It was mid-October 1992. Michael Plant, a popular American sailor, set out on a solo voyage of the North Atlantic Ocean between the U.S. and France. He was an expert who had circumnavigated the globe alone three times. France was to be the starting point of the Vendée Globe Challenge, a nonstop, single-handed, round-the-world race in which Plant was expected to be the only American among the 18 entrants. Plant’s sailboat, the Coyote, had been state-of-the-art constructed and equipped especially for him, complete with the latest navigational and electronic equipment. In everyone’s estimation, Plant had all the necessities to achieve success.
The only unknown was that due to construction challenges and missed deadlines, Plant had not had the opportunity to adequately test the vessel before the trans-Atlantic journey. Days into the voyage, no word was heard from Plant. His friends and family assumed that no news meant Plant was simply in racing mode.
It wasn’t until Plant was a week overdue in France that worries arose. The U.S. Coast Guard put out an alert, asking vessels in the Atlantic to keep a lookout for the Coyote. If Plant were in trouble, his friends knew he would have activated his battery-powered Raytheon 406 Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB), a device that transmits a coded signal every 50 seconds to a network of satellites that relay to ground-based computers. These computers are then able to determine the identity of the vessel and its exact location. Plant, however, had neglected to register his EPIRB with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in his haste to depart.
On November 11, a friend was finally able to track down Plant’s EPIRB identification number from the beacon’s manufacturer. Armed with this new information, both NOAA and Canadian Coast Guard officials ran the number through their tracking computers. What they found was disheartening. Seventeen days earlier, on the night of October 27, Plant’s EPIRB had sent out a brief distress signal that had been picked up in Goose Bay, Canada. The next day, two transmission bursts were found by NOAA when they reviewed their satellite data. Nothing more was heard from Plant’s EPIRB. Because the transmission was so brief, and because the EPIRB number wasn’t registered, both American and Canadian control centers failed to respond to the distress signal.
A massive search was launched. Days went by with no results. Finally, the news no one expected: the Coyote was found, floating capsized, 450 miles northwest of the Azores Islands. The crew of a freighter who had made the discovery reported no sign of Plant.
Experts were surprised that the sailboat was discovered upside down in the water. Sailboats are built to take the most vigorous pounding at sea. Even when knocked over on its side or even upside down, they naturally right themselves. So why was the Coyote overturned?
Designed for maximum stability, sailboats have more weight below the waterline. When the Coyote was built, a four-ton weight was attached to the keel to provide ballast, more weight below the surface than above. That amount of weight would assure stability. However, when the Coyote was discovered, the 8,000-pound ballast was missing, obviously compromising the Coyote’s stability. Without the ballast, the slightest wind would be the death knell. Despite Plant’s experience, the situation was hopeless.
Inadequate preparation and field testing prior to voyage, failure to register the EPIRB, not enough weight below the waterline, a storm blows, and a life is lost.
In a culture that puts so much emphasis on getting ahead quickly, on what people can see rather than on what can’t be seen, is it any wonder that so much personal instability results? We worry more about what we wear, what we drive, what we live in, and what we possess (money, wealth, power, position) than about what’s on the inside (character, generosity, heart issues). When the storms of life blow, as they always do, we don’t have the necessary ballast to ride it out safely. We become compromised. We fold. We capsize, and sometimes never recover. At best, we simply live life trying to function at minimum capacity, instead of really living and flourishing and being fulfilled at every level.
Like sailboats, humans need ballast to perform well. My bias as a Christian says that ballast comes only from a daily personal connection with Christ. Jesus said, “Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock.” Luke 6:47-48 (NKJV). While the analogy of the house on the rock is slightly different than the ballast on the sailboat, the point is the same: More substance below the surface creates greater stability above the surface.
We’re living in tumultuous times. The storms of life and society rage all around. Fear can easily grip our hearts. But if the ballast is in place, if the foundation has been laid, we have nothing to fear; Jesus will see us through the storms. How’s your life ballast? Why not check to make sure it’s secure?
Connect with Him,
Pastor Phil