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July 15, 2008 Stormy Stock MarketMaybe more members of the BMW board will develop an interest in Macroeconomics, when they realize that the objective of METARs* is to keep an eye on approaching weatherAh weather! That is something a sailor can understand! A sailor is always attentive to weather. When a storm approaches the best tactic is to evade it, to run away from it. But if the storm does catch you then you reduce canvas, batten down the hatches and wait for the storm to abate. It always does. Survival does not depend so much on what you do during the storm, it depends much more on what you did before the storm hit you. A sound ship will survive most storms while a weak one will flounder. A lot of publicity has been given to the film The Perfect Storm which had for background three weather patterns that joined into a magnificent North Atlantic storm but the plot was the lack of seamanship of Capt. Billy Tyne, a loser, who took a weak ship into a magnificent storm because he could not pay his bills. A true seaman would simply have stayed in port. In Venezuela we are blessed by being south of the hurricane zone. The only real storm I ever endured was the 1996 Hurricane Bertha in Puerto Rico. Peruasion, my 38 foot sloop, was moored at Marina del Rey in Fajardo and we watched the storm approaching on The Weather Channel. I did what had to be done, I removed all the canvas and left the deck bare. I attached extra fenders to the dock (used car tires actually) and I tied Peruasion down with sturdy lines and as far away as possible from the concrete dock. When nothing more could be done, I went to sleep aboard Peruasion and I slept through most of the storm. On occasion I would look out the window to see what was happening. Some fools were braving the 75 mile an hour winds, the best way to get killed by flying objects. Hurricane Bertha North of Puerto Rico The unexpected happens in storms. Marina del Rey is open to the east and it suffers from the west traveling waves driven by the Trade winds. But as Bertha approached from the south east, the wind shifted to the north and the south traveling waves could not get into the harbor. During the passage of Bertha there was less wave action inside the port than on a normal day. This was very fortunate indeed because being battered against a concrete dock by wave action is much more damaging than anything the wind can do to a boat. Persuasion came through Bertha with flying colors, not a scratch. The only damage was badly chaffed mooring lines. I had purchased 500 feet of nylon line that I planned to use to make a self-hoisting rig to climb the mast solo. This line saw valient service as my emergency mooring line. But back to investing and The Motley Fool. I did visit the METAR board but I found it terribly pessimistic so I said goodbye to the board: Subject: Sorry guys, I can't take any more pessimismYou might think I'm alone in this opinion. This happens to be my third highest recommended post with 91 "Recs." Recs are TMF brownie points that some Fools die for.  Any interest I might have in Macroeconomics will not take me to the gates of METAR. They might as well post Dante's sign over the gate: "Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here"  In any case, this storm, too, will pass. Denny Schlesinger *METAR Wikipedia Subject: Sorry guys, I can't take any more pessimism The Motley Fool METAR board Hurricane Bertha North of Puerto Rico NOAA's National Weather Service, Storm Prediction Center Hurricane Bertha Roars Across Caribbean, Leaving as Many as 5 Dead and 20 Missing New York Times |
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