In Florida and California, it is common to see sailboats with air conditioners. In the North, our air conditioner has always attracted attention when we have used it. Most of our other luxuries and comforts can be tolerated by the sailboat purists, whose usual attitude is: they can have it on their boat, but I wouldn’t have it on mine. Use of the air conditioner, however, seems to infuriate some of these purists, and they speak curtly to us—that is, if they speak to us at all. They seem to feel that by installing an air conditioner in a sailboat we have done something to besmirch the grand old tradition of yachting. Too bad. Anyone who isn’t a stuffed shirt about sailboats realizes how sensible it really is.
