The Art Of Decision-Making

IT’S NOT ALWAYS ABOUT THE CAPTAIN.

- Felicia Schneiderhan

It’s a common scene: Night has fallen, you’re in an unfamiliar anchorage, and though you’ve studied the maps and charts and gotten the lowdown from other boaters, you still have to decide which is the best way to anchor.

Boating demands decision-making on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis. You can plan a route months in advance, but until you’re on the water facing the three main factors—the craft, the crew, the climate—you don’t really know what you’re in for. Decision-making is stressful. It’s not, “Where do you want to eat dinner tonight?” It’s more like, “There are five-foot waves but we need to get back by Monday. Should we suck it up and make the 13-hour push to get home, or should we hunker down and wait?”

Experienced boaters have cultivated a style and finesse for making decisions. They use their instinct, information, and experience. But as we all know, experience comes with a lot of mistakes.

In 2015, my husband, Mark, and I and our three young children explored Lake Superior for three weeks aboard our 38-foot Marine Trader trawler, Mazurka. (“Grown Free,” March 2016.) The trip built confidence in ourselves, our boat, and our crew.

So for 2016, we decided for three-week encore, but with a wide-open itinerary to match the Lake Superior landscape. We decided only on a firm departure date, and the first three stops: the Apostle Islands, Grand Marais, Minnesota, and Thunder Bay, Ontario. After that, who knew where we might go? On past trips, we hit a perfect groove, making decisions on the fly, going with the flow, and open to adventure without a set course. It’s glorious.

This did not turn out to be one of those trips.