I've enjoyed sailing vacations over the last 15 years because it's been an escape from my fast paced, technology driven profession. Once on the water, the worries of my work world disappeared. But that result is, in fact, a bit ironic. Sailing is actually one of the first and perhaps finest examples of a technology driven human invention. The ships of the 15th through 18th Century were marvels of then new technologies including the sextant, the design of sails to maximize the aerodynamics of sailing upwind and hardware and tackle we still use today and, unfortunately, the perfection of weapons of modern warfare. My sailing to escape technology is also ironic because this trans Atlantic crossing would not have been possible for me without technology. My crew mates and I are physically able to steer this boat nonstop for 480 hours because of the invention of autopilot technolgy. I'm able to sit in a weather protected helm without having to feel the direction of the wind because a sensor on top of P0V 2's mast sends wind direction readings to my digital display every second. We plot the fastest and safest course because super computers process millions of pieces of data to generate amazingly accurate wind and weather forecasts. Yes, we could have crossed the ocean without these technologies, the way sailors have sailed for centuries before us, but four 60 +/- year old guys would likely not have done so (OK, maybe except for Chris) without these safety and sailing enhancing technolgy crutches. Isn't it ironic?