Why Do It?

George Mallory (1886-1924) was a famous mountaineer. In the days before Sir Edmund Hillary, back when many of our planet's highest peaks remained unconquered, Mallory made a name for himself as a climber throughout Europe and Asia. The world had high hopes for him to be the first to climb Mt. Everest, the earth's highest mountain. This was in the early 1920s (the mountain was not successfully summited until 1953); before much of the safety and support equipment common today existed.

Someone once asked Mallory why he wanted to climb Everest. He replied with a three word response: "Because it's there."

This is probably one of the most famous, yet unsatisfactory responses to any question in history.


Since leaving Virginia, we've been getting constant e-mails from different teachers and students (here's a special shout out to Lindsay Middle, Kiln Creek, and Riverside! - keep them coming!). Besides all the great guesses for Name That Creature, we've also gotten a number of important questions, such as:


Do you guys go fishing on the boat and if so, what have you caught or when do you plan on fishing?

Have you seen any sharks yet?

Did you get a hotel while you're waiting out the storm???

What type of fajita was that?


However, the toughest question we've received is similar to the question posed to Mallory: "Why are you sailing around the world?"

I am in no way attempting to compare us to George Mallory, nor am I proposing similarities between sailing around the world and being the first to climb the highest mountain in the world. Mallory was a bold ground-breaker fully deserving of his fame, and climbing Mt. Everest is a far tougher feat than pointing a sailboat downwind in the tropical sun.

However, the question has a similar motivation: there are luxuries onshore not afforded to a cruising sailboat such as air conditioning, refrigeration, and beds long enough to support my 6'3" frame. Life onshore also has certain degrees of certainty, schedule, and distraction that do not exist on a 40' sailboat. With a qualitative list of pros and cons, it seems that life on shore wins hands down.

In my field of economics, it is common to observe the actions of individuals and attempt to reconcile the underlying motivations. We often use the abstract and relative term 'utility' to quantify those motivations. In its simplest form, an individual will choose one alternative over all others because it gives the decision maker the highest level of relative utility.

Each of us on the crew has chosen to sail around the world because it gives us the highest level of relative utility compared to all other alternatives. We each made a mental list of pros and cons (as does every person with every decision made), and sailing around the world won out. To each of us, there's something about this experience that outweighs air conditioning, refrigeration, and certainty. And thus, here we are.

Fundamentally, this is something that each of us wanted to do. Sailing around the world may not be everybody's dream, but it was ours. So we sat down, figured out what it would take to sail around the world, decided it was within reach, and then put in the time and effort to make it happen. Pairing up with EYE of the World made the experience even more appealing to us. This all of a sudden went from a dream to a mission that we all believed in.

Now we're in the midst of a circumnavigation. It's a lot of work, but this is not the highest mountain in the world, nor are we the first to do it.

However, it is unconventional and in its core, life on the boat is not as glamorous as it might seem. Our boat is not a toy, and sailing is not a game. As exquisite as our vessel may be, she requires constant care and attention. The sea is full of wind, rain, waves, reefs, and rocks ... and enough fog and night to hide it all.

And that brings us back to Mr. Draft's students' question: "Why are you sailing around the world?" In the end, my response is unfortunately as unsatisfactory as George Mallory's:

Because we can.