title: “Spynthesis”? or “Spinthesis”?

When I lived in Dubai, I got to both play anthropologist and learned to fly spinnakers. There’s more in common there than is obvious.

I’m going to try to explain this via dialectics. Here’s reminder (at least of Hegel’s dialectical method) of the parts/steps:

1. A thesis or statement of an idea or belief.
2. A contradictory antithesis or statement that contradicts or negates the thesis.
3. The resolution of the conflict between the thesis and antithesis by means of a synthesis or new idea that reconciles the two opposing views.

thesis (”a placing, a proposition,”): Be in boat’s cockpit: that’s the control center, where crew are concentrated, where the action is… (and it’s, via the companionway, closest to the cabin (which contain not only the navigation station, but also shelter, the food, beer….)

antithesis ("to set against, oppose)” The opposite clan is made up of bowmen—and perhaps anyone else forward of the companionway. That “pointy end of the boat” has a different culture.

Pointy-end culture: so far away, yet so in your face

Both in Dubai and on board, there are a few ways those are juxtaposed:

Insiders vs. outsiders:

The Emiratis = the boat owner(s). When I lived there, natives made up only 3% of Dubai’s population; perhaps even less now. (Though more in the other Emirates, averaging 15% in UAE.)

The inner circle … [TBD]

The outermost don’t speak the native Arabic, nor the lingua franca English (but instead Malayaman or Tagalog or Urdu or …)

Brains vs. brawn:

The habitués of the cockpit (coach, tactician, navigator, owner’s rep…) make up the boat’s brain trust. They might not do any physical work at all: in some cases, racing rules actually prohibit them—short of an emergency—from doing so.

The Emirati royals have the dreams—and ambition. Their best-paid hired guns are also thinkers: the (mostly Western) consultants, executives, academics, even judges— in the Financial District’s case.

The bowmen run a wider range of (physical) tasks: hoisting, heaving, launching, gybing, dousing.

Yet, Dubai’s famous—and ever evolving—skyline was built by imported construction crews.