Next Year, For Sure....

Notes from a half-crazy sea monk on time, boats, and regret.

I don’t usually post memes, but this one slapped me across the face like a wet halyard and stole my lunch money. If you’re in the sailing world, you’ve probably heard the term "DockLocked". That’s when somebody buys the boat, dreams about the horizon, and then every year it’s “next year.” Gotta fix the mast. Engine needs work. Rudder looks a little sketchy. Next season, next haul-out, next decade. And before you know it, your logbook is just receipts from West Marine and a head full of “somedays.” It’s like owning a treadmill that becomes a coat rack—you swear you’ll use it, but deep down, it’s just holding up laundry.

Here’s a real-world example. I posted a video of me climbing my 65-foot mast—alone on the boat, in the middle of the Indian Ocean—because the shackle on the halyard (that’s the rope that holds the front sail up) opened up and the sail came crashing down into the sea. Two million views later, thousands of comments, a small village worth of opinions. Most folks were kind, cheering me on, which was awesome. But in my post I mentioned that the mast steps I used to climb—little metal footholds bolted up the mast, instead of fancy climbing gear like ascenders or block-and-tackle (which I have for redundancy)—were a bit old and a little sketchy. That’s when twenty or thirty armchair admirals chimed in: “I’d never go to sea without brand-new steps, and everything else ten out of ten.”

And here’s the reality: if you wait until every single thing on your boat is perfect, you will never leave. Boats are floating piles of entropy—there are a thousand systems, and something is always breaking.The trick is to get the motor solid (engine running — like a coffee pot that never burns out), the mast standing (the big pole in the middle that holds your sails — like a flagpole at a rock concert), the rudder holding (the underwater fin that actually steers the boat — like a dance partner who never steps on your toes)—the core features—and then go.

Deal with whatever else breaks in front of you as it comes. I mean, frankly, like I’ve said a thousand times on here, overcoming those adversities is 50% of the joy. Not joy like “Disneyland and churros” joy—more like “I just wrestled a squid out of my anchor chain in the rain at 2 a.m. and didn’t die” joy. It’s brutal in the moment, but the success of overcoming those obstacles is magnificent in every way.

And the truth is, it’s not just boats. This is life. Everyone’s got their version of DockLocked. That trip you’ve always wanted to take. That book you’ve always said you’d write. That guitar collecting dust in the corner, silently judging you like an ex at a wedding. And here’s the wild part: studies show that practicing any skill—guitar, Spanish, painting, hell, even juggling flaming coconuts—for just 10 minutes a day over the course of three months will put you ahead of 95% of people who never start. Ten minutes! Imagine if you stopped waiting for the “perfect time” and just picked it up daily—you’d lap the version of yourself that keeps saying “someday.”

I’m 50 now. Not old, not young, but old enough to see the pattern: every day you miss is one you don’t get back. Time isn’t some Costco pack of toilet paper—you can’t just restock when you run low. And one day, you’ll run out of “next years.”

So yeah, fix your boat. Pay your bills. Be practical. But also—hoist the sails. Take the trip. Play the song. Write the damn book. Whatever your “sailboat” is, stop waiting for perfect. The time is now, or you risk missing it altogether.

And listen, I’m not saying you have to do what I did—sell your whole world, buy a boat, slap some gear on it, and sail off into the horizon like a half-crazy sea monk. That was my path. Yours doesn’t have to look anything like it. But whatever your version of casting off the lines is—do it. Because one day you’ll wish you had, and the dock will be empty but for regret… and maybe a seagull with a grudge, waiting to steal your last bite of sandwich.