The captains view on SOLO SAILING. :)

We all know about those intrepid sailors, mostly men...but occasionally women, many of whom circumnavigate the globe. This feat usually takes three to five years to complete. ( although we do know of one fellow ( yacht Sourdough) who completed his circuit this year after starting out 16 years and 8 months ago, his path wandered far and wide.)
But now do we have a new breed of solo sailors?? And this is my poser to set the mind ticking !!!!
The young man I fathered, who is also my wives son gave my crew member ( Carol) an IPad. For an avid reader this is great ......come bed time the lights go out and she reads on :(. But then this small pecs of equipment becomes a telephone for talking to NZ for almost no cost.....Even better....but wait....THERE'S MORE.....email and all that sort of invisible stuff fly into the IPad, somehow from somewhere ......
Next thing squeezed in is a GPS, which shows you where you are ...anytime, anywhere.......land or sea..day or night. A sweet electronic voice can tell you your speed, your average and how many thousand of hours you have been going.
Now on CHARIOTEER we have paper charts and electronic charts, so we are in touch with where we are....OH NO , now with the IPad we can add, at a small cost, Navionic charts...with a small icon showing our position , how far we have come, where we are going :)
Not good enough yet, you say ...... CORRECT.......as these charts can be over laid with Google Earth views. If Father Christmas has this aid he will be able to see right down your chimney :)
What a marvelous gizmo....NO NO ...we aren't finished yet...weather forecast six days ahead...anywhere in the world (Buoyweather)...you can find ships far enough away that you can not see them with the naked eye (ASIS)
Now where is this all lleading to.......I'm out there in the wind and cold tending sails, keeping a lookout....so I call to Carol...( all snuggly and warm in the pilot house) " a coffee would be good"...... The hasty reply..." can you do it...there is an email I want to answer , and I'll have one also" !!!!!!!!!
I ( Brian) am a new age solo sailor :)

The crew replies....ah yes but the captain does enjoy reading
www.stuff.co.nz or www.trade me.co.nz
and looking at the photos the family send, and the weather forecasts..........:) I just love being crew, who wants to go out into the cold to alter a sail........