovely writing and I share your sentiments. With China clogging up its cities with cars at the expense of the health of its citizens and efficiency of transport and making the bicycle-the epitome of technology-unsafe, The days of cheap oil are gone. I would not be at all suprised to see the price at the bowser double in the next few years but it would have to go up by a bout four or five times for people to drastically change their habits and these stink boat gin palaces are not really for travelling but for being seen to be on the water. 
  I recently read an article about a young bloke cruising in North Queensland on an 18’ Hobie. That is cruising for me. 
  Thanks for developing this site.
  Robert

  Posted by  on  03/14  at  10:08 AM

• Lets not place the blame just on powerboaters (although its convenient). I grew on my parents’ sailboats and have watched their sailing friends change drastically over the years. In the 1980’s , just about everyone had a boat that was less than 30 ft. Now, as their generation approaches retirement, anything less than 35 ft. is laughable. They are all buying 45-60 ft. megayachts for TWO PEOPLE to cruise on. Ridiculous. Its easy to point the ecological finger at Americans in general, but lets get specific. The post WWII “baby boomer” generation experienced prosperity unlike any other in the 20th century. I can’t blame them for having fun, but the attitudes and ideals embodied by this generation must be deprogrammed from our collective unconscious if we want to change. An oil crisis sounds just right for the job.

  Posted by  on  03/14  at  11:21 AM