EricCWelch

Oxenhorn, about 8 years ago, thought it would be fun to ,join a group of students, researchers and sailors on a trip to the arctic to study humpback whales. Their mode of transportation was to be the barkentine, Regina Maris, a fully-rigged clipper ship built in 1908. The students would man the sails. "Tuning the Rig" is the process of finding just the right tension in all the stays, lines and shrouds so the ship not only stays together but functions at peak performance. This tuning becomes a metaphor for the interactions of the heterogeneous group of people on board. They are as diverse as can be, each striving to maintain his individuality. Oxenhorn, himself, resists the overwhelming force of the ship, which coerces everyone to work together. It's a humbling experience and Oxenhorn finally comes to agree with George (the captain and former Harvard Medical School Dean) that the crew is not so much a group of people working together as a family, with all the inherent strife and conflict and petty grievances, but bound together as a rope made up of individual strands; each by itself virtually useless, but together incredibly strong. Oxenhorn perceives that the search for individual unity may be but an illusion. When he returns from the voyage after surviving awesome hardships, he tries to convey some of his experiences to friends, but finds their crises (whether to decorate with butcher block or oak) somewhat puerile. He asks George at one point why the captain gave up so much to become involved with a clearly risky educational venture. George responds that it can be summed up by the Russian word, Nitchevo (very loosely translated as "what the hell.") Most people would abolish weather if they could; eliminate risk. So many people spend their lives doing one thing so they will be able to do something else. One should "choose as life's work whatever feels most like play." The descriptions in this book of climbing in the rigging during a gale to reef the sails are awesome.