I've got them (old eyes). I am near sighted and need reading correction. When I buy a good pair of sunglasses that wrap around, they can only be made in single lens prescription (no progressive or bifocal lenses). That is OK for the A cat where I don't need to see up close and my countdown timer has BIG numbers, but i have a problem on my larger cat that I also race and has instruments that need to be read. I short, I have to take off my sunglasses and do the old gheezer squint at the GPS; its not only hard to see, but causes erratic steering.
My question is, what do you older sailors do (even the ones with 20-20 vision) when you have to see up close on a boat? I'd think about lasik surgery except that i would still need reading glasses to see the instruments.
Thanks for the feedback.
(myopic) David
A Cat and large cat
Good to see that I'm not the only one...
At 46 I find I can't comfortably read print without a cheapy pair of reading glasses. This after a whole life of perfect vision. I can see everything on the boat fine at this point, but worry about needing to read a chart in a distance race. For this, I brought along younger crew on Tybee! But, seriously, I figure I'll throw a plastic magnifying glass in with the chart stuff.
But, the answer about younger crew brings up the thing I've realized about trying to read GPS while helming. The overall thing is that trying to helm a fast boat while interpreting any GPS display except for the big arrow that points to the next waypoint is going to cause you to helm poorly. Any time I've been tempted to look and fiddle with the GPS while driving has led to really poor immediate results (mostly Alec yelling "watch your course!"), especially on the N-20. So, let somebody else do the nav, and have them let you know what heading to follow (can still read the compass I hope...).
On the N-20 I did two things - we had the SpeedPucks on the boom to show either heading or speed (in nice big numbers) and I strapped my GPS to the boom right behind them set to the arrow display. Between the two I had enough to satisfy my immediate curiosity without screwing up driving. Any other nav functions needed while underway are punted to Alec, with him relaying what heading adjustments might be necessary. While that's on a distance race N-20, I suspect the same advice could be followed on your big boat.
I don't know how the helm is on your TRT, but my F-27 "suffers" from the same responsive helm as the N-20. If I take my eyes (previous or now) away to try to mess with the GPS I'm off course. When I singlehand I deal with it, but for any crewed situation (and if I ever race it) I'll split the duties with a similar solution to the above.
My $0.02. In a nutshell, make Roger do the nav and give you the headings, you concentrate on driving fast and keeping the pointy end up!
Cheers!
