“Keep it simple, sailor,” was always our mantra. Aboard our 1985 Niagara 35, Plaintiff’s Rest, my partner, Phillip, and I didn’t have heat, AC, a hot-water heater, generator, watermaker or bow thruster, which meant we also didn’t have to absorb the costs and time required to maintain these kinds of complicated systems. Over the course of seven years, Plaintiff’s Rest’s simplicity also allowed us to learn her every nut, bolt and quirk, until we could fix pretty much any problem ourselves. Sounds perfect, right? Well, we recently sold her and bought a newer, more costly, harder-tohandle and far more complex boat. In short, we ditched our previous simplicity and went for broke. Go on, ask me: Why would we change tacks this way?
The answer: we found ourselves in a header. That old racing wisdom to tack on a header rings as true in life as it does in sailing. Things are always changing. The seasoned sailor must constantly monitor the conditions, consider their impact on her current course and adjust as needed. When you’re sailing upwind and the wind shifts toward your bow—a header—it will force you onto a heading farther away from your ultimate destination. When
