[arbarnhart]

What I was getting at is that I am not sailing what you regard as a typical sailboat. I have some concrete ballast and a steel swing keel. I have no business being in big breaking seas. But weird things happen. Boats get turtled in inland lakes by passing squalls sometimes. I am mostly sailing in the sounds in NC. My bigger concern is falling off and being separated from the boat. If you read my earlier entry, a little inncident that spooked me was messing with my boarding ladder (a stupid thing to mess with under way no matter what). If I had a tether that would not let me reach it, then I would have unclipped and still been at risk.